Obama's War On Israel Hits A New Milestone

From Joshuapundit:

. . . [T]he Israeli government was stunned when every nuclear technician at Israel's Dimona reactor who had submitted visa requests to visit the United States for ongoing university education in Physics, Chemistry and Nuclear Engineering had their visa applications summarily rejected, specifically because of their association with the Dimona reactor.

This is a new policy decision of the Obama administration. Up until now, it was routine for Israeli nuclear scientists and technicians to receive such visas and to study at US universities. . . .

Do read the whole post.

This is without doubt the most anti-Israel regime ever to inhabit the White House. And to what end? Does Obama think any of his acts are going to bring America closer to the corrupt Islamic regimes in the Middle East. The ground truth in the Middle East is that those regimes want one thing - the destruction of Israel. All else is smoke and mirrors. Nothing short of Obama delivering Israel's head on a platter will satisfy them - and even that will only satisfy them for a day, as their ultimate goals extend far beyond the destruction of Israel. Indeed, do you want to radical Islam go viral, allow Israel to fall. Like everything about this most incompetent of Presidents, Obama is either completely out of touch with reality or consciously following a policy that is wholly against the best interests of the U.S. and one of its closest allies.

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Kumbaya

It is one thing for Obama to, embarrassingly, step onto the world stage and wax like a high school sophomore on how wonderful it would be if the world would rid itself of nuclear weapons. But in a world where nuclear threats abound and nuclear proliferation is at its highest ever, Obama's twin threats of unilaterally disarming America and cutting our missile defense program seem insane indeed. Obama is a far left ideologoue with no grasp of the lessons of history and, thus, out of touch with reality. Thank God, at least some in the Pentagon are pushing back. This from the LA Times:

President Obama's ambitious plan to begin phasing out nuclear weapons has run up against powerful resistance from officials in the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies, posing a threat to one of his most important foreign policy initiatives.

Obama laid out his vision of a nuclear-free world in a speech in Prague, Czech Republic, last April, pledging that the U.S. would take dramatic steps to lead the way. Nine months later, the administration is locked in internal debate over a top-secret policy blueprint for shrinking the U.S. nuclear arsenal and reducing the role of such weapons in America's military strategy and foreign policy.

Officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere have pushed back against Obama administration proposals to cut the number of weapons and narrow their mission, according to U.S. officials and outsiders who have been briefed on the process.

In turn, White House officials, unhappy with early Pentagon-led drafts of the blueprint known as the Nuclear Posture Review, have stepped up their involvement in the deliberations and ordered that the document reflect Obama's preference for sweeping change, according to the U.S. officials and others, who described discussions on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity and secrecy.

The Pentagon has stressed the importance of continued U.S. deterrence, an objective Obama has said he agrees with. But a senior Defense official acknowledged in an interview that some officials are concerned that the administration may be going too far. He described the debate as "spirited. . . . I think we have every possible point of view in the world represented."

The debate represents another collision between Obama's administration and key parts of the national security establishment, after scrapes over troop levels in Afghanistan and missile defenses in Eastern Europe. . . .

The government maintains an estimated 9,400 nuclear weapons, about 1,000 fewer than in 2002. But Obama believes that stepping up efforts to reduce the stockpile will give U.S. officials added credibility in their quest to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the cornerstone international arms-control pact. . . .

A core issue under debate, officials said, is whether the United States should shed its long-standing ambiguity about whether it would use nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, in hopes that greater specificity would give foreign governments more confidence to make their own decisions on nuclear arms.

Some in the U.S. argue that the administration should assure foreign governments that it won't use nuclear weapons in reaction to a biological, chemical or conventional attack, but only in a nuclear exchange. Others argue that the United States should promise that it would never use nuclear weapons first, but only in response to a nuclear attack.

Pentagon officials question the value of such public declarations, contending that foreign governments may not even believe them, said the U.S. officials and others. . . .

Another issue being debated is how to scale back the U.S. stockpile while continuing to provide nuclear protection to allies, in part to keep them from developing their own nuclear arsenals. The U.S. maintains hundreds of nuclear weapons overseas for such purposes.

For instance, some U.S. submarines in the Pacific carry nuclear-tipped torpedoes, which, Ferguson said, many Japanese officials like for their possible deterrent effect against a growing Chinese navy. Because nuclear weapons provide such assurance to a key ally, some U.S. officials are reluctant to cut back on the capability.

For similar reasons, some U.S. officials want to keep about 200 U.S. bombs at European bases, providing security for Eastern European countries.

Another debate is whether the U.S. needs three major delivery systems for its nuclear weapons -- long-range missiles, submarines and bombers. But eliminating one of them would face strong resistance from the affected military services and the lawmakers who support them.

The senior Defense official said the nuclear posture debate centers on the different ways toward the twin goals of nonproliferation and deterrence.

"We are not looking at whether to reduce the roles of nuclear weapons and whether to reduce [their numbers]," he said.

"We're looking at how."

Obama seems bound and determined to take us from the status of a superpower to that of one among equals. If he does not see the danger in that, he has no understanding of history. There have been few extended periods of relative peace in the world. The Pax Romana, the Roman peace, came about because Rome was the world's superpower and no one was willing to challenge them. The Pax Americana, if you will, which has existed since 1945 in Europe, has existed only because the Soviets were unwilling to challenge the U.S. If Obama wants world peace, the path towards it is not disarming the U.S., it is the opposite.

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No Kidding Sherlock

In 2007, Thomas Fingar, Kenneth Brill, and H. Van Diepen drafted a scandalous and incredibly harmful piece of fiction - the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) On Iran's Nuclear Program. Despite its name, it was not an intelligence estimate. It was a piece of partisan advocacy designed to tie the hands of the Bush Administration. As I wrote in some detail at the time, every one of those authors' major findings - that Iran's nuclear weapons program had ended years earlier, that their ongoing program was civilian in nature, that the Iranian regime would respond to negotiations with a mix of carrots and sticks, that they were rational, that the threat of force was not a viable option, etc. - were unfounded and, indeed, contraverted by all of the known facts. We would later learn that they were also contraverted by facts known then to our intelligence agencies - namely that Iran was constructing a secret nuclear enrichment plant whose size was only appropriate for military use. No matter. The NIE was embraced wholeheartedly by the left. But now . . . . now . . . . what do you know. The Obama camp has some suspicion that, perhaps, the 2007 NIE may have been wrong.

Mr. Obama’s top advisers say they no longer believe the key finding of a much disputed National Intelligence Estimate about Iran, published a year before President George W. Bush left office, which said that Iranian scientists ended all work on designing a nuclear warhead in late 2003.

There are times when saying "I told you so" brings naught but cold comfort. This is one of them. The stakes are too high. We have wasted two years while Iran's nuclear program has progressed ever nearer the point of weaponization and the rest of the Middle East has been drawn into pursuing their own nuclear arsenal. As I wrote about a month ago, Thomas Fingar, Kenneth Brill, and H. Van Diepen have much for which to answer. As do the Left who uncritically embraced the NIE fiction, prioritizing attacks on the Bush Administration over our national security.

