First Conservative Blog

This week, President Obama revealed to the world that Iran has been secretly building an additional nuclear faciity that would be capable of producing enough material for one to two atomic weapons per year.  To the relief of many this morning came news that the US actually knew about the site for some time but withheld revealing its knowledge until world leaders had gathered in the US for the G-20 and UN opening sessions.  Given the Obama administration’s ineptitude on foreign policy, it was a relief that at least someone knew what Iran was doing.

After seeing his poll numbers slip and his personal popularity teetering on the 50% mark, the President chose this week to take advantage of the UN and G-20 functions to take voters’ minds off His takeover of the health care industry.  Figuring out a way to intimidate wavering Democrats to support a public insurance program costing untold trillions has taken its toll.

The President’s belief that words solve problems will be sorely tested this week.  Afghanistan will require resolute action to prevent the Taliban from re-overrunning that wasteland to re-establish muslim extremist training camps – from which fighters will be sent to attack the US.  Obama simply must keep the fight going there by whatever means necessary.

The President also talked himself into a corner this week by confronting Iran.  He stated yesterday that Iran must demonstrate that its intentions for nuclear use are peaceful or “face the consequences.”  It is not unusual that consequences go undefined in making these threats but the real danger to the Obama administration is that the President has created an expectation that the US is now prepared to demonstrate meaningful action and resolve of its own.  Talking about resolve is an Obama strength.  Executing action that might not be popular with the rest of the world’s despots is another matter.

Obama must believe that He now holds all the cards in dealing with the Iranian lunatics.  He surrendered the missile defense shield to Russia and got Putin & Co. to at least talk about sanctions.  But this might be as far as the Russians go.  Iran owes Putin quite a bit of money for the nuclear help they’ve already given to them, so the Ex-KGBer might actually not like it if the US brings the projects to a halt.  And what of the Chinese?  The Chi-Coms need Iranian oil and would very much like to prevent a muslim uprising within its own borders.  

In the end, although He would never admit it, Obama will come to the realization that only the threat of unilateral military force is sufficient to move lunatics such as Iran into changing their place in the world. ( Yes, yes….South Africa was deterred from continuing it’s policy of white-dominated government by extreme world sanctions, but South Africa wasn’t continually threating to wipe Uganda off the map. ) A willingness to act unilaterally is what got George W. Bush burned in effigy elsewhere in the world.  Obama couldn’t take that kind of a blow to His ego after presenting Himself at the UN as the first citizen of the world. 

Economic sanctions may have little impact on a population that has made excuses to itself that living under mullah doctrine is acceptable.  Depriving Iranians of their refined gasoline might be enough to cause a general uprising, but more logical minds in the international commuity believe that – should an embargo of refined petroleum be threated or imposed, Iran would be compelled into drastic action of its own before those supplies would run out.  What would this mean?  It only takes some 13 to 15 pounds of refined Uranium to make a crude but destructive nuclear bomb.  They could easily place that much of the stuff on a missile that Iran already has and send it off towards Tel Aviv and see what happens.  Of course, then that part of the world would be involved in just the kind of conflagration Obama wants to avoid.  The Israelis would surely wipe out Teheran and probably Damascus as well.  Preventing this requires application of ground forces capable of fighting an enemy on his home turf. The US military is the only force with this capability. 

The President has few good options with Iran and must be willing to act outside of UN authority if He expects to change Iranian behavior.  Unfortunately, few in the world believe Obama is capable of that kind of action so the President may have to prove to the world that He, too has only so much patience with the UN, the Russians, Chinese and other depostic regimes that He has sworn to talk to without preconditions.

In the end, Obama has made His foreign policy much more difficult to execute by expressing willingness to talk with foreign nut cases.  Iran is counting on this willingness to talk to allow them time to complete their nuclear bomb.  Sanctions are just a form of talking as they don’t involve immediate consequences to the offending state and-given the history of the UN – rarely involve meaningful action.  So sanctions give Iran what it needs – time. Obama seems to be on board with giving them time while threatening meaningful action.  The Iranian leaders are okay with threatening this action as they have come to believe that Obama will do nothing but talk.  They have only hardened their positions as a result of Obama’s soft foreign policy.