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PrintSeptember 11, 2009
Inexperience and Obama's latest Foibles
Obama’s lame response to the Iranian crackdown after the fraudulent election of Ahmadinejad to a second term of dictatorship was dubious at best. Many of us in the blogosphere questioned Obama’s failure to support the Iranian people who protested the illegitimacy of the election. We watched with horror as the innocent in Iran were either thrown in jail, tortured, or killed. When Obama subsequently supported Honduran President Zaleya, who was lawfully ousted through Constitutional process, I concluded that Obama’s foreign policy entailed intentionally supporting the world’s dictators at the expense of the free will of an electorate.
However, David Ignatius, recently writing in the Washington Post, notes an interesting connection involving an apparent internal power struggle occurring in Iran between the Ahmadinejad regime and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and two letters that Obama sent to Khamenei within the past several months:
“One Iranian political figure has told a Western intermediary that the Obama administration may have unwittingly encouraged the regime's power grab by sending two letters to Khamenei before the June election. The first, delivered through Iran's mission to the United Nations, was a general invitation to dialogue. Khamenei is said to have taken a month to answer, and then only in vague terms. A second Obama administration letter reiterated U.S. interest in engagement. According to the Iranian political figure, this may have emboldened Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to think they had a free hand on June 12.”
Obama made it perfectly clear that he desired to reach out to the Iranian regime without preconditions (and he has since made it perfectly clear that he intends to reach out to every world dictator notwithstanding their violations of human rights, harboring of terrorists, or other aggressive policies dangerous to US interests). The consequences of such a policy may have already begun to play out in Iran. Perhaps because Obama’s letters drew little attention in the media or perhaps because voters were focused more on his ill-conceived plans to nationalize healthcare and further damage the economy, there has been a lack of recent attention to Obama’s foreign policy.
Yet as Iran inches closer toward achieving its goal as a nuclear power, we should be greatly concerned about the Obama administration’s naïve outreach to this dictatorship. On the heels of an ineffective response to the Iranian crackdown that may have been instigated with confidence of a wink and a nod from the administration, Obama has now decided that being the first African American President just isn’t enough for the history books. Obama will now become the first American President to sit as chair of the United Nations Security Council during the upcoming session later this month.
Prior to Obama stepping in as chair, the subject of the Security Council’s meeting was to focus on nuclear non-proliferation with regard to Iran and North Korea. Obama then decided to alter the agenda to focus on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament generally without regard to any particular nation. As Anne Bayefsky recognized in a blog at The Corner:
“Obama undoubtedly added ‘disarmament’ to his council moment to impress a non-American audience. He didn’t care that in UN circles it would be used to change the subject from preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons to disarming Israel and the United States.
Furthermore, on Monday the Iranian president said he has no intention of halting uranium enrichment or negotiating over his country’s nuclear ‘rights.’ With Obama running away from naming specific troublesome countries — at a summit of world leaders, at the Security Council, in the middle of New York City — why shouldn’t Ahmadinejad treat Americans as airheads who prefer photo ops too: ‘Nuclear proliferation — who, me?’”
Furthermore, on Monday the Iranian president said he has no intention of halting uranium enrichment or negotiating over his country’s nuclear ‘rights.’ With Obama running away from naming specific troublesome countries — at a summit of world leaders, at the Security Council, in the middle of New York City — why shouldn’t Ahmadinejad treat Americans as airheads who prefer photo ops too: ‘Nuclear proliferation — who, me?’”
Obama failed to consider that Libyan President Moammar Qaddafi, on the heels of embarrassing the West with his successful negotiation of the release of the Lockerbie bomber, might further embarrass Obama by upstaging him when they appear at the General Assembly. (As President of this year’s General Assembly, Qaddafi’s speech will follow Obama’s.) Bayefsky further notes:
“Obama’s idea for a summit meeting, which seemed like a harmless international diversionary tactic in the midst of a domestic mess, has the potential to become an image maker’s worst nightmare.”
The inexperience of Obama and his advisors becomes more evident day after day as they blunder their way through both domestic and foreign policy. While most youngsters are taught from an early age that their actions have consequences, the world is watching these neophytes learn on the job – and the grown-ups are taking advantage of the children running the show here in America.