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Setting A Course Through A Perfect Storm

We are in a perfect storm with Iran. We don't merely have a single event to concern us as regards Iran, but rather a multiplicity of events all converging at once. Iran is within months of crossing the nuclear threshold. Israel cannot afford to allow Iran to create a nuclear arsenal - and for that matter, neither can the West. Everyday that Iran continues its rush to a nuclear arsenal, most other nations in the Middle East, virtually all of them incubators of muslim extremism in one form or another, are also pursuing nuclear weapons out of self defense. At the same time, the Iranian regime is on the verge of a revolution. But it is a largely leaderless revolution, and there is no single individual whom we can bank on to emerge as the head of a new Iran if and when the theocracy falls. Perhaps Mousavi, but it appears ever more that events have passed him by. It truly is a perfect storm from from which any of countless possible realities could emerge, many of which would be inimical to our interests. It is time, to paraphrase from Invictus, that we engage in this matter and become "masters of our fate."

The Washington Post, in an editorial today, takes stock of the past week of protests and joins the chorus of calls for Obama to decisively support revolution in Iran:

ONE WAY or another, Sunday's Ashura holiday in Iran probably will be a turning point in the struggle between an extremist regime and an increasingly radical opposition. . . .

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei clearly is betting he can defeat the opposition Green Movement with brute force. In the past week, security forces have attacked peaceful mourners at the funeral of dissident Ayatollah Ali Montazeri and violated the tradition of restraint associated with the Ashura holiday. The predominant chant in the streets, meanwhile, has shifted to "death to Khamenei" or "death to the dictator." More street protests can be expected when the movement's new martyr, Ali Habibi Mousavi Khamene, is commemorated.

In short, Iran's political crisis now looks like a battle to the death between the regime and its opposition. No one on either side in Tehran is talking about compromise. . . . [M]ore than ever, the Obama administration and other Western governments must tailor their policies toward Iran to reflect the centrality of the Green Movement's fight for freedom. While diplomatic contact with the regime need not be broken off entirely, by now it should be obvious that it cannot produce significant results -- and might serve to shore up a tottering dictatorship.

President Obama shifted U.S. Policy . . . Monday . . . with an admirably strong statement that condemned "the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens" and called for "the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained."

There is, however, more that could be done to help the Green Movement. Russia and non-Western nations should be pressed to join in condemning the regime's violence. Sanctions aimed at the Revolutionary Guard and its extensive business and financial network should be accelerated; action must not be delayed by months of haggling at the U.N. Security Council. More should be done, now, to facilitate Iranian use of the Internet for uncensored communication. The State Department continues to drag its feet on using money appropriated by Congress to fund firewall-busting operations and to deny support to groups with a proven record of success, like the Global Internet Freedom Consortium.

The administration has worried excessively that open U.S. support might damage the Green Movement. Now President Obama has publicly taken sides, and the battle inside Iran has reached a critical juncture. It's time for the United States to do whatever it can, in public and covertly, to help those Iranians fighting for freedom.

The Washington Post has it right. It is time – actually long past time – for Obama to weigh in decisively and on multiple levels to support the revolution in Iran. Besides those things enumerated by Wapo, there are a host of other things that Obama needs to put in motion to support the regime. For example, Obama stripped all funding for the programs promoting democracy in Iran when he took office. He needs to refund those programs, particularly Radio Farda which ought to play a major role in getting news into Iran, both about the outside world and about events occurring inside Iran that the regime wants silenced.

If Obama were smart - and indeed, thinking of his legacy - he would embrace this option with all the fervor with which he has pushed health care reform. It is something that would, I believe, have bipartisan support. And if the revolution succeeds after he has thrown full U.S. support, then Obama's legacy will be cemented in stone. Whatever else he screws up, he will be the President who helped bring an end to Iran's evil theocracy and the President who moved the Middle East much closer to stability. It would, at a stroke, end a highly significant portion of terrorism around the world. It would remove from Hamas and Hezbollah their primary source of funding.

The joker in the deck, if you will, is that the revolution needs time to flower, if it ever will. If Obama does nothing else, time may soon run out. Iran sits on the cusp of crossing the nuclear threshold and, by Israeli estimates, will have a nuclear weapon by 2011. Israel, threatened near daily with destruction by the Iranian regime, has every justification to go to war with Iran to stop the Iranian regime from making that weapon. If Obama is going to fully support the revolution, he needs to buy time from Israel. Obama would need to provide the Israeli government with guarantees that the U.S. will underwrite the missile defense of Israel. Obama needs to further guarantee that the U.S. will, with Israel, jointly conduct that attack on Iran's nuclear sites if and when it appears that Iran's revolution will not succeed. Indeed, if need be, the U.S. should go so far as to publicly put Israel under its nuclear umbrella. For if and when the first bombs strike Iran, war will have begun. We will almost assuredly be drawn into it. And the chance to end all of this through a revolution will have ended.

In short, it is time for Obama to truly engage with Iran's revolution. He needs to set a course through the perfect storm.

Update: What Obama should not do is heed the advice of the NYT editorial board:

President Obama is right to remain open to dialogue with Iran and to continue looking for a peaceful resolution to the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. He is also right to condemn the violence against Iranian civilians . . .

The government still appears to have firm control of the main levers of power, including the brutish Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia. . . .

The Iranian people are demanding what all people have a right to demand: basic freedoms, economic security, and the knowledge that their government is committed to protecting, not killing its citizens.

These people are as out of touch with reality as they were when they called the Iraq War lost during the height of the surge. If they think that the government is firmly in control, they have not bothered to read their own paper's reporting of the events of last week. If they think the Iranian people are demanding mere "basic freedoms," they are completely misreading how these protests have evovled since June. If they think that Obama's main concern should be to keep an "open dialogoue" going with the barbaric and illegitimate government - the same government that has essentially given Obama the one finger salute over the past months - they are utterly insane. What they counsel is not a search for a "peaceful resolution" to this madness. To quote Milton fron Paradise Lost:

Thus Belial with words clothed in reason's garb
Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth, not peace.

The counsel of the NYT would lead us to war, sooner or later. Our best chance for peace, indeed our only one, is to move decisively in support of the revolution.

