Barack Obama’s Dithering Foreign Policy About To Give Iran Nukes

For the official record, it was not Dick Cheney who first accused Barack Obama of dithering over Afghanistan while our troops languished and died.  It was the Pentagon.  From September 22, 2009:

In interviews with McClatchy last week, military officials and other advocates of escalation expressed their frustration at what they consider “dithering” from the White House.

From September 18, 2009:

Those officials said that taking time could be costly because the U.S. risked losing the Afghans’ support. “Dithering is just as destructive as 10 car bombs,” the senior official in Kabul said. “They have seen us leave before. They are really good at picking the right side to ally with.”

Obama has turned “dithering” into a weapon of mass destruction against American foreign policy.  Our allies are being forced to make increasingly tough decisions as to whether we really are the horse they should bet their lives on.  And our enemies are resurgent, believing that the president who has demonstrated a lack of resolve will withdraw if they can pile up a high enough body count.

On November 7 there will be another election in Afghanistan.  And there will not be anywhere near enough troops to provide adequate security.

There would have been, had Obama accepted his own handpicked general’s assessment.  But there won’t be.  It seems increasingly likely that the resurgent Taliban will be able to thwart the elections, creating an ongoing political instability which will cascade into a major failures against stability in Afghanistan.

But Obama is not just dithering in Afghanistan.  Rather, his entire foreign policy is based on dithering.

A nuclear-armed Iran capable of destroying Israel, capable of blockading the Strait of Hormuz and causing oil prices to quintuple, capable of launching a wave of global jihad such as the world has never seen, looms.

October 24, 2009
Barack Obama’s policy on brink of collapse as Tehran does last-minute nuclear stall

President Obama’s policy of diplomatic engagement with Iran is close to collapse as Tehran backtracks on a crucial deal aimed at cutting its stockpiles of nuclear fuel.

Iran agreed a deal “in principle” at talks in Geneva to ship the majority of its low-enriched uranium overseas for reprocessing into nuclear fuel that could be used for a medical research reactor.

A deal outlining this was finalised in Vienna this week and a deadline of midnight tonight was set for the agreement to be sealed with Tehran.

The framework deal, along with an offer to allow international inspectors into its newly-revealed enrichment plant at Qom, was hailed as evidence that Iran was responding positively to the diplomatic track.

Today, however, with just hours until the deadline, Iran has turned the table on its foreign interlocutors with a rival proposal, demanding that it be allowed to buy higher enriched uranium directly from abroad. […]

The counter-proposal was outlined on Iranian state television today as the clock ticked down to the midnight deadline. “The Islamic Republic of Iran is waiting for a constructive and confidence-building response to the clear proposal of buying fuel for the Tehran research reactor,” state television quoted an unnamed source close to Iran’s negotiating team as saying. […]

Russia and China’s reluctance to consider new sanctions is forcing Washington to seek a coalition of willing allies to impose their own economic blockade on Iran if efforts to get UN sanctions fail.

Tehran’s latest move comes straight from a well-thumbed Iranian playbook and looks like yet another stalling tactic to test the West’s resolve and buy time to avert new sanctions. But Western patience is growing thinner by the day, with diplomats warning that the apparent breakthrough in Geneva on October 1 may be less positive than it first seemed.

Anxiety is now growing about what will happen on Sunday when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrive in Iran to inspect the long-hidden nuclear plant at Qom.

“It’s like Groundhog Day,” a senior Western diplomat involved in the Iran negotiations said. “Except in Groundhog Day you wake up every day and everything’s the same. With this, you wake up every day and everything’s just a little bit worse.” […]

Britain, France and Israel believe that Iran has all the know-how it needs to build a bomb and that weaponisation studies have continued despite Tehran’s insistence that it halted them years ago.

The IAEA has called Western intelligence on weaponisation “compelling” and chided Iran for refusing to answer questions on the subject.  Iran remains in breach of five UN resolutions calling on it to halt enrichment until outstanding questions about a military dimension to the programme are resolved.

And Obama is displaying his steely resolve…

Western diplomats had initially said the international powers would not accept any attempt to drag out the negotiations beyond Friday.

However, the United States said that it was now prepared to wait for Iran’s reply.

… by showing even less resolve than France.  In answer to the question, “Why Is a World Leader Distancing Himself From President Obama?”:

One major sticking point has been President Obama’s softer stance on Iran, while President Sarkozy prefers a more hawkish approach. Sarkozy said last month: “I support America’s outstretched hand. But what has the international community gained from these offers of dialogue? Nothing but more enriched uranium and centrifuges.”

