Israel Matzav

How the Iranians called Obama's bluff

Judith Apter Klinghoffer chronicles how President Obumbler outsmarted himself by dictating the conditions for a deal with Iran (without taking into account the passage of time and the concomitant additional enrichment of uranium since parts of the deal were discussed last October) and then rejecting the deal within 24 hours after Iran had agreed to it. Obama thus managed to alienate Turkey and Brazil. Turkey has gone on to take out its anger at Obama on Israel for reasons that Klinghoffer explains.

Obama's foreign policy failures are obvious to all. Robert Gates absurdly blames the EU for the loss of Turkey. James Rubin uses the hollow reed of international public opinion to declare Obama a foreign policy success and not the failure the recent Security Council vote on Iran sanctions revealed it to be. For contrary to Rubin's assertion, Iran is less isolated in the age of Barack Obama than it has been in the Age of George W. Bush and the culprit is none other than Barack Obama. Why? Because our arrogant president made Lula and Erdogan look like gullible fools when he used them in his failed bet on Iranian intransigence.

Since the 2008 economic collapse the developing world including Brazil and Turkey have feted as the powers of the future. Unsurprisingly, they decided to try their new wings in the diplomatic arena. They will show the world that they can solve a problem called Iran. Treading carefully, they checked with Barack Obama personally. The president decided that the best way to secure the Turkish and Brazilian support is to show them how reasonable he can be and how unreasonable Ahmadinejad is. To do so presented the two leaders with a list of American conditions that were by no means sufficient to prevent Iran from continuing its progress towards acquiring a nuclear bomb.

Agreeing to those conditions enabled Iran to create illusion of progress in the nuclear negotiations and to provide Turkey and Brazil with the craved diplomatic success. In other words, the Iranians called Obama's bluff. Obama had no choice but to reject the deal and infuriate two ambitious Third World leaders.

Continue reading here.

Other than Iran and Hamas, can anyone name a foreign power that's happy with Obama?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:16 PM