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The Iranian Problem (Updated II)

The crisis that is Iran is rapidly approaching a decisive point. The mad mullahs may or may not survive the revolution occurring around them (See "Ashura - A New Phase To The Revolution") At the same time, the mad mullahs will soon cross the nuclear threshold. [Update: Israel's Def. Minister estimates that this threshold will be crossed in early 2010 and that they will have produced their first nuclear weapon by 2011.] The latter presents a real and existential threat not simply to Israel but to the entire free world. Our options are limited and time is running out:

One, and by far the best, is to fan the flames of revolution until this cancer on the world is overthrown. No single event would be more beneficial for Iran, the entire Middle East, and the free world. It would rework the calculus of the Middle East overnight, emasculating Hamas and Hezbollah. It would, in time, make peace between Israel and the Palestinians actually possible. This should be done using the bully pulpit to excoriate the regime at every opportunity, funding those programs that promote democracy in Iran, using sanctions to further pressure the regime, plus undertaiking whatever prudent covert programs may be done.

If Obama is not going to go all in for option one, then we are left with only three options, none of which are, to put it mildly, good. The second option would be to deal with the regime's push towards a nuclear arsenal by force, attacking the known nuclear sites. The NYT hosts a guest editorial that argues for that one today.

Three would be to deal with the regime's nuclear arsenal and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) by force. The only thing keeping the mad mullahs in force is the IRGC, and as pointed out here, the IRGC can be expected to fight to the brutal end to keep the regime in power. We have ample justification to bloody the nose of the IRGC while sending a message to the Iran's regular military and the citizenry that the future of Iran is in their hands.

Lastly, there is that tried, tried, and tried again technique of interminable talks - a path that is leading us ever closer to acquiescence. And guess what. John Kerry, the greatest master statesman since William Borah, is looking to fly into mad mullah central for a tet a tet with these illegitimate murders. Acquiescence to a nuclear arsenal in the hands of the mad mullahs is no different, no less dangerous, nor any less immoral than was acquiescence to Hitler in 1936 and 37 when he could have been stopped and WWII averted.

Note that I do not include sanctions as a separate category. Sanctions - even very significant ones, which seem hardly in the cards given Russia's and China's instansigence - simply will not deter the mad mullahs. Sanctions may pressure the regime, but the number one goal of the mad mullahs is not the quality of life of Iranians, its the survival and exportation of the Khomeinist revolution. And there can be no doubt that they see a nuclear arsenal as an indespensible tool in that march. If Obama chooses more talks and whatever sanctions we can cobble together, then he will have squandered a golden opportunity to end the Khomeinist scourge and will have acquiesed in their creation of a nuclear arsenal.

I. Revolution

Iran is powder keg with the fuse lit. [The recent protests on Ashura were large, wide spread, and different from all protests before it in that it was far more militant. The protesters were not backing down, but instead were attacking the police and basij, seemingly getting the better of them in many instances. The war against the regime has moved to a new phase.] Moreover, Iran is a state with an economy near collapse and an illegitimate government. It is a country where the regular military units have weighed in with a warning for the regime and its praetorian guard that they, the military, will not continue to stand idly by as the people of Iran are brutalized. The people we see demonstrating today don't want a new President, they don't want a more benign theocracy, what they want is to sweep this whole bloodthirsty theocracy into the dustbin of history. And there should not be a single person in the Western World who does not share their goal. This is the most amoral and bloody regime to inhabit the earth since the Khmer Rouge. But unlike the Khmer Rouge, this regime threatens everyone.

The opportunity to fan this revolution should be, for the Obama regime, Foreign Policy Goal Number One, Numero Uno, 넘버원, Nummer Eins, מספר אחד, Nummer Ett, etc. Yet Obama appears to be doing nothing or next to nothing to assist those fighting and dying for freedom in Iran. Obama defunded all the programs to promote democracy in Iran and has not reinstated their funding. Obama actively prevented other countries from imposing sanctions on Iran, and as recently as two months ago, cut off funding to an organization documenting human rights abuses in Iran. He has given legitimacy to the regime by reaching out to them, even after they brutally repressed demonstrations. And, of paramount importance, he has been all but silent when he should have been using the bully pulpit to excoriate the bloody mad mullahs for their murderous acts at every opportunity. When the world needs a Churchill, we instead have a Chameberlain.

At least the Congress is doing something. The House recently passed legislation that would require the President, absent a waiver from Congress, "to punish firms that supply Iran with gasoline or help Iran to improve its ability to refine petroleum products at home, by preventing them from doing business in the U.S." This should be just a part of all the unilateral and multilateral sanctions we can muster to put ever more pressure on the regime. The choice of sanctions should be made with the goal not of ending the regime's nuclear program - nothing short of force will do that - but to support the revolution. Unfortunately, time is limited. We have lost a year during which the mad mullahs have redoubled their efforts to obtain a nuclear arsenal. For the safety of the entire world, either through revolution or force, that eventuality cannot be allowed to come to fruition. The preeminent scholar Bernard Lewis explains why. Therefore, if Obama is actually going to act against the regime with sanctions in support of the revolution, they need to be in place, well, yesterday really.

The next big wave of Iranian anti-mad mullah demonstrations are expected on Dec. 27, the day that the Shia commemorate the "martyrdom" of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad who was killed during the Battle of Karbala in 680 A.D. This comes on the heels of the major demonstrations that occurred Monday during the burial of Iran's senior cleric, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, the spiritual leader of opposition to the regime. Attempts to hold services for Montazeri subsequent to his burial have drawn brutal retaliation from the regime.

The LA Times is reporting that anti-regime demonstrations have even spread to the heartland of Iran:

Large-scale protests spread in central Iranian cities Wednesday, offering the starkest evidence yet that the opposition movement that emerged from the disputed June presidential election has expanded beyond its base of mostly young, educated Tehran residents to at least some segments of the country's pious heartland. . . .

The central region is considered by some as the conservative power base of the hard-liners in power.

Iranian authorities are clearly alarmed by the spread of the protests. Mojtaba Zolnour, a mid-ranking cleric serving as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's representative to the elite and powerful Revolutionary Guard, acknowledged widespread unrest around the country.

"There were many [acts of] sedition after the Islamic Revolution," he said, according to the website of the right-wing newspaper Resala. "But none of them spread the seeds of doubt and hesitation among various social layers as much as the recent one."

A reformist website, Rahesabz, or Green Path, reported that Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security issued an order banning governors across the country from granting permits for further memorial services for Montazeri. . . .

The regime stands on the precipice of oblivion. That Obama is doing nothing to make it topple is not merely a travesty, it is a moral failing of historic proportions, at least equal to those of France and Britain in their failure to stand down Hitler between 1936 and 1938. Any and all of the other scenarios I mentioned at the top of the page and that I discuss below will cost America dearly in blood and gold. Only an internal revolution will spare us those costs. [Update: See the Krauthammer article on this issue appended at the bottom of this post]

II. Use of Force Against Known Nuclear Sites by Israel Or the U.S.

Even the NYT is running a guest editorial calling for an attack on Iran's nuclear sites:

We have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Postponing military action merely provides Iran a window to expand, disperse and harden its nuclear facilities against attack. The sooner the United States takes action, the better.

The Op-eds author goes on to make the argument that the U.S., not Israel, should lead this strike. For the reasons he states therein, I concur.