This on top of other remarks Sarkozy has made about Obama’s naivete and weakness:

Sarkozy: “We live in the real world, not the virtual world. And the real world expects us to take decisions.”

Even pantywaist Europe is calling Obama a pantywaist.  And that is the definition of “pathetic.”

Our enemies have been smelling a weakling in the White House since Obama won the election.  Obama talked tough when he had to to win the election, but that tough talk was always a lie.

We are looking at exactly the same scenario regarding Iran as George Bush faced regarding Iraq; namely, veto-wielding permanent member UN nations that will thwart any meaningful or legitimate sanction that could truly stop the rogue nation’s quest for weapons of mass destruction.  This has been the case for years.  We cannot rely on international consensus as the basis for our security; it will let us down every single time.

Nor can we rely upon dialogue with evil tyrants to achieve our foreign policy objectives.  What I said a year ago last August in that regard is even more true now.  You simply cannot negotiate with an untrustworthy partner who does not want peace.

As far back as April of 2008 I pointed out that the election of a Democrat to the White House would guarantee a nuclear-armed Iran, concluding:

Allow me to guarantee you that a Democratic administration will see a nuclear Iran. Given their policy on Iraq, it becomes an implicit campaign promise. And it will see a nuclearized Middle East. Democrats have spent forty years proving that they are cowards who will not stand by their allies, and their actions will come home to roost.

A Republican president can say to the Iranians, “We went in to Iran when we thought they might attack us, Iran. And I promise that will do the same to you if you continue your weapons program.” And no one can question that. A Republican president can say to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, “We stayed with Iraq and defended them even when it was difficult, and we’ll do the same for you.” and no one can question that.

And it’s actually even worse than I thought.  In Barack Obama, we have a president who has repeatedly demonstrated he is toothless as an enemy, and treacherous as a friend.  Subsequent to that piece, Obama reneged on a major missile defense deal with key Eastern European allies in order to appease a hostile Russia – who gave us nothing in exchange for our betrayal.  And if that wasn’t bad enough – we sold out Poland to Russia on the 70th anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Poland in 1939.

Barack Obama will not go to war with Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.  And Iran knows that.  Iran also knows that their Russian and Chinese allies will prevent any sanction that could truly hurt them from passing the useless United Nations.

As a result of Obama’s dithering, the world’s worst terrorist state will soon have the bomb, and the ballistic missile capability to deliver that bomb.  And when they get it, the world will change in very scary ways.

Obama Helps Russia Reassemble Iron Curtain

One of the things Obama has most wanted to prove was that he isn’t Bush — as though no matter how stupid his policies might be, as long as they aren’t Bush’s they must be good.

Well, Obama aint Reagan, either.

Obama appears to intend to not only roll back every Bush policy, but the fundamental victory of the Reagan presidency over the U.S.S.R.

Friday, September 18, 2009
Mark Steyn: Obama helping Putin restitch Iron Curtain
Scrapping of U.S. missile defense plans hands big victory to Russia’s new czar.

Was it only April? There was President Barack Obama, speaking (as is his wont) in Prague, about the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missile capability, and saluting America’s plucky allies: “The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles,” he declared. “As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.”

On Thursday, the administration scrapped its missile defense plans for Eastern Europe. The “courageous” Czechs and Poles will have to take their chances. Did the “threat from Iran” go away? Not so’s you’d notice. The dawn of the nuclear Ayatollahs is perhaps only months away, and, just in case the Zionists or (please, no tittering) the formerly Great Satan is minded to take ’em out, Tehran will shortly be taking delivery of a bunch of S-300 anti-aircraft batteries from (ta-da!) Russia. Fancy that.

Joe Klein, the geostrategic thinker of Time magazine, concluded his analysis thus:

“This is just speculation on my part. But I do hope that this anti-missile move has a Russian concession attached to it, perhaps not publicly (just as the U.S. agreement to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey was not make public during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The Obama administration’s diplomatic strategy is, I believe, wise and comprehensive – but it needs to show more than public concessions over time. A few diplomatic victories wouldn’t hurt.”

Golly. We know, thanks to Jimmy Carter, Joe Klein and many others, that we critics of President Obama’s health care policy are, by definition, racist. Has criticism of Obama’s foreign policy also been deemed racist? Because one can certainly detect the first faint seeds of doubt germinating in dear old Joe’s soon-to-be-racist breast: The Obama administration “needs to show more than public concessions over time” – because otherwise the entire planet may get the vague impression that that’s all there is.

