Man With A Self Appointed Gift!
Novice Ruling by Self Confidence!
The Great Washington Total Farce!
A Sad Story Of A Young Novice Intellectual,
Trying to Change a World by Fair Speeches,
Generated by A Fantastic Unlimited Self Ego!
It Is Time His Followers Face An Unpleasant Truth,
The Democrats Elected A First Term Novice Senator
With Lots of Charisma To Be President Of Americans!
They Elected a Man Who does not have a Clue what He’s Doing,
It Seems Everything He does is as if He is Testing to See if it Works!
These Two Excerpts from the Jerusalem Post Hit The Nail On The Head!
January 27, 2010
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Begin Excerpt 1 from THE JERUSALEM POST
The Region: F for failure
January 24, 2010
Barry Rubin , THE JERUSALEM POST
We must now face an extremely unpleasant truth: Even giving the Obama administration every possible break regarding its Iran policy, it is now clear that the US government isn’t going to take strong action on the nuclear weapons issue. Note that I didn’t even say “effective” action. I’m saying that it isn’t even going to make a good show of trying seriously to do anything.
Some say that the administration has secretly or implicitly accepted the idea that Iran will get nuclear weapons and is now seeking some longer-term containment policy. I doubt that has happened. It is just not even this close to reality.
From its behavior, it still seems to expect, incredibly, that some kind of deal is possible with Teheran despite everything that has happened. Then, too, it may hope that the opposition – unaided by America – will overthrow the Iranian government and thus solve the problem. And it is too fixated on short-term games about seeking consensus among other powers; two of them – China and Russia – are clearly not going to agree to anything serious.
This fact was clear many months ago, but the administration still doesn’t recognize it.
Not only is the Obama administration failing the test but it is doing so in a way that seems to maximize the loss of US credibility in the region and the world.
A lot of this comes from the administration’s philosophy of unprecedented concepts of guilt, apology, defeatism and refusal to take leadership never seen before among past liberal Democratic governments from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton.
Yet the British, French and Germans are ready to get tough on Iran, yearning for leadership and not getting it.
All of this is watered down in media coverage, focused on day-to-day developments and swallowing many of the administration’s excuses plus its endlessly repeated rhetoric that action is on the way. When the history of this absurdly failed effort is written, the story will be a shocking one.
IT WAS totally predictable that the Iranian government would not make a deal. It was totally predictable that Russia and China weren’t going to go along with tougher sanctions.
It was totally predictable that a failure by the US to take the leadership on the matter and instead depend on consensus would lead to paralysis. And it is totally predictable that a bungled diplomatic effort will produce an even more aggressive Iranian policy along with crisis and violence.
First, the administration set a September deadline for instituting increased sanctions and then, instead of following a two-track strategy of engagement alongside pressure, postponed doing anything while in talks with Iran.
Second, it refused to take advantage of the regime’s international unpopularity and growing opposition demonstrations due to the alleged rigged June election for the presidency.
On the contrary, it assured the Iranian regime it would not do so.
Third, the administration set a December deadline should engagement fail, then refused to recognize it had failed and did nothing. It is the failure even to try to meet this time limit by implementing some credible action that has crossed the line, triggered the point of no return.
Fourth, the US government kept pretending that it was somehow convincing the Chinese and Russians to participate, while there was never any chance of this happening.
Indeed, this was clear from statements repeatedly made by leaders of both countries. Now, this duo has sabotaged the process without any cost inflicted by the US while making clear they will continue doing so.
Fifth, high-ranking US officials still speak of their continued eagerness to engage Iran and mention at least six months more of discussion efforts before anything is done about sanctions.
Sixth, the administration now defines sanctions as overwhelmingly focused on the Revolutionary Guards, who it cannot hurt economically, thus signaling to the Iranian regime that it will do nothing effective to hurt the country’s economy. This means that even if and when sanctions are increased, they will be toothless.
All of these steps tell Iran’s regime: full speed ahead on building nuclear weapons; repress your opponents brutally and the US will do nothing.
After these six failures, the US is now – in effect – resting. And that is the seventh failure. There are no signs that anything is changing in Washington.
To believe that the administration has learned anything, we would have to see the following: An angry US government which feels that Iran’s regime made it look foolish; a calculating administration that believes the American people want it to get tough and gain politically from being seen as decisive; a great power strategy that would make an example of Iran to show what happens to a bunch of repressive dictators who defy the US and spit on its friends and interests; and a diplomatically astute government that understands the uses of threats and pressure to force its opponent into a compromise.
There is not the slightest indication that the Obama administration holds any of these views.
On the contrary, without any apparent realization of the absurdity of the situation, high-ranking officials keep repeating in January 2010 as in January 2009 that, some day, the US might do something to put pressure on Iran. Perhaps those in the administration who do understand what’s wrong don’t have the influence to affect the policy being set in the White House.
