Iran's building next-generation centrifuges and has just formalized the construction of 10 new nuclear sites. Those 10 new facilities were supposed to lock in their "isolation" according to the White House. Instead Obama will push back the so-called drop dead date for a third or fourth time. I don't think anyone's under any illusions any more. This is what it is:
Obama has long proclaimed a Dec. 31 deadline for cooperation or retaliation of some unspecified kind. But Iran and, before it, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, has confidently counted on years of international dithering on enforcing printed sanctions. So naturally on ABC's "This Week" this week, George Stephanopoulos asked Obama adviser and ex-newspaper reporter David Axelrod about the approaching Obama deadline. Axelrod started to say something about talking but checked himself and spoke instead of "consequences." But, as often occurs in diplomatic-speak -- and politics-speak too, come to think of it -- it's what you don't say that's often more important than what you do utter. Axelrod declined to reiterate the Dec. 31 date. Now you might think that Iran officially settled on confrontation months ago when Mottaki confirmed the "no" that had been coming from every Iranian lawmaker. Certainly his his followup - "we'll only accept the kind of swap where we don't have to really swap anything" - was seen as a diplomatic non-starter.
But what you don't understand is that Iran has actually been very secretly demonstrating a clear willingness to negotiate. Here's how it probably went down. First Iran decided to export their radical ideology and expand their sphere of influence by broadly and continuously supporting a Shiite insurgency in Yemen. Then we gave them a super-secret signal that we would look the other way by having a State Department Undersecretary announce at a conference that we don't think they're involved. Then Iran didn't do something that our experts retroactively decided they had been planning to do, which was a covert signal back from the mullahs that they were interested in negotiations.
Or maybe it happened differently. Maybe the signal was our continued inaction in response to Iran's bloody interference in Iraq. We didn't do anything. Then they invaded Iraqi territory. Then we still didn't do anything. Now they're staying on Iraqi territory. And that's a sign that they're open to low-level confidence building measures. Because why else would they grab territory except as a setup for making concessions during negotiations?
And if that sounds moronic on any number of levels - how did the Iranians know those were signals, if they did know why aren't they reciprocating, if we're really giving them northern Yemen isn't it the literal historical definition of appeasement - it's only because you're not sophisticated enough to understand. The group of people advising Obama about Iranian intentions - they're sophisticated enough. Why can't you be more like them?
Listen. There's going to be a war in the Middle East. Barring a Green Revolution, sooner or later of course there's going to be a war in the Middle East. And the Iran Lobbyists who surround Obama - the ones who are manufacturing excuses about Iranian political disorganization so they can compensate for decades and decades of flawed policy analysis - they'll have bought Iran the time to build its arsenal, until today it can very likely plunge the region into nuclear war.
They've slid effortlessly between "we should engage because Iran will reciprocate" to "we should engage because Iran won't reciprocate and that'll get Russia and China on board for sanctions." They've spent a decade making up one pretext after another about why Iran won't or can't build nukes - political will, contaminated uranium, primitive centrifuges - which coalesced into the quasi-putsch that was the 2007 NIE. Each and every one of their predictions and prognoses and prescriptions has turned out disastrously wrong.
And the morning after Iran tests, they'll be telling us that we never could have done anything anyway.
References:
* Iran producing new generations of centrifuges: official [Xinhua]
* Iran names project manager for 10 new nuclear sites [Press TV]
* Iran's nuclear plans a sign of isloation -W.House
* Obama aide Axelrod fudges Dec. 31 deadline for Iran on nuclear weapons [LAT]
* Minister Says Iran Won't Ship Uranium Abroad [NYT]
* Iran agrees to nuclear fuel swap, with caveats [AP]
* Clenched Against Yemen, Funding And Inciting Civil War [IIFSC]
* Clenched Against Yemen [IIFSC]
* U.S. says has no evidence Iran backs Yemen rebels [Reuters]
* 'Subversive' Iran accused of undermining Iraq and causing deaths [Guardian]
* Clenched Against Iraq, Still On Iraqi Territory [IIFSC]
* The "Iran Lobby" Moves Into The White House [MR]
* Obama: We're Giving Iran More Time Because Of Their "Unsettled Political Situation" [MR]
* Smug Liberal Sophistication Untroubled By Undeniable Evidence That Hardliners Are Winning In Iran [MR]
* Liberal Foreign Policy Experts: This Ahmadinejad Reelection Was Just So Unpredictable! [MR]
* Obama DOD: Iran's New More Accurate Solid Fuel Missile Is No Big Deal (Plus: Developing An H-Bomb?) [MR]
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http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=515432
Dither, Then Duck!