Especially if your pre-emptive capitulations are as felicitously timed as the missile-defense announcement, stiffing the Poles on the 70th anniversary of their invasion by the Red Army. As for the Czechs, well, dust off your Neville Chamberlain’s Greatest Hits LP: Like he said, they’re a faraway country of which we know little. So who cares? Everything old is new again.

It is interesting to contrast the administration’s “wise” diplomacy abroad with its willingness to go nuclear at home. If you go to a “town hall” meeting and express misgivings about the effectiveness of the stimulus, you’re a “racist” “angry” “Nazi” “evilmonger” “right-wing domestic terrorist.” It’s perhaps no surprise that that doesn’t leave a lot left over in the rhetorical arsenal for Putin, Chavez and Ahmadinejad. But you’ve got to figure that by now the world’s strongmen are getting the measure of the new Washington. Diplomacy used to be, as Canada’s Lester Pearson liked to say, the art of letting the other fellow have your way. Today, it’s more of a discreet cover for letting the other fellow have his way with you. The Europeans “negotiate” with Iran over its nukes for years, and, in the end, Iran gets the nukes, and Europe gets to feel good about itself for having sat across the table talking to no good purpose for the best part of a decade. In Moscow, there was a palpable triumphalism in the news that the Russians had succeeded in letting the Obama fellow have their way. “This is a recognition by the Americans of the rightness of our arguments about the reality of the threat or, rather, the lack of one,” said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma’s international affairs committee. “Finally the Americans have agreed with us.”

There’ll be a lot more of that in the years ahead.

There is no discreetly arranged “Russian concession.” Moscow has concluded that a nuclear Iran is in its national interest – especially if the remorseless nuclearization process itself is seen as a testament to Western weakness. Even if the Israelis are driven to bomb the thing to smithereens circa next spring, that, too, would only emphasize, by implicit comparison, American and European pusillanimity. Any private relief felt in the chancelleries of London and Paris would inevitably license a huge amount of public tut-tutting by this or that foreign minister about the Zionist Entity’s regrettable “disproportion.” The U.S. defense secretary is already on record as opposing an Israeli strike. If it happens, every thug state around the globe will understand the subtext – that, aside from a tiny strip of land on the east bank of the Jordan, every other advanced society on earth is content to depend for its security on the kindness of strangers.

Some of them very strange. Kim Jong-il wouldn’t really let fly at South Korea or Japan, would he? Even if some quasi-Talibanny types wound up sitting on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, they wouldn’t really do anything with them, would they? OK, Putin can be a bit heavy-handed when dealing with Eastern Europe, and his definition of “Eastern” seems to stretch ever further west, but he’s not going to be sending the tanks back into Prague and Budapest, is he? I mean, c’mon …

Vladimir Putin is no longer president but he is de facto czar. And he thinks it’s past time to reconstitute the old empire – not formally (yet), but certainly as a sphere of influence from which the Yanks keep their distance. President Obama has just handed the Russians their biggest win since the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, in some ways it marks the restitching of the Iron Curtain. When the Czechs signed their end of the missile-defense deal in July, they found themselves afflicted by a sudden “technical difficulty” that halved their gas supply from Russia. The Europe Putin foresees will be one not only ever more energy-dependent on Moscow but security-dependent, too – in which every city is within range of missiles from Tehran and other crazies, and is, in effect, under the security umbrella of the new czar. As to whether such a Continent will be amicable to American interests, well, good luck with that, hopeychangers.

In a sense, the health care debate and the foreign policy debacle are two sides of the same coin: For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” In Moscow and Tehran, on the one hand, and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they’re drawing their own conclusions.

I am still just as stunned by the Obama betrayal of a fundamental American commitment as the Poles and Czechs.  I mean, stop and think about it:

Obama announces his betrayal of Poland and Czechoslovakia on the anniversary of the inevitable result of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s selling of Eastern Europe down the river to Hitler and Stalin.  The rationale?  That Iran is farther behind on its ballistic missile technology than had been previously believed.

And, yet, on that very same day, we learn that a confidential report from the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran – contrary to previous intelligence assessments – can now make a nuclear bomb whenever they damn well want to.  And we become even more aware that the IAEA has been more intent on covering up Iranian (and before that Iraqi) development of weapons of mass destruction.