Probably the definitive study on the how such an attack could be carried out and its chances for success - based on facts drawn from the public record - has been done by Anthony Cordseman at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. You can find his report here. To distill his 100 plus page assessment to a few sentences: Iran will soon have nuclear weapons. Israel has the capability to set back Iran's nuclear program by several years if they hit the handful of major nuclear production and research sites in Iran. It will be a difficult mission and the possibility exists that, even if it succeeds, there are secret Iranian enrichment sites that will carry on.

This is, I think, what is most likely to happen, probably about mid-2010. I think that it is, but for acquiescence, the worst of our options. It would end the nuke threat for a period of years, but it would leave in power the mad mullahs and leave untouched their Praetorian guard, the IRGC. It would ignite at least a very hot, low grade war, whether the attack is carried out by the U.S. or by the Israelis. The mad mullahs would use this attack as justification to crush dissent and try to ignite nationalism - and they might succeed. At best, such an attack would merely put off the final reckoning to a day when the costs will undoubtedly be much higher.


III. Use of Force Against Nuclear Sites & The IRGC by the U.S.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities will ignite some sort of war. If we are going to attack Iran, we ought to do all we can to insure that their ability to retaliate - and indeed, the foundational pillars upholding the mad mullah's illegitimate regime - are weakened as much as possible. We can do this without a full scale invasion.

To this end, we should combine the air strikes against the nuclear facilities with a massive air/missle campaign against IRGC compounds and command and control sites. These sites and the IRGC equipment stockpiles are seperate and apart from regular military compounds, so an initial, surgical strike is within the realm of reason. Aerial attacks will in no way destroy the IRGC, but they will sting and weaken the organization, pehaps causing chaos in their ranks and splitting off those in the IRGC who are not willing to sacrifice for this most evil of regimes. We have ample justification for attacks on the IRGC as retaliation for their brutal oppression of Iran's people and for their continuing attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. (We are not at war with Iran, but the mad mullahs have been at war with us since 1979.) This can only succeed if it goes hand in hand with a major phsyops effort to inform the Iranian people why we are attacking the IRGC and that our attacks are aimed solely at the mad mullah's nuclear arsenal and the IRGC. At all costs, civilians and regular military units should be spared from targeting. This hardly insures that the regime will fall, but it could weaken the regime enough to allow the revolution to survive the inevitable attempts by the regime to crush it and to ignite nationalist fervor. It is an aggressive gamble, but a superior one to just use of force against the mad mullah's nuclear sites.

IV. Acquiescence Through Interminable Talks

I really find this hard to believe. We have talked and talked with the mad mullahs, then talked some more. To reiterate, Obama, in an effort to make the mad mullahs feel comfortable talking, even went so far as to cancel all of our programs aimed at promoting democracy in Iran. He publicly apologized to Iran for a sixty year old coup. He put the kibosh on sanctions that even the French wanted to impose in the wake of the brutal repression following the stolen June election. He defunded an organization that was documenting human rights abuses by the mad mullahs. Obama thereafter treated the Iranian regime as legitimate, studiously refusing to denounce the regime for its brutality. He offered Ahmedinejad tea, crumpets and a deal that would have given the appearance that Obama had slowed down the mad mullahs mad mad rush to a nuclear arsenal while, in reality, allowing all to continue. Even that brought the big one finger salute from Ahmedinejad. The moment Ahemdinejad lifted his finger is the moment Obama should have sent every boat we own, from aircraft carriers down to WWII era PT boats brought out of mothballs, to park in the Persian Gulf and conduct live fire training exercises. Time is on Iran's side, not the world's.

But instead of our fleets, Obama sends . . . . John Kerry? Oh spare me. But yes, that seems to be the next step. The WSJ is reporting that our modern day William ("Oh, if only I could have talked to Hitler - all of this might have been avoided!") Borah wants to go and Obama, himself apparently a relative of Borah, seems to be blessing it. This from Jules Crittenden, commenting on the WSJ article on this latest bit of foreign policy insanity:

Kerry’s people aren’t talking. White House people say they like it. The hot dog initiative didn’t work, maybe Lurch can make inroads. Sounds like, if the mullahs want another big propaganda opportunity, it’s on. So, why go?

A trip by Sen. Kerry could provide the Obama administration a last-minute chance to directly convey its views to Iranian leaders before the U.S. moves to increase financial pressure on Tehran in an effort to derail Iran’s nuclear programs.

A last stern admonishment before the next stern admonishment. Just in case they haven’t got the message that the stern admonishments will be unrelenting.

WSJ fails to fully explore a couple of key issues: How this fits into not only the United States’ regional mullah-suckup agenda but the Obama admin’s broader global better-likedness campaign. Also, perhaps more importantly, the risk factor to Kerry’s image, doing grip and grins with mullahs, finger-wagging or no, when they’re busy dispatching goons to beat the daylights out of university students.

Talks with Iran have been tried for the past decade, and by Obama over this past year. They have gone nowhere. Obama cannot possibly justify pursuing anything other than one of the three other options above. Time is rapidly running out. This is the free world's biggest foreign policy challenge and its outcome will reverberate throughout not just the Middle East, but the world. If Obama is not willing to give full support to the revolution, if he is not willing to decisively use force, then he condemns the U.S. and the world to eventually having to deal with this problem once it reaches or exceeds the scale of the threat posed by Hitler in 1939. And when that happens, like WWII, oceans of blood will be spilled and vast hordes of gold squandered.

Update: Krauthammer has weighed in on this issue, stating many of the same points I raise above, just with far more clarity. Indeed, it is so good and so precise, I commit the sin of quoting it in full here. This from Mr. Krauthammer writing at Wapo:

On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not just reject President Obama's latest feckless floating nuclear deadline. He spat on it, declaring that Iran "will continue resisting" until the United States has gotten rid of its 8,000 nuclear warheads.

So ends 2009, the year of "engagement," of the extended hand, of the gratuitous apology -- and of spinning centrifuges, two-stage rockets and a secret enrichment facility that brought Iran materially closer to becoming a nuclear power.

We lost a year. But it was not just any year. It was a year of spectacularly squandered opportunity. In Iran, it was a year of revolution, beginning with a contested election and culminating this week in huge demonstrations mourning the death of the dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- and demanding no longer a recount of the stolen election but the overthrow of the clerical dictatorship.

Obama responded by distancing himself from this new birth of freedom. First, scandalous silence. Then, a few grudging words. Then relentless engagement with the murderous regime. With offer after offer, gesture after gesture -- to not Iran, but the "Islamic Republic of Iran," as Obama ever so respectfully called these clerical fascists -- the United States conferred legitimacy on a regime desperate to regain it.

Why is this so important? Because revolutions succeed at that singular moment, that imperceptible historical inflection, when the people, and particularly those in power, realize that the regime has lost the mandate of heaven. With this weakening dictatorship desperate for affirmation, why is the United States repeatedly offering just such affirmation?

