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Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb, Iran!
I’m trying to figure this one, not from the American position but rather the Iranian one. Iran is after all a superpower: it projects force and will overseas and nobody questions this. Anyway, Iran needs The Big O. It needs him to be powerful, because in that position he will give it whatever it wants. But it needs him not to want popularity, because then he might try to gain this by…not giving Iran whatever it wants. (Maybe even hurting it, but it is impossible, flat-out impossible to imagine anyone in Islamistan counting the cost. Hurt? What’s that?) My guess? O likes power, as long as he doesn’t have to get up early in the morning to do anything with it, and assumes popularity comes naturally to him, and anyway he still is the President, so why work for it? Therefore he will NOT bomb Iran.
Leaving aside the fact that Obama is, constitutionally, against such a move, it’s actually not a political winner for the following reasons: a) It’s an economy killer in the short-term–high gas prices, uncertainty, plunging stocks b) The Dem base may resent it (and at this point, that’s all Obama’s got) c) It would undermine his Israeli/Palistinian peace initiative in the short-term, which itself is politically timed d) It would undermine his crafted image as a “war ender” (see his Iraq “Turn the Page” speech) e) It would be one more anxiety-inducer in a high-anxiety time.
In short, it would add to the narrative of chaos and uncertainty in the Age of Obama. Not what he needs.
Right you are, fear I.
In short, it would add to the narrative of chaos and uncertainty in the Age of Obama. Not what he needs. ·Sep 10 at 4:08pm
Alas, all too true.
I have to admit, as conspiracy theory-ish as this sounds, when I heard about Obama saying the Iraq war was over, I thought it might be a coy strategy hatched up with the CIA to leave a power gap that Iran would certainly try to fill quite openly, giving the US an easily justifiable reason to then swoop in on them. But I thought of it from the point of view of the military and the intelligence community planning a few moves in advance, not some fantastic decision by Obama himself.
Obama missed his chance to topple the Iranian theocracy a year ago when he failed to support the Green Revolution. A few words in support of the Iranian people might have been enough to embolden the opposition and frighten the mullahs into capitulation. (At the time I suggested putting US warplanes over Iran with the an explicit warning that any security units seen moving against the protesters would be bombed from the air.) Yet we heard not a peep from the most powerful man in the world.
I have to conclude that Obama doesn’t care about the fate of common citizens, not here or anywhere else. His sympathies seem to be with the tyrants: Honduras, Venezuela, and Iran. Of course, the tyrants now see him for the weak-kneed fool that he is. Obama can no longer even project the threat of force with any credibility.
As for the Iranian nuclear program, well that’s just a can to be kicked down the road. If Israel decides to strike, then at least Obama has a scapegoat. Of course, when the Strait of Hormuz is closed, it becomes a US problem. But Obama is not a strategic thinker.
Of all of George W. Bush’s many failings, this is the epic.
He promised he would not allow Iran to go nuclear and he failed to deliver.
I kept waiting, in the days after the 2008 election, for him to act.
Foolish me: apparently he felt that going all bellicose would tarnish his legacy. I can think of no other explanation.
Good show, if I say so myself, which I shouldn’t because it’s self-congratulation to a great extent. Now: can anyone in the White House think like this? I just don’t see any kind of chess-moves going on at 1600 PA these days. I believe ricochet.com has acquitted itself with flexibility and imagination but I do not see Chicago pols-writ-big acquitting themselves at all here. The business of foreign affairs bores them. They don’t get it. Another argument against bombing anybody or anything. Maybe they hope Navy snipers will save the day, sorta, kinda.
He promised he would not allow Iran to go nuclear and he failed to deliver.
I’m 90% in agreement. My 10% hope is that Iran’s nuclear program is, in reality, a bungled enterprise, and that we and the Israelis know it. My evidence? Nothing, other than the fact that the free world’s only true tough guy, Netanyahu, has also chosen not to take action (so far). Maybe he and Bush (and Obama) know something. Maybe.
I’ll take the other side:
The Nobel Committee awards Obama the Peace Prize. His response: Step up the war, a surge in Afghanistan, significant increases in drone strikes. So,…
Obama gets a peace conference going between Israel and the Palestinians; a nuke strike on Iran would be the perfect response for a man of his MO.
The guy is so utterly incompetent that attempting a reasoned calculation of what he might do is a fruitless enterprise.
Scott, ‘I’m 90% in agreement. My 10% hope is that Iran’s nuclear program is, in reality, a bungled enterprise, and that we and the Israelis know it.”
Pakistan has accomplished nuclearization. Lybia accomplished it. North Korea has accomplished it. Yet the Persians can’t? I hate to disagree, Scott, but I am guessing this is more wishful thinking than considered thought and I’m with you on that level.
My bet is that they have had a bomb of some sort for years, even if it is a dirty bomb. One positive result of Bush’s behavior after 9-11 is that Iran cannot be sure that we won’t go after them with molten glass fury if a dirty bomb goes off in the U.S. That is a good thing. And it is exactly why, no matter what The Sisters of Mercy say, we must maintain our nuclear capabilities to the maximum.
A topic as grave as this one demands some acknowledgment that attacking Iran will have grave consequences, just as it demands acknowledging that Iran getting a nuclear weapon will have grave consequences.
Looks like we’re halfway there.
Looks like we’re halfway there. ·Sep 11 at 2:30pm
Very true, Conor. We sometimes get too glib when advocating such an attack.
So now we’re all the way there: I do hereby acknowledge that our attacking Iran would be a nightmare–an awful, awful nightmare, as would an Israeli attack on Iran, as would an Iranian bomb.
Which is why we need to get good and serious about ranking these nightmares, because one must happen, and probably soon.
I think there is a lot of ‘frank’ and topical points mentioned here but I think it overlooks a basic tenet of the tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he’s a ‘charismatic’ domestic guy who is ‘bothered’ that the world is so troublesome and really wishes everyone would just get along so he could get on with his agenda. If it weren’t for his ‘handlers’ I don’t think he personally is strategically smart enough to figure out what the discussion herein and the ramifications are, or why they matter. He is a small minded man concerned with his intensely personal views and with his small minded social agenda. He has never postured a ‘large’ thought, they are all small petty American socialist grievances that he loves to highlight in his speeches and attest to their ‘ethnic’ purity, per his two personal accounts of his own life, the first ‘insight’ written with the wisdom of a man at 34. This is not a global leader so his position is ‘don’t rock MY boat… I apologized for us already… I have spoken.’
On the other hand Victor Davis Hansen is man of true historical insight…