In a video that has just come to light, Barack Obama makes a scary declaration:
I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems.
That’s quite a goal, considering his reluctance to slow the development of Iran’s future combat systems. The video was made last year for the pacifist organization Caucus4Priorities.org, whose mission is “To redirect 15% of the Pentagon’s discretionary budget away from obsolete Cold War weapons towards education, healthcare, job training, alternative energy development, world hunger, deficit reduction.” Cold war weapons, future combat systems–what’s the difference, right? The important thing is the Democratic nominee’s commitment to cut back on defense while we’re at war. Just so you know that Obama means business, he appeals to you at the end of the clip:
You know where I stand. I fought for open ethical and accountable government my entire public life. I don’t switch positions or make promises that can’t be kept. I don’t posture on defense policy and I don’t take money from federal lobbyists for powerful defense contractors. As President, my sole priority for defense spending will be protecting the American people.
And with hope in our hearts, change in our minds, and parking space in our arsenals I’m sure there’s no threat we won’t overcome. By “we,” of course, I mean the additional 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines that Obama has elsewhere pledged to add to our technologically-hampered armed forces.
Hillary Clinton and Dennis Ross (who presumably still has the Iran portfolio) have a more difficult task now that the President has conveyed an utter lack of resoluteness.
When has he (or his predecessor for that matter) ever conveyed anything but a lack of resoluteness?
Obama never hid the fact that he was going to be soft on Iran and a majority of the American people didn’t care.
Mr. Lichty: No, remember that O pretended to be serious about Iran during the debates by blabbering about a nuclear Iran being a “game-changer” and that couldn’t be allowed to happen. Of course he was laughably insincere (just like his & Biden’s comical attempts to pretend that they don’t support the redefinition of marriage), but it was enough to check off that box.
I do remember the game changer remark, but don’t recall that he said that it could not be allowed to happen. Even he said it, as we know, all Obama statements come with an expiration date. A poster in an earlier thread that Obama may not be opposed to Iran obtaining nukes so he can use that as a bludgeon to get the US to get rid of its nukes. Sadly, I have seen nothing that would disabuse someone of that theory and that theory certainly seems consistent with Obama’s previously stated world view. I hope he is more sober than that, but it is too early to tell.
That being said, I hold Bush accountable for his own lack of resolve. Bush’s statement that Iran with nukes was unacceptable also had an expiration date. Maybe Obama is just being more honest than Bush. I find Bush’s failure to uphold his word especially troubling if the reports are true that he vetoed a planned Israeli strike against Iran.
Well, he said that we could not tolerate an Iran with nukes. Of course, he then said that we would talk to them. And he also brazenly lied about whether he had ever said he would talk to them without preconditions (and was never called on it, of course).
It is true that Pres. Bush failed to live up to his own claims that Iran could not be allowed to develop nukes. The final nail in the coffin for doing anything was the ludicrous NIE saying that Iran had suspended its nuke program. The people responsible for putting that together and leaking it should all be throw in prison.
While at the time the NIE was issued it appeared to put the nail in any coffin, I think it soon took its place in the dustbin of history. During the election, the NIE was buried without eulogy as both candidates did not give its so-called conclusion any credence. How Iran would be handled became a big campaign issue and neither of the candidates could have really criticized Bush for disagreeing with the same NIE that they were acting as if never existed.
Bush was hamstrung by lack of political capital and by a disappointing lack of political will, not the NIE.
I’d suggest that Bush and Obama both weren’t restrained by a lack of will, but trapped politically by abstract commitments that the Iranians and everyone else have had every reason, and increasingly better reason, to suspect amounted to bluffing. Even if the statement of categorical opposition to an Iranian nuke wasn’t always a bluff, at some point strategic ambiguity shifted from veiled threat to empty threat – unless there’s more to the reported covert operations than we know, or something else going on behind the scenes we don’t know about. If the state of play really is what it seems to be, then perhaps the emphasis should move more towards the disadvantages to Iran of going nuclear. Our rhetorical position – turning on a refusal even to consider the possibility – prevents us from exploring a range of disincentives, since even talking about them would be read as “giving in.” If we’ve already given in on the military option, or are strongly considering doing so, or, are thought to have done so, then keeping up the pretense may be counterproductive.
Bush will go down in history as a failure, and Obama an enabler/perpetuator of that failure, if Iran is allowed to develop nukes.
It would have been Bush’s chance to truly stake a claim to having made the important decisions correctly.
Of course, Bush’s historical reputation will be the least of our problems if Iran succeeds in going nuclear.
#1: “When has he (or his predecessor for that matter) ever conveyed anything but a lack of resoluteness?”
His predecessor conveyed something other than a lack of
resoluteness when he invaded two countries adjoining Iran…
You are exactly right, CK.
Eric R – it also means that Americans and others have been left unprepared for whatever set of policies are going to be embraced in the aftermath. If the fact is that we are or are going to be committed to deterrence, containment, and punishment, then shouldn’t we be spelling out what that means and building support for it. It would have been interesting if Obama, or even McCain, instead of resting on me-too with a wink, had offered a real alternative policy. Instead, presuming that a real war isn’t on the way regardless of all our best-laid plans, the Prez doesn’t seem to have much choice other than to back into what will be called appeasement and may inevitably take on the appearance of being put together on the fly .
#6, CK MacLeod: “unless there’s more to the reported covert operations than we know”
There must be… A covert operation about which everything
is known would be a contradiction in terms. (It would be, in other words, a
failed, formerly covert, operation. )
The question can be restated: is the existing covert (unknown) activity
sufficient to significantly delay Iran going nuclear?