Apart from ostracizing and delegitimizing these gangsters, we should be encouraging and reinforcing the demonstrators. This is no trivial matter. When pursued, beaten, arrested and imprisoned, dissidents can easily succumb to feelings of despair and isolation. Natan Sharansky testifies to the electric effect Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire speech had on lifting spirits in the gulag. The news was spread cell to cell in code tapped on the walls. They knew they weren't alone, that America was committed to their cause.

Yet so aloof has Obama been that on Hate America Day (Nov. 4, the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran), pro-American counter-demonstrators chanted, "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," i.e., their oppressors.

Such cool indifference is more than a betrayal of our values. It's a strategic blunder of the first order.

Forget about human rights. Assume you care only about the nuclear issue. How to defuse it? Negotiations are going nowhere, and whatever U.N. sanctions we might get will be weak, partial, grudging and late. The only real hope is regime change. The revered and widely supported Montazeri had actually issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.

And even if a successor government were to act otherwise, the nuclear threat would be highly attenuated because it's not the weapon but the regime that creates the danger. (Think India or Britain, for example.) Any proliferation is troubling, but a nonaggressive pro-Western Tehran would completely change the strategic equation and make the threat minimal and manageable.

What should we do? Pressure from without -- cutting off gasoline supplies, for example -- to complement and reinforce pressure from within. The pressure should be aimed not at changing the current regime's nuclear policy -- that will never happen -- but at helping change the regime itself.

Give the kind of covert support to assist dissident communication and circumvent censorship that, for example, we gave Solidarity in Poland during the 1980s. (In those days that meant broadcasting equipment and copying machines.) But of equal importance is robust rhetorical and diplomatic support from the very highest level: full-throated denunciation of the regime's savagery and persecution. In detail -- highlighting cases, the way Western leaders adopted the causes of Sharansky and Andrei Sakharov during the rise of the dissident movement that helped bring down the Soviet empire.

Will this revolution succeed? The odds are long but the reward immense. Its ripple effects would extend from Afghanistan to Iraq (in both conflicts, Iran actively supports insurgents who have long been killing Americans and their allies) to Lebanon and Gaza where Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are arming for war.

One way or the other, Iran will dominate 2010. Either there will be an Israeli attack or Iran will arrive at -- or cross -- the nuclear threshold. Unless revolution intervenes. Which is why to fail to do everything in our power to support this popular revolt is unforgivable.

Yep. That is pretty much what I meant to say.

Update: Welcome to Lawyn's Linx readers.

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Obama's Amateurism and Iran

Obama's amateurism is showing up nowhere as clearly - and arguably nowhere as dangerously - as in relation to Iran. The clock has been ticking on the Iran problem for years. Yet Senator Obama led the charge to tie President Bush's hands in dealing with the mad mullahs. Since being sworn in, Obama has bent over backwards to treat the mad mullahs as legitimate rulers. His efforts have been not merely fruitless, but worse, they have emboldened the mad mullahs. Not only have the mullahs rejected every offer from the international community regarding their uranium enrichment program, not only have the mad mullahs brought the IAEA investigation of their nuclear program to a standstill, but today the mad mullahs announced that they intend to build ten more nuclear plants similar to the once "secret" military plant under construction just south of Tehran.

The stakes in the kabuki dance Obama is playing with Iran's mad mullahs could not be higher. Iran is the single most destabilizing influence in the Middle East. Its regime is wholly illegitimate, ruling its populace by brute force and terror. It is a regime that is on the brink and becomes ever more unstable as its hold on power is threatened. Every day Iran is allowed to continue its nuclear program is a day closer to war in the Middle East - at first between Iran and Israel, then likely expanding into a larger conflagration involving Iran's many surrogates and the U.S. Moreover, every day Iran is allowed to continue its nuclear program is a day closer to the reality of nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East - the ultimate nightmare scenario.

Obama, from his days running for the President, demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the motivations of Iran's mad mullahs. Obama the amateur thought that they were rational. They are not. Obama the amateur thought they would respond to economic incentives to better the plight of Iranians, but the truth is and has always been that the regime's motivation is to, first and foremost, spread the radical Khomeinist revolution. The mullah's see becoming a nuclear power as central to their goal. Obama the amateur attempted to assure the regime that we pose no threat by defunding every program that we had in place to further regime change in Iran. Obama the amateur showed the regime he could work with them by ignoring the regime's brutality and human rights violation in their treatment of protesting citizenry. The regime responded by ever more brutality against protesters and sending a team into Iraqi territory to capture three U.S. hostages - all of whom are still being held. Obama the amateur now has demanded that the regime cease work on their nulear enrichment. Is it any wonder that the response of the mad mullahs is to say no, but rather that they will build ten more nuclear reactors.

Obama has no sense of history and a world view so distorted as to border on fantasy. History would have informed Obama that the one and only thing that the Iranian regime responds to is a threat to their hold on the country. Thus, Obama's two best options, were to articulate a credible threat to use military force against Iran and to make robust those programs designed to reach behind the regime and connect with the most combustible force in Iran today, its citizenry. Both of these acts would have given teeth to Obama's negotiations with Iran. Further, once it became clear that Iran was a tinder keg with much of the population in open revolt, Obama should have upped the ante, focusing the world's attention on the regime's illegitimacy and expanding covert operations inside Iran to stymie the regime's efforts to shut down communications platforms that would allow the citizens to talk to one another.

Obama forswore all of the above under the beliefs that everyone wants a world without nuclear weapons, that no country should attempt to dictate terms to another, and that if we just appeased the mullahs, they would cooperate. Thus Obama has severely limited our options and emboldened an Iranian regime that is the closest thing to pure evil as I have seen in my lifetime. An emboldened Iran is now less likely to respond threats of force as it will not see them as credible, and every day it grows closer to a nuclear arsenal. Obama is well on his way to painting us into a corner where the only remaining options are actual use of force - or complete appeasement, a la Chamberlain's England. The latter will only get more Americans killed in the long run. That is what it means to have an amateur in the Presidency.

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Foreign Policy Folly

Obama's foreign policy is a disaster. He has yet to get a major challenge correct, from North Korea to Honduras to Iran. As to Iran, Obama is still holding out hope for talks with the theocracy and now has taken indefensible and wholly counterproductive position that there should be no new sanctions imposed on the theocracy for their brutal repression of the Iranian people.
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This guy, honest to God, is worse than Neville Chamberlain. This from Haaretz:

The United States is opposed to enacting a new set of financial sanctions against Iran that are due to be discussed in the G8 summit next week, diplomatic officials in New York reported Friday.

According to officials, sanctions against Iran are expected to top the G8's agenda. Sources are also predicting a pointed debate between the heads of the industrialized nations over an appropriate response to Iranian authorities' suppression of reformist demonstrations in Iran led by Mir Hossein Mousavi and other Iranian opposition leaders.

