Israel Matzav

How Obama convinced the Mullahs to steal the election

Despite its total lack of support for the Iranian demonstrators, the Obama administration and the doting American mainstream media would like us to believe that the President's pronouncements about 'hope and change' have somehow inspired what's going on in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities. In The Corner, Bill Siegel argues that Obama didn't inspire what's going on in the streets of Iran, but he may have inspired the Mullahs to believe that they could steal the election.

Prior to his speech in Cairo, Obama made clear that his policy was to eschew meaningful action to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions unless and until Israel complied with Obama’s approach on Palestinian issues. This sent a clear message to the regime in Iran: Obama had prepared an excuse for himself if Iran should become nuclear power — a variation on the traditional Arab-Muslim strategy of blaming the Jews.

During his Cairo speech, Obama also continued his “Apology Tour” approach to American foreign policy, which attempts to win favor abroad by positing that the U.S. is at least as bad as, if not worse than, other nations. The mullahs were again the beneficiary: “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” Obama said, referring to the CIA’s role in the 1953 deposing of Iranian prime minister Muhammad Moussadeq. [Preposterously, this statement was set against the 30 years of terror that the Islamic Republic has inflicted on the Unites States, Israel, and the West.] Most Iranians are too young to remember Moussadeq, of course. Obama was talking directly to the regime, making clear that he does not favor efforts to oust foreign leaders.

Given the conventional belief that military strikes against Iran’s nuclear assets will produce minimal success and possibly drastic retaliation, America’s only alternative in preventing a nuclear Iran seems to lie in working with the greatly pro-American population to bring down the regime. On its face, then, the Cairo statement gives Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reassurance that Obama will not engage in such an effort.

Obama’s Cairo speech had one last bit of aid and comfort for the nuclear-minded mullahs: “No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. . . . And any nation, including Iran, should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:48 AM