This is going to be a case study of how failing to deal with a problem sooner, even if that requires some diplomatic confrontations, will lead to a much bigger and costlier conflict later involving military confrontations.
Begin Excerpt 2 from Jerusalem Post
How Obama undermines US allies
By Abraham Katsman
January 26, 2010
Obama has made his own personality and identity cornerstones
For those worried that US President Barack Obama is particularly antagonistic toward Israel, there’s good news and bad news: The good news is that Israel is hardly Obama’s obsession; the bad news is that his administration’s conduct toward it is consistent with its pattern of backing away from embattled American allies – a predictable byproduct of Obama’s approach to foreign policy through dictator outreach.
Obama, more than any recent president, has made his own personality and identity cornerstones of American diplomacy. He assumes his potent charm can bend America’ s adver
saries his way, that American history began anew on January 20, 2009 and that hostilities can be resolved through dialogue with him. His tactic of choice has been to visit a troubled region, apologize to the local authoritarians for America’s sinful pre-Obama history, disavow acts of previous administrations and suggest that he brings with him a diplomatic “reset-button.”
But there are dangerous repercussions to conducting such personality-focused foreign policy: By promoting his unique diplomatic touch as the key to rapprochement, any failure by Obama to harmonize hostile relationships indicates the insufficiency of his skills.
Accordingly, in practice, hostile governments have learned that Obama sets lofty diplomatic goals in public, but is willing to cut almost any deal to keep up appearances. He has made countless concessions and conciliatory gestures to Iran, the Arab world, China, Russia and Venezuela, vainly urging some demonstration of good faith in return. Yet time and again, seeing no downside, America’s adversaries simply pocket the concessions without reciprocating.
Refusing to concede any error, Obama has instead doubled his diplomatic bets, paying in the currency preferred by the hostile regimes: by jettisoning the interests of US allies who are thorns in their sides.
Obama has vocally criticized Israeli security policy, coerced a settlement freeze and put the status of established Jerusalem neighborhoods in question. Yet the Arab governments and Palestinian leadership keep moving the diplomatic goalposts, making no concessions, knowing he will only increase pressure on Israel to restart the “peace process.”
Obama’s one-sided pressure against Israel has earned him, according to a Jerusalem Post poll published in June, the assessment of only 6 percent of Jewish Israelis that his administration is pro-Israel.
But it’s not just Israel. In April he praised “the Czech Republic and Poland, [who] have been courageous in agreeing to host” a missile-defense system, promising deployment “as long as the threat from Iran persists.” By July, though the threat from Iran certainly persisted, Obama caved in to Russian objections, abandoning the missile-shield along with those courageous Czechs and Poles.
In Honduras, his administration backed the reinstatement of a power-usurping, Chavez-allied anti-American president in spite of the legal democratic process which had removed him.
In Iran, Obama still talks of engaging the mullahs and slowing down sanctions even as the theo-fascists thumb their noses, ramping up their nuclear capability and mowing down democratic protesters holding signs saying “Obama, are you with us or against us?”
From China, Obama had high hopes for progress on human rights and cooperation regarding Iran and North Korea. He got nothing, save for an ironic lecture on fiscal responsibility from the communist government.
Is there a threatened ally he has ever stood up for? If I were Taiwan, I’d be worried.
OBAMA TRULY believes in his special persuasive powers. “I have a gift,” he is famously reported to have said to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
During the campaign, the crux of his foreign policy was his eagerness to immediately meet the world’s most brutal dictators and enemies of America, without preconditions; he would personally make them less antagonistic. He wants to hold a Muslim summit, since “I have lived in a Muslim country” [as a schoolboy], “I know it is possible to reconcile Islam with modernity and respect for human rights and a rejection of violence.”
Well, that’s a relief.
Obama’s belief in his own powers was reinforced by a love-struck press. After his vaguely messianic campaign and inauguration, Newsweek’s Evan Thomas typified the mood, hyperventilating that Obama was “standing above the country… above the world. He’s sort of God.” But once president, reality intruded: The leaders of Russia, China and North Korea don’t believe in God. And the Islamist God is somewhat less warm and fuzzy than Barack Obama.
With nothing to show for his efforts, Obama’s continued belief in his ability to pacify adversaries by personal appeal is as delusional as it is dangerous. Nations don’t have personal friends; they have interests. And American interests are not advanced by presidential groveling, but by creating the right mix of carrots and sticks to induce desired behavior.
Obama’s willingness to sacrifice embattled allies
to appease hostile regimes ultimately weakens America. As Bernard Lewis has said: “A nation can make few mistakes worse than this: to be harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.”
Especially when that nation gets nothing in return.
The writer is an American attorney and political commentator currently living in Jerusalem
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