. . . U.S. officials claimed that a tough stance toward Iran could backfire, bringing about an opposite outcome to that desired by those who support such measures.

The Obama administration, according to the diplomatic sources, has discarded the notion of direct talks with Iran. However, the United States is still interested in re-engaging Iran through the renewed discussion of its nuclear program through the five permanent United Nations Security Council members and Germany.

American officials expressed concern that a decision to enact harsh steps against Iran during the G8 meeting could badly hurt the prospect of Tehran agreeing to renew negotiations with the permanent Security Council members. . . .

Read the entire article.

This is insane and insidious in equal measure. How many things are wrong with this? By my count, at least seven.

One, this tells the theocrats not only that their brutality and repression will have no international consequences, but more importantly that Obama will not act out of concern for how overboard the theocracy might react. In other words, Obama is giving the Iranian regime power over our foreign policy. This is Neville Chamberlain territory. This is how France and England of the 1930's responded to Hitler's provocations.

Two, this tells the people risking life and limb to protest this brutal and corrupt regime that they are on their own. They will find no support from an Obama administration that is prioritizing talks with the illegitimate theocrats. As an aside, the Obama administration not only does not support the spread of democracy, but if we include Honduras in the mosaic, then it appears that Obama is willing to actively act against democracies under threat if it somehow serves Obama's personal agenda It is certainly not serving the best interests of America.

Three, there is every reason to believe a revolution that throws the theocrats out of power and dismantles the IRGC would remake the Middle East overnight. It is not a panacea for all ills, but it sure is a panacea for many of them - the nuclear issue, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq, Sudan, and Bahrain are at the top of the list. So what is Obama doing to support a revolution? The regime is in deep trouble economically from a combination of Bush sanctions, massive corruption and Ahemdinejad economic mismanagement. A large portion of the population want to see the theocrats out. So why are we not seeking deep international sanctions on the regime in an attempt to push it over the brink?

Four, what in the history of the Iranian theocracy leads Obama to believe that they will respond to restraint and gestures of good will? Iran negotiated directly with us over Iraq - all the while they were killing our soldiers and attempting to Lebanize the country. Indeed, there is nothing in the theocracy's thirty bloody years of existence to suggest that they negotiate in good faith or that they have any intention of altering their behavior, particularly towards us. In a post the other day, Michael Ledeen said:

For those who wish to think clearly about Iran, there are two fundamental facts:

* the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been at war with us ever since the overthrow of the shah in early 1979;

* the savagery they have unleashed on the people of Iran is precisely what they want to do to us.

There is a third fundamental fact that Ledeen has previously mentioned.

"Iranian resources are largely devoted to the cause of jihad, not to Iran per se. If Iran goes down the drain, but a new caliphate is created, first in the region and then globally, that’s success by their standards.

In other words, the primary motivator of Iran's theocracy is to spread the Khomeinist revolution. Everyone from Khomeini to Khameini to Ahmedinejad has been absolutely clear on this point. And they see no moral constraints on their actions to achieve their goal. Sec. of Def. Gates summed it up perfectly when he said last year that "everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or cost in the blood of innocents - Christians, Jews and Muslims alike." This is a regime with no morality and no conscience, just blind ambition to retain power and to spread itself throughout the world like a cancer. They resemble no nation so much as Nazi Germany in the mid-1930's. And in relation to their prime motivators, failing to impose sanctions will have zero impact on the Iranian regime's behavior. It does nothing to threaten their hold on power, nor their ability to spread their revolution.

Five, what in the history of negotiations on the nuclear issue with the EU-3 or like groups suggests to the Obama administration the unilateral talks will have the slightest impact on Iranian behavior? Indeed, the last such meeting, in July 2008, ended with Iran refusing to talk about the nuclear issue and, instead, making a proposal for a format for an "open-ended, cost-free, high-level negotiating process" that, said one of the European negotiators, “would take a minimum of several years” if implemented.

Six, what makes Obama think that Iran will not act offended and blame the world for their internal dissent wholly irrespective of the the U.S. and Europe do? That is precisely what the theocracy is doing today. That is why Mousavi is being called an agent of the U.S., with calls for his "arrest for treason" in the theocracy's major newspaper. It is why Khameini in his Friday sermon blamed the unrest on the UK, the US and Israel. It is why workers for the British embassy now languish in Iranian prison, awaiting a kangaroo court.

Seven, and lastly, what does Obama think that he can possibly offer Iran to make it change its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Iran has rejected the entire panoply of carrots the West could offer. The only reason the theocracy might cut a deal now would be if whatever Obama proffered would help the theocracy retain power. In other words, unless Obama is prepared not merely to ignore the brutalized people of Iran, but actively connive in their repression, going forward with unilateral or bilateral talks and refraining from imposing sanctions make no sense.

It would be hard to imagine a more counterproductive foreign policy than that carried out to date by Team Obama. I can recall no President, even Jimmy Carter, being close to this bad. And I am willing to bet we are only seeing the half of it. We know Obama has cut all funding for promotion of democracy in Iran from next year's budget. Anyone want to bet that the CIA and the rest of our covert operators are being instructed to do nothing to support the unrest in Iran? Obama is not merely a weak President, he is a dangerous one.

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Iran Buys Time, Obama Votes Present, Iraq's Status Is Recognized

The Mad Mullahs of Iran's theocracy now have some real problems. The perception of a stolen election has clearly animated what was, previously, an apathetic and beaten down populace. And the challenge of the populace is not merely to the election results - it is now to the legitimacy of the unelected theocracy itself. There has been another large protest today, even though the regime outlawed it. In a clear effort to buy time, Supreme Guide Khamenei has opted to acquisce to Mousavi's request to review the election for fraud. Obama, true to his word of not attempting to impose the evils of democracy on any nation, has opted to stay silent on the revolt. And finally, Tom Friedman and Victor Davis Hanson make points that I have been making for years: Iraq is of critical importance as a nascent democracy bordering Iran and in the heart of the Middle East.

This from the NYT on the latest developments in Iran:

The Iranian opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, appeared publicly on Monday for the first time in more than two days to call for calm as state media repeatedly broadcast a report that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had called for a high-level inquiry into accusations of election irregularities.

But more than half a million protesters massed in the streets of Tehran to renew the challenge to the outcome of the vote, and demonstrations were reported in other cities as well, despite the continued blocking of text-messaging services and disruption of Web sites and some cell phone networks.

News from the rest of Iran is not forthcoming, but given that every major city was home to large protests on Sunday, it would be surprising if what is happening in Tehran is not being repeated throughout the country. And it will be interesting to see how much control Mousavi can exert over those who have taken to his banner. As several commentors have noted, the challenge being posed by this revolt is not just to the election, but to the legitimacy of the unelected theocratic regime itself. Whether Khameini's decision to allow an investigation into Mousavi's allegations of fraud over the next ten days will succeed in diffusing this explosive situation is an open question.