There is another relevant question: is Iran’s economic position, in view of the falling
fuel prices, so desperate as to give us and our allies sufficient leverage to
modify Iran’s nuclear plans?
Together, these two questions decide whether a third alternative exists
besides Iranian bomb or bombing Iran…
By now, the new administration must know much about it that the general
public doesn’t (and shouldn’t); so maybe something can be guessed from
their behavior.
Then again, maybe they, too, do not yet know enough, and
in that case their behavior is tentative and experimental.
Obama’s Iran speech reveals that there are only three problems with him and his approach to foreign policy: he and it are (1) weak; (2) weak; and (3) weak. He may actually make Jimmy Carter seem like the Stonewall Jackson of foreign policy.
#11 – I agree with you, contra. Most public discussion presumes that a) there is or has been some kind of covert campaign, but that b) it’s been ineffective or isn’t likely to be effective. The report that “blew the lid off” on Bush’s supposed red light to the Israelis seemed to suggest that the US was pursuing black ops, but also tended to emphasize skepticism about their effectiveness. Considering that in many scenarios various forms of dissembling might come into play – up to and including letting the Iranians back down or at least put things on hold without admitting they’d done so – I don’t know how we could begin to piece together clues from public statements and behaviors.
The drop in oil prices and the prospect of an Iranian presidential election have furnished a pretext for procrastination and dreaming. They say no convict truly believes he’s going to hang almost until the rope snaps tight.
The drop in oil prices and the prospect of an Iranian presidential election have furnished a pretext for procrastination and dreaming. They say a convict doesn’t truly believe he’s going to hang, almost until the rope snaps taut.
The way I see it, Israel has to hope that Iran can’t do anything for another 16 months. Then the US combat units will be out of Iraq and there will be nothing left to stop Israel from launching a strike.
Expect to see Obama change the “16 month thing”. The only question is what excuse he will use.
Iran is not our enemy. However much the Bund might want to suck this country into a war with Iran to serve the interests of their #1 country — not the United States — the public isn’t going to buy it. If the Bund considers this antisemitic, that’s too damned bad.
You guys are forgetting Biden’s little sit down with a delegation from the Israeli government, back during the homestretch of the campaign.
What did Biden say?
He said that Israel has to reconcile itself to Tehran going nuke, and that the Obama administration wasn’t going to do spit to stop it.
And he delivered that little bomb to a thoroughly shocked, stunned, paralyzed Israeli delegation.
Obama is looking to ingratiate himself with the Arab and Persian masses; he’s not interested in stopping Iran going nuke.
Now some Bill Kristol types might be out there chirping that Obama has adopted “Bush policies.” But nothing could be further from the facts.
Obama is simply sending the signal to Iran that they should proceed all ahead full. But he’s leaving himself some wiggle room domestically. The Dems don’t want to come right out and blurt their policies before the American people, a good majority of which still favours military measures to take down and out Tehran’s Manhattan project.
This is just more of Obama doing his little fan dance. But ALL interested parties know EXACTLY what he meant. Iran understood loud and clear that America is reconciling itself to Iran gaining a sphere of influence over the Persian Gulf.
The Arabs were told loud and clear that the United States isn’t going to “escalate” “Bush’s war on terrorism,” and they were also told that Obama intends to shift American policy preferences away from Israel, but he intends to do so stealthily.
And the American people were told that Obama is trying some nouveau form of personal diplomacy.
The Europeans meanwhile, stunned that the United States who they thought for sure would ultimately step in and prevent Iran going nuke, now KNOW FOR DEAD CERTAIN that there’s NO likelihood of a military strike.
Which means they too have to make their separate peace with Iran.
China now knows for sure, all ambiguity is gone.
Likewise Russia.
As for the Jews, —————————————————————————– they just got thrown under the bus.
Just as most of us expected, anticipated.
#15:
The election in Iran may not be very important,
because the top leadership is unelected there.
A change of nominal leadership
after the election might become an occasion for –
but not the real cause of – a change in Iran’s
diplomatic attitudes.
Oil prices, on the other hand, are all-important.
Tehran’s ambitious plans, and the social contract
that lets the regime survive, are both resting on that foundation -
either directly on fuel exports, or on investments attracted
by them. Even before the energy prices crashed, in spring,
unemployment in Iran was very high. What now?
Of course this is not a reason to just wait and hope;
it should be an occasion to give the mullahs’ house
of cards a nudge and to send it crashing,
as the Soviet Empire crashed.
But (a worse approach but more in keeping with our new
administration’s rhetoric) this might become an
occasion to cut a deal, to bail the mullahs out, for a
consideration – such as a nuclear freeze and non-intervention
in the neighborhood. This approach would merely buy
time – for both sides – and would miss the opportunity for
a lasting change.
But it seems likely on our side, and more likely on theirs:
Iran’s economic and political weaknesses could provide the catalyst for a breakthrough in the nuclear dispute, says a new Chatham House report compiled by the former UK ambassador to Iran
They might, however, wish to announce first (falsely, maybe) that they
have all the ingredients for a nuclear weapon – then bargain from this
position.
Hmm, Hartscheiss’s incontinence is beginning to show (and smell; with an -ed, no less!). Is this the sign of a breakthrough, as with Iran above?
Every good parent knows this equation. How did the Obamas managed to raise two seemingly decent daughters without doing this? Why would they think the Iranians would be any different than children?