Posted 12/15/2009 07:28 PM ET
Iran: Our policy against a regime of would-be nuclear terrorists has degenerated into "duck and cover" atomic attack scenarios, as the secretary of state admits diplomatic failure. Welcome to Appeasement, U.S.A.
The U.S. government's attitude about Iran's obvious nuclear ambitions is getting so weirdly enmeshed in double-think, you can almost hear the twangy strains of "The Twilight Zone" theme.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency on Monday announced an upcoming simulation of an Iranian nuclear attack. Costing about $150 million, an anti-missile missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California will be aimed at a mock-Iranian missile fired from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. Previous exercises have assumed North Korea as the aggressor, with a warhead taking longer to reach its U.S. target.
In Las Vegas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is planning a simulated nuclear detonation for May involving 10,000 federal, state and local emergency personnel. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., with a tough re-election fight looming, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano of his "strenuous objections" to the drill. Seems the city's business and tourism figures are worried about it causing "undue anxiety."
Here we are preparing for Death From Above courtesy of the ayatollahs, presumably rehearsing the handing out of anti-radiation poisoning pills to those lucky enough to survive the blast.
Meanwhile, after nearly a year of "tough diplomacy," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday admits to reporters that "I don't think that anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of a positive response from the Iranians."
That may not reach the naivete of Jimmy Carter's "I can't believe he lied to me" after Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev invaded Afghanistan 30 years ago this Christmas eve. But just what did Hillary really expect?
This is the woman who ran TV commercials last year warning that Barack Obama couldn't handle a 3 a.m. phone call and make a snap decision about an international crisis. Now, putting their heads together, it takes nearly a year for both of them to start figuring out Tehran really is going nuclear, carrots and sticks be damned .
If Secretary Clinton really believes "outreach" has failed, and if she believes her own statements about the dangers of a nuclear Iran, then why isn't the former first lady thinking about resigning instead of continuing to preside over a failed policy based on fundamentally flawed assumptions?
As former secretary of state, she could contact some of those old leftist friends of hers who used to make so much fun of the fallout shelter drills for surviving a Soviet nuclear attack. Where are all those peaceniks today who used to say protecting against Russian ICBMs was a futile exercise in denial? Wasn't there only one good reason to "duck and cover" — to kiss your posterior goodbye?
When it comes to protecting Americans from Iranian nuclear attack, an ounce of preemptive force is worth a megaton of pointless diplomatic "outreach" — as Israeli bombers may demonstrate in the not-so-distant future.
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Obama wrote a personal letter to North Korea's Kim Jong Il
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 16, 2009; A11
President Obama has written a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il that was delivered by the administration's special envoy for North Korea during a visit to Pyongyang last week.
The existence of the letter has been closely held, with the administration insisting to its partners in disarmament talks with North Korea that it not be publicly discussed. State Department and White House officials confirmed this week that envoy Stephen W. Bosworth delivered a letter from Obama for Kim, but they declined to describe its contents.
"We do not comment on private diplomatic correspondence," said White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer.
Bosworth artfully evaded reporters' queries about the letter in Seoul last week, after he left North Korea. Asked whether he had brought a letter, he sidestepped the question, saying: "As for a message to the North Koreans from President Obama, in effect, I am the message." Reporters in Asia then reported that he had denied he had carried a letter.
It is relatively unusual for an American president to send the North Korean dictator a personal communication so early in his term. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush eventually sent letters to Kim, but only after extensive diplomatic efforts to restrain North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Efforts early in Bush's term to send a letter were stymied by an intense debate over whether to use an honorific such as "his excellency" to address Kim.
The Obama administration has insisted that North Korea return to six-nation talks on its nuclear program, saying the United States will not lift sanctions or offer other benefits to persuade North Korea to simply begin talking again. Pyongyang has not committed to return to the negotiations, but its propaganda organ, the Korean Central News Agency, reported positively on Bosworth's visit, perhaps reflecting the impact of Obama's personal missive. "Through working and frank discussion, the two sides deepened the mutual understanding, narrowed their differences and found not a few common points," the KCNA said.
A treaty that would recognize North Korea's sovereignty -- and normalize relations with the United States -- has long been an important objective of the government in Pyongyang. U.S. presidents often have dangled the prospect of a deal if North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons.
When Bush wrote Kim in December 2007, he said normalized relations were possible if North Korea submitted a declaration on its nuclear programs that was "complete and accurate."
Clinton wrote to Kim in October 1994 after a landmark deal under which North Korea would freeze its nuclear programs in exchange for energy aid. On its Web site, the KCNA still lists the receipt of the letter as one of the major events in a chronology of Kim's life.
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