ABC News is reporting on the radio as I draft this post that police have opened fire on demonstrators in Tehran and that at least one person is dead. If true, this is a substanial move along the continum from protest to open revolt.

Update: Gateway Pundit is following this through Twitter. There are fights going on throughout Iran and 15 people are reported dead.

This situation is at a point where Obama should be showing moral support for those people now risking life and limb in opposition to the regime. Obama should be speaking to the importance and need for real democracy. Yet Obama is silent. His record shows a preference for voting "present" in response to tough issues, and it appears that is what he is doing now. Indeed, he seems more concerned about what this will mean for his unconditional talks with Ahmedinejad than about supporting democracy and regime change in Iran.

The entire history of Iran's theocracy tells us that, unless we are prepared to use or threaten force, we are not going to move the mad mullahs off their determined path towards, one, a nuclear weapon, and two, the spread of their Khomeinist Revolution. There is only one other answer, and that is regime change in Iran. Iran's regime is not supported by the citizenry. There could be no clearer evidence of that then this stolen election and the blood now being spilled in the streets because of it. True, Obama does not and should not speak out in favor of Mousavi as that would be all the excuse the theocracy needs to justify its brutal repression. But Obama should be speaking out about the need for Iran to both hold free and fair elections and to honor the will of the people, not to repress them. He should be speaking words of concern about the integrity of voting process. Instead, not only has Obama been silent, but worse, he has indicated he will go ahead with unconditional talks irrespective of the ongoing revolt. That sends precisely the wrong message to both the theocracy and the citizens suffering under that theocracy.

The WSJ has weighed in on this also:

Having shown such courage, the demonstrators deserve Western support, not least from the media that have recently trumpeted the Mousavi candidacy as evidence of Iran's openness and potential for reform, conciliation and so on. Whatever happens in the days ahead, the world has now seen the tyranny raw. The least we owe the protestors is not to look away.

That moral obligation goes especially for the Obama Administration. President Obama came to office promising the world's dictators an open hand in exchange for an unclenched fist. But as with Kim Jong Il's nuclear advances and the sham trial of two Americans in North Korea, Mr. Khamenei has repudiated the President's diplomacy of friendly overture. It turns out that the "axis of evil" really is evil -- and not, as liberal sages would have it, merely misunderstood.

The vote should prompt Mr. Obama to rethink his pursuit of a grand nuclear bargain with Iran, though early indications suggest he plans to try anyway. On Saturday, the New York Times quoted one unnamed senior Administration official to the effect that the election uproar would cause Mr. Ahmadinejad to be more receptive to Mr. Obama's overtures as a sop to disgruntled public opinion. If the Administration really believes this, then Mr. Obama is the second coming of Jimmy Carter and the mullahs will play him for time to get their bomb. . . .

Mr. Obama has the opportunity to lend the protestors the considerable weight of U.S. moral support, just as he has the opportunity to show the regime there are consequences for stealing elections. One such consequence would be for the President to remove his opposition to various bills in Congress, sponsored by Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and others, that sanction companies that sell gasoline to Iran. An estimated 40% of Iran's domestic gasoline consumption comes from foreign sources.

In Iran today, a sham election has been met with an open revolt. This takes great courage. The world's free nations need the courage to do better than respond with the sham policy of making nice with an illegitimate regime.

Lastly, I supported the Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2002 on the basis that it held the promise of creating an Arab Shia democracy in the Middle East and on the border of Iran. I have always thought that nothing could be more important in the long term to counter radicalism throughout the Middle East and, in particular, in Iran. And indeed, as I've pointed out repeatedly, Iraq poses a mortal threat to Iran. It does so because it has a rough but real democracy, it has a secular government, and it is honoring the millenia old Shia tradition of apolitical "quietism." Both Tom Friedman and Victor Davis Hanson have made similar points recently. This from Tom Friedman, commenting on the election in Lebanon:

There are a million things to hate about President Bush’s costly and wrenching wars. But the fact is, in ousting Saddam in Iraq in 2003 and mobilizing the U.N. to push Syria out of Lebanon in 2005, he opened space for real democratic politics that had not existed in Iraq or Lebanon for decades. “Bush had a simple idea, that the Arabs could be democratic, and at that particular moment simple ideas were what was needed, even if he was disingenuous,” said Michael Young, the opinion editor of The Beirut Daily Star.

What, if anything, was "disingnuous" about Bush's idea or why Friedman felt the need to include that attack on Bush is not apparent. This ad hominem attack is nothing more than the ridiulous, knee-jerk need of the left to delegitimize Bush whenever his memory is invoked. But to continue from Friedman:

“It was bolstered by the presence of a U.S. Army in the center of the Middle East. It created a sense that change was possible, that things did not always have to be as they were.”

When I reported from Beirut in the 1970s and 1980s, I covered coups and wars. I never once stayed up late waiting for an election result. . . .

Lebanese, by contrast, just waited up all night for their election results — no one knew what they’d be.

Third, the Bush team opened a hole in the wall of Arab autocracy but did a poor job following through. . .

That's gruding praise indeed. And from VDS:

Much of Iran wants what they see going on in Iraq. How odd that the ‘experts’ assured us that Bush had empowered Iran by removing his rival Saddam. Perhaps in the short term-but in the long term TV, radio, and osmosis from free Iraq is proving more destabilizing to the theocracy in Iran than are Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and shaped charged IEDs to Iraq.

I could not have said it beter, though I have said it often.

Prior Posts:

Heating Up In Iran
Tehran Is Burning; What Will The Iranian Army Do? (Updated)
The Mad Mullah's Man Wins Again - For Now
The Next Moves In An Existential Chess Match (Background On Iran)

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Obama's Cairo Address: What We Needed, What We Got

I held high hopes for President Obama and his speech from Cairo to the Muslim world. With his Islamic background, President Obama was uniquely positioned to effectively speak some hard truths to the Muslim world. He was uniquely qualified to use the bully pulpit to call for much needed reforms in Islam. And he was uniquely qualified to educate both the Islamic world and the rest of us on the reality at the heart of Muslim violence. My hope was that he would find a way to do those things without being insulting and while expressing an optimistic vision of what was possible.

That is not what President Obama did. He did not merely fail to accomplish what was needed in his speech, but in many ways, he damaged our interests. Indeed, for what good he did with his strong statement on our "unbreakable" bonds with Israel and his mention of women's rights, his pronouncements and omissions on virtually all other critical issues can only serve to make matters worse.

Obama at one point said that “we must face the hard issues.” The reality is that his speech was a study in ignoring those issues, or worse, being less than honest about them. He also made repeated, unforgivable statements of moral equivalency that have the effect of allowing guilty parties to excuse their own misconduct and make any needed change in their conduct less likely. Making such statements of moral equivalency - for example, equating the plight of the Palestinians to the holocaust or equating the mistreatment of women in Muslim society with the problems women face in American society - is counterproductive and appears as weakness.