And my gosh, wasn’t it Democrats who kicked Bush for relying too much on intelligence assessments that can well be faulty?  Even when not only U.S. intelligence, but every single major intelligence service in the world, supported the primary conclusion that Saddam Hussein had WMD?  Why on earth does the same Barack Obama who as a candidate demonized Bush over trusting faulty intelligence on Iraq now so implicitly trust intelligence that Iran is not working on long-range missiles?

And then the very next day following that terrible 70th anniversary of September 17, 1939, Iran – which by the way can make nuclear bombs – shows just how insane they are by releasing a statement that denies the Holocaust occurred and vows that Israel’s days are numbered.

On September 17, 2009, President Barack Obama unilaterally abrogated a security agreement with two of its key Eastern European allies – who have been so loyal to America that they have kept troops in Iraq and Afghanistan – in order to appease an unfriendly Russia.  And the only thing worse than this capitulation to Russia is the despicable timing of said capitulation.

As Mark Steyn states in his title, this will result in a seismic shifting of Eastern European nations away from the untrustworthy United States and toward Russia.  All of Eastern Europe is in play: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Lithuania – and especially already-attacked Georgia – are now aware that they are basically on their own with a hungry Russian bear looming over them.

September 17, 2009 was a shameful day for Barack Obama and a shameful day for the nation that he represents.

Neville Chamberlain Deux: Obama Betrays Allies To Appease Enemies

For the official record, I have compared Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain sixteen times in separate articles (seventeen counting this one).  British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was ruthless in advancing his domestic policy agenda, but became one of history’s most infamous appeasing weaklings in bowing down to Hitler’s threats and demands.  In seeking to avoid war at any cost, he guaranteed the worst war in human history – at least until now.

Prime Minister Chamberlain went to Munich expressing his desire to discuss a peaceful settlement with Germany under terms that included reneging on the British pledge to defend Czechoslovakia.  Jan Masaryk, the Czech Minister in London, called on British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax on the eve of the Munich Conference and said, “If you are sacrificing my nation to preserve the peace of the world, I will be the first to applaud you. But if not, God help your souls!”

Britain had betrayed Czechoslovakia for an empty promise that Neville Chamberlain naively believed would bring “peace in our time.”  Edouard Daladier took a more realistic view: “The fools,” he said bitterly, acknowledging the cheers of the crowds who believed Chamberlain’s statement.  “If only they knew what they are cheering.”

In one of those twists of historic irony that seem so commonplace in accompanying the greatest tragedies in human history, Barack Obama announced his betrayal of the previous American administration’s commitment to Poland and Czechoslovakia on the 70th anniversary of the bitter fruit of the Munich Conference.  It was on September 17, 1939 that Stalin’s forces streamed into Poland as a direct result of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasing betrayal and demonstration of weakness.

A Reuters article underscores the highly ironic timing of the Obama betrayal:

For Poland, the timing of the announcement is particularly sensitive. Thursday marked the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland following a pact between Moscow and Nazi Germany, an event seen by Poles as “a stab in the back.”

Is Obama even aware of the historic irony?  Probably not.  As Jules Crittenden points out, “The Obama administration doesn’t study history. It reimagines it.”

As usual, Obama has altered the facts on the intent of the missile shield.  It was – contrary to Obama’s assertion – not merely intended to protect the United States from a ballistic missile attack, but to serve as a bulwark against Russian aggression of eastern European countries (remember the recent Russian invasion of Georgia?).

Mr. Bush had developed a special relationship with Eastern Europe as relations between Washington and Moscow deteriorated. The proposal to deploy parts of the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic were justified on the grounds that they would protect Europe and the eastern coast of the United States against any possible missile attacks from Iran.

But the Polish and Czech governments saw the presence of American military personnel based permanently in their countries as a protection against Russia.

Poland and Czechoslovakia took a big risk trusting the United States instead of coming to terms under the sphere of hostile Russia.  And now they are revealed to have been fools for trusting the Americans:

“We have been hearing such things for a while now via different papers, from some conferences and so on,” said Waszczykowski, deputy head of Poland’s National Security Bureau which advises President Lech Kaczynski.

“This would be very bad. Without the shield we would de facto be losing a strategic alliance with Washington,” he said.

