WTF?! Obama I thought you said .. [ Insert Obama Lie Here ]

The Obama Doctrine: Embracing Our Enemies…by John Allen

During the Presidential campaign Barack Obama repeatedly said that he would meet with our enemies without pre-conditions. The President recently announced that he would not only be willing to meet with Iran, but he will agree to continue to let them process Uranium during the negotiations. This is in contrast to President Bush, who maintained that Iran must stop enriching Uranium before any negotiations would take place (this is what we call a pre-condition). My colleague Jon VanderVeen did a great job of spelling out Obama’s overall approach to foreign policy and how it has weakened our country. I’m going to just address the Iran situation in this post.

Obama, who by all accounts (from liberal journalists) is a brilliant thinker, doesn’t seem to have given any thought to why previous administrations have not engaged our enemies at the Presidential level. Even Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden thought that Obama was dangerously naive when he proposed this during the campaign (this, of course, was before they were on Obama’s payroll). We don’t have these policies because we are a “downright mean country”, as Michelle Obama said last year. We have had them because previous Presidents were grown-ups who understood the real-world implications of Presidential level talks with dictators. Here are a few problems with Obama’s approach:

1) Obama has telegraphed his intentions.
Throughout the campaign Obama kept saying that it was a good idea to talk to our enemies without preconditions. He said this as a slam against George Bush’s “cowboy diplomacy” and made sure to let everyone know that he thinks this is a much more intelligent, sophisticated approach. Smart Power, as he likes to say.

But, in hyping up his new strategy he raised the stakes. When he negotiates with Iran (whether it’s Ahmadinejad or Khamenei) he is going to have to come home with something to show for it. Otherwise, it looks like his whole strategy and philosophy was a dismal failure. He will be under enormous pressure to get something from Iran. But guess who else knows this? Iran. They know how much Obama has invested in his negotiation strategy.

Now Obama is negotiating from a position of weakness, not strength. In order to have something to show for his negotiations, he’ll have to give up something. The question is: what is he willing to give Iran? Money, nuclear technology, betray Israel. Who knows?

Ahmadinejad (or Khamenei) is in a no-lose situation. He either extracts a high price from Obama to end his nuclear program, or he doesn’t give an inch. He gets to go back to Iran and brag about how he stared down the Great Satan. His stature in the region is enhanced. It’s best to conduct the negotiations at a lower level so that by the time you meet at the Presidential level the terms are pretty much settled. That way you don’t look like you got punked by a clown like Ahmadinejad.

And if Iran does agree to give up it’s nuclear program it will only be a few years until they announce to the world that they are re-starting it and we have to enter more negotiations. The message will have been sent to every two-bit dictator on the planet that the fastest way to prosperity is to start dabbling in nuclear weapons and let America buy you off.

2) Obama will be used as a propaganda tool.
The symbolic power of a meeting with the President of the United States is enormous. It confers legitimacy on the other party. This is a dangerous thing when you are dealing with people like Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez. They need legitimacy to crush any internal dissent. When Obama meets with Ahmadinejad, what is going to lead the newscasts and be on the front page of every newspaper in Iran? That’s right, a picture of Obama smiling and shaking hands with Ahmadinejad. It’s the same as Obama’s recent handshake and backslapping with Hugo Chavez.

The most important allies we have in battling these regimes are their own internal political dissidents. When they see the President of the United States yukking it up with their oppressors, they will say to themselves, “Why bother? We don’t stand a chance if he’s got America on his side.” Anybody who might have been willing to stick his neck out and oppose the regime will go underground, never to be heard from again.

In The Case For Democracy, Natan Sharansky (a former political dissident in the Soviet Union) describes just how powerful the President of the United States can be in either inspiring political dissidents or demoralizing them.

Obama often says that George Bush’s policies just created more enemies for America. Well, how many people in Cuba, Venezuela and (soon) Iran are going to lose their faith in America? How many people are going to feel betrayed by America, that supposed champion of liberty and human rights, for cozying up to their oppressors? Their faith in America won’t be easily restored.

3) Endless negotiations tie Israels hands.
As Charles Krauthammer has pointed out, it is in Iran’s best interest to drag out negotiations with the U.S. for as long as possible. Especially if they get to keep processing Uranium while they negotiate. As long as we are talking to Iran, there will be enormous international pressure on Israel to not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran can drag out the talks and try to run out the clock, keeping Israel on the sidelines until they have a functional nuclear weapon. Then it will be too late for Israel. Obama is tying Israel’s hands (and don’t think he doesn’t know it). But Israel, unlike us, can’t afford to just hope for the best. The survival of their country depends on Iran not getting nuclear weapons.

And if Israel does decide they can’t wait for endless negotiations and they decide to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, the criticism and condemnation will be overwhelming. “How dare you attack when America was in the middle of negotiating a peaceful resolution to this situation.” And, it gives Obama an excuse to not back Israel from any potential retaliation. He will claim they were the aggressors.

Obama’s strategy of insulting our allies, embracing our enemies and apologizing for our sins shows a weakness and an unwillingness to confront grave threats seriously. We need a President who will defend liberty, defend human rights and defend America. He shouldn’t have shaken hands with Chavez, he shouldn’t have accepted an anti-American book from him and he shouldn’t have just sat there when Daniel Ortega spent 50 minutes verbally attacking America. He should have given a robust defense of America and it’s past. A President who is too dense to realize he is being used as a propaganda tool and too timid to defend his own country is a dangerous President. Of course, it could be that the reason he didn’t object is because he actually agrees with them that America is the bad guy (20 years in Reverend Wright’s church might have that effect on a person).

And it looks like he is willing to repeat the spectacle with Iran. President Obama, just because you authorized the Navy Seals to kill a few Somali pirates doesn’t mean you aren’t weak on the large, strategic national security issues. Counting on your personal charm to turn evil men from evil pursuits is the height of arrogance. Or Naivete. I can’t decide which.