First Conservative Blog

Conservative Blog post for October 19.

Obama the Naive

President Obama trumpeted His philosophy of ‘be nice’ to others in the world under the theory that other nations would then return favorable treatment to the United States.  It has only taken a few short months for Him to be proven terribly wrong. It was reported late Sunday that the Obama administration is-internally at least – admitting to being seriously outmanuvered by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev.  

President Obama was quite anxious to prove that the foreign policy of George W. Bush was so flawed in its arrogance and ‘bullying’ towards others, that it fell right into a major Russian trap.  The Russians of course bullied the US into removing all promises for a shield to defend the free peoples of Eastern Europe as well as the United States from incoming missiles – regardless of where they might originate. Obama gave in without any agreement, apparently believing that Russia would be so impressed with the US President’s gesture that it would back UN sanctions against Iran.  Now that serious talk of sanctions has been brought up, the Russians want no part, leaving Team Obama dismayed. 

Of course any conservative could have informed the naive President that removing missile defense from Eastern Europe would not gain a single Russian concession.  In fact, many conservatives did bring this up only to be dismissed by an arrogant Obama State Department.

Putin of course wants the necessary tools on hand to intimidate Europe into accepting  whatever policy Russia might impose.  And as Russia works to corner the supply market for European natural gas, any method to make a threat real, only helps their cause.   The Europeans will soon find themselves paying inflated prices for Russian natural gas because there will be no other alternative.   The ultimate Russian ambition may well be the eventual domination of Europe by control over natural gas supplies, sealed with a threat of conflict from which Europeans typically cower.

That Russia has never fully relinquished the occupiers role after the fall of the USSR is not a surprise.  What is a surprise is that the US was so willing to help them rebuild their role as dominators of Eastern Europe.  Democrats in general have been termed “useful idiots” by every Russian leader since Stalin but even this must have come as a shock that Obama would have been so anxious to sell out his allies. 

Unfortunately, this only escallates the conflict with Iran.  Any thinking (read non-leftist) administrator understands that Iran is the worlds second top producer of natural gas – second only to Russia.  Russia’s interest is to keep the conflict brewing with Iran to make supply contracts with the Islamic state high-risk.  This runs up the price of Iranian natural gas contracts and allows the Russians to inflate the price of theirs.  So by keeping the conflict boiling, Russia makes money. 

Additionally, since sanctions are looking less likely, Obama’s naive policy has pushed the United States closer to armed conflict with Iran simply because the Chosen One has no other options.   With Europeans becoming aware that their only supply of natural gas might put them at the risk of Russian economic domination, our allies are growing increasingly uncomfortable with Obama’s willingness to talk instead of act.   Obama should now pressure the Europeans into a united action – regardless of what happens in the dictatorship-dominated, UN.  Unless Obama has another surprise up his sleeve, this will never happen.

Interestingly, the only possible way out of a major armed conflict might be for the Europeans to step up and insist that NATO undertake direct action now to free Iran from the mullah’s oligarchy. Acting now would mean military action on a much smaller scale than if Iran lights off one of its nuclear warheads over Tel Aviv.  However, as NATO hasn’t actually fired a shot without the United States taking the lead, this could be a ‘tough-sell.’   United action requires US leadership.  President Obama has absolutely no ambition to lead the west in any military action to defend its interests because that would amount to ‘bullying.’  Without US leadership and vision, getting Obama to move off his talk first then talk more foreign policy will be difficult.   After all, Obama still has to prove GW Bush was a terrible foreign policy President.   

All this of course brings us back around to the Israelis.  Israel understands that Russia intends to keep the conflict going – even if that means allowing Iran to attain ability to build a nuclear weapon.  Given the Iranian lunatic leadership’s intent to destroy the Jewish state, Israel is going to have to take action – if for no other reason than to provoke Obama and the US leftist administration into intervening.  And now that President Obama has surrendered the safety of Eastern Europe to the Russians, Israel knows she cannot count on the US to help once Iran gets a weapon of mass destruction.  Let us hope Israel acts soon and doesn’t wait until nuclear tipped Iranian missiles start flying around.

In the end, Obama’s selling out to the Russians by dropping plans for a missile defense shield has emboldened our adversaries, encouraged our enemies and greatly increased the risk of real and sustained armed conflict.   Internally at least, Team Obama now knows that this President’s naive leadership has made the world much more dangerous.