Michael Wisniewski, the Poland director of the Europa 21 foundation, expressed how Obama hamstrung the pro-USA movement throughout the entire eastern European region:

After 9/11 Poles expressed solidarity with USA without any hesitation. Despite the fact that we were risking alienation from some of our European partners. And after we joined US-led coalition against terrorism, we were verbally attacked by Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Shroeder – leaders of two major European powers. But our position was clear and firm – we would stay with USA and fight against common enemies – enemies who attacked our ally and the whole free world. No other country had so special status in Poland – almost 80% Poles sympathized with US. Poland is not great military power – but have some influence on the eastern Europe and was a real stronghold of American interests in this region. Whatever Germans, French or other UE countries would do – Poland always stood arm to arm with US.

Now it belongs to the past. It’s not only about this incident, but it was something that created great outrage here. It’s impossible to remain so positive towards US now – people are reacting emotionally. Even most pro-US media and journalists comment, that our close relations with USA was mistake. That we were wrong and we should focus on our closer neighbours – like France or Germany.

The Obama administration announced its betrayal of Poland and Czechoslovakia – and the abandonment of the shared values that had framed their relationship with the United States – with a telephone call.  At least it wasn’t done via Twitter.

The Poles and the Czechs have the virtue of not being so stupid and naive as to fall for Obama’s beautiful lies.  They are not dancing in the streets over the announcement of their betrayal:

Poles, Czechs: US missile defense shift a betrayal

WARSAW, Poland — Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern Friday at President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense shield planned for their countries.

“Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back,” the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama’s new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous “gray zone” between Western Europe and the old Soviet sphere.

Recent events have rattled nerves throughout central and eastern Europe, a region controlled by Moscow during the Cold War, including the war last summer between Russia and Georgia and ongoing efforts by Russia to regain influence in Ukraine. A Russian cutoff of gas to Ukraine last winter left many Europeans without heat.

The Bush administration’s missile defense plan would have been “a major step in preventing various disturbing trends in our region of the world,” Kaczynski said in a guest editorial in Fakt that also was carried on his presidential Web site.

Neighboring Lithuania, a small Baltic nation that broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now a NATO member, also expressed regret over Obama’s decision.

Defense Minister Rasa Jukneviciene said that the shield would have increased security for Lithuania and she hoped missile defense would not be excluded from future talks on NATO security.

“This NATO region cannot be an exception and its defense is not less important compared with others,” she said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he still sees a chance for Poles and Czechs to participate in the redesigned missile defense system. But that did not appear to calm nerves in Warsaw or Prague. […]

An editorial in Hospodarske Novine, a respected pro-business Czech newspaper, said: “an ally we rely on has betrayed us, and exchanged us for its own, better relations with Russia, of which we are rightly afraid.”

The move has raised fears in the two nations they are being marginalized by Washington even as a resurgent Russia leaves them longing for added American protection.

The Bush administration always said that the planned system — with a radar near Prague and interceptors in northern Poland — was meant as defense against Iran. But Poles and Czechs saw it as protection against Russia, and Moscow too considered a military installation in its backyard to be a threat.

“No Radar. Russia won,” the largest Czech daily, Mlada Fronta Dnes, declared in a front-page headline.

Any nation that has made any kind of a deal with the United States should seriously rethink the trustworthiness of their partner.  Because the American promise doesn’t mean a whole lot under this administration.

It appears highly likely that Obama is abandoning a U.S. commitment and betraying Poland and Czechoslovakia in order to get some kind of commitment from Russia to use its leverage to stop Iran’s nuclear program.  The only problem is that Russia is even less trustworthy than the new United States has become under Obama.

We’re not going to get squat from Russia that is anything other than a superficial and meaningless exercise.

Jennifer Rubin concludes her piece on Obama’s betryal of Poland and Czechoslovakia with this:

The administration that promised to restore our standing in the world is on quite a roll. Open hostility toward Israel. Bullying Honduras [link]. Reneging on promises to Eastern Europe. A strange policy indeed that dumps on our friends in the vain effort to incur the goodwill of our enemies. And if one is a “realist,” not a fabulist, it should be apparent that this is a losing proposition. We will lose our friends and gain nothing. Weakness and the betrayal of our allies do not ameliorate tensions with our adversaries. We had a Cold War topped off by the Carter administration to prove that. But Obama’s never been very good at history.

In April of last year I wrote this about Democrats and Iran near the end of the piece:

Allow me to guarantee you that a Democratic administration will see a nuclear Iran. Given their policy on Iraq, it becomes an implicit campaign promise. And it will see a nuclearized Middle East. Democrats have spent forty years proving that they are cowards who will not stand by their allies, and their actions will come home to roost.

And here we are: Iran can now make a bomb.

And neither Russia nor Obama are going to do a damn thing to stop it.