To be more specific, below are brief summaries of the salient points from my more detailed posts on each issue:

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Where Obama needed to speak the hard truth to the Muslim world about the nature of its problems, he instead merely restated the excuses for those problems common throughout the Muslim world - that modernity is incompatible with Islam and that the causes of the backwardness of Islamic states are external.

Where Obama needed to encourage Muslims to take responsibility for the state of their nations and the evolution of their religion, he was silent.

Where Obama needed to defend freedom of speech and encourage critical thinking about Islam in the Muslim world, he said not a word.

Part 1 - Obama's Cairo Address: Hiding From The Existential Problems Of The Muslim World

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Where Obama needed to promote democracy throughout the Middle East, he instead mouthed the words of multiculturalism and moral equivalence, announcing that the U.S. did not have the moral authority to impose governmental structures on others, marking a return to the failed 'real politik' policies of the past.

Where Obama needed to use Iraq as an example of what was possible in terms of democracy, freedom of speech, and equality, he instead spoke of it as an embarresment and a wrong to be quickly forgotten.

Where Obama needed to announce that he would protect Iraq's nascent democracy, Obama instead announced proudly that he will leave Iraq to its own devices – and ultimately, to the predations of its voracious neighbor.

Part 2 - Obama's Cairo Address: A Walk Back From Democracy & Iraq

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Where Obama needed to address women's rights robustly, he did so tepidly.

Where Obama needed to honestly address the subjugation of women in the Middle East and the violence directed towards them, he instead ridiculously equated their plight with that of women in the West.

Where Obama needed to discuss and condemn the institutionalized subjugation of women by Sharia law, Obama was silent.

Where Obama needed to use the bully pulpit to condemn honor violence for the evil that it is, Obama said not a word.

Part 3 - Obama's Cairo Address: Obama Calls For Women's Rights While Glossing Over Discrimination & Violence

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Where Obama needed to take a bold stand against nuclear proliferation, Obama mouthed the suicidally inane argument that no nation should dictate which other nations may or may not acquire nuclear weapons.

Where Obama needed to speak to the Muslim world about the dangers of Iran's nuclear weapons program and the need for concerted effort, instead Obama spoke about the utter fantasy of a world without nuclear weapons.

Where Obama need to condemn Iran's endless acts of terrorism and their deadly meddling in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain and Azerbaijan, Obama instead announced a moral equivalence between the single act of the U.S. to engineer a coup against the unelected Iranian PM Mohammed Mosaddeq over half a century ago and the mountain of evil acts and the oceans of blood accumulated by Iran's theocrats since 1979.

Part 4 - Obama's Cairo Address: Nukes, Iran & Weakness Writ Large

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Where Obama needed to make a strong and clear statement of our support for Israel, he did.

Where Obama needed to call on Hamas to end violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist, he did.

Where Obama needed to hold the Palestinians responsible for building a functional society, he instead blamed Israel for their current state and detestably gave moral equivalence to the plight of Palestinians with the holocaust.

Where Obama should have been pointing out the ramifications of the fact that Palestinians inside Israel enjoy a far higher quality of life than anywhere else in the Middle East, he instead stayed silent on the ill treatment and manipulation of Palestinians by all of the other Middle East countries.

Where Obama needed to make a clear statement that the “plans for peace” put forth by the Arabs are ill disguised roadmaps to the destruction of Israel, he instead identified Israeli settlements as being the major roadblock to peace.

Where Obama needed to quash once and for all the canard of a “right of return” and call upon all Middle East countries to allow Palestinians to integrate into the countries in which they now live, he was silent.

Part 5 - Obama's Cairo Address: Israel & Palestine – A Little Good, A Lot Of Outrageousness

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Where Obama needed to be honest with Islam and the world about the intolerance of Islam and condemn in no uncertain terms the practice of harming or killing any who convert from the Muslim faith, Obama ignored this while claiming Islam had a history of "tolerance."

Where Obama should have condemned in no uncertain terms the Salafi dogma taught around the world that it is permissible for a Muslim to slaughter those of other religions and to plunder their possessions, Obama was silent.

Where Obama should have spoken against the practice in Pakistan of using charges of blasphemy against the Prophet to justify the disenfranchisement of Christians and theft of their lands, Obama said not a word.

Where Obama should have chastised Algeria for jailing Christians for practicing their religion, he was silent.

Where Obama should have railed against Turkey for their refusal to allow any churches to be built, he instead ignored it.

Where Obama should have condemned the systematic persecution of Christians by Palestinian Muslims in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, his silence was deafening.

Where Obama should have pointed out that non-Muslims of whatever stripe are treated as second class citizens in all Muslim countries, he was silent.

Part 6 - Obama's Cairo Address: Islam's Tradition Of Religious Tolerance?

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Where Obama should have been honest about our history with the Islamic world, Obama gave a completely false picture of the nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Islam from the earliest days of our country.

Where Obama pointed out that Morocco was the first country to recognize America, he failed to mention that the recognition came as part of a deal that saw America pay a huge sum of money to ransom a U.S. merchant ship and crew that Morocco had pirated, Obama delibertely gave a false impression by neglecting to mention that detail.

Where Obama should have pointed out that the same philosophy used by the Barbary Pirates to justify war against America, that it is “the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave” non-Muslims, is in fact being taught still today in Saudi Salafi schools and madrassas throughout the world, Obama stayed silent.

Part 7 - Obama's Cairo Address: The Dangerous Whitewashing Of History

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Obama's speech in Cairo was a golden opportunity for our nation, the Muslim World, and the world as a whole. We bear no inherent animus towards Islam. And indeed, our world would be a better and richer one with good and peaceful relationships between Islam and other religions, between the Middle East and the U.S. But there are enough dysfunctional aspects of Islam today that such an eventuality will never be possible unless changes happen. Obama had a chance to be open and honest about all of this in Cairo. He failed. He failed us, and he failed his audience in the Muslim world.

Update: In my points above, I failed to note that Obama needed to also address the mistreatment/execution of gays. Unfortunately, as Gay Patriot points out, not only was Obama silent on that point, but so have been all the left-wing gay groups in the U.S.

Summary - Obama's Cairo Address: What We Needed, What We Got
Part 1 - Obama's Cairo Address: Hiding From The Existential Problems Of The Muslim World
Part 2 - Obama's Cairo Address: A Walk Back From Democracy & Iraq
Part 3 - Obama's Cairo Address: Obama Calls For Women's Rights While Glossing Over Discrimination & Violence
Part 4 - Obama's Cairo Address: Nukes, Iran & Weakness Writ Large
Part 5 - Obama's Cairo Address: Israel & Palestine – A Little Good, A Lot Of Outrageousness
Part 6 - Obama's Cairo Address: Islam's Tradition Of Religious Tolerance?
Part 7 - Obama's Cairo Address: The Dangerous Whitewashing Of History

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