Israel Matzav

Obama's October surprise?

If his poll numbers continue to be tepid into October, Obama will need a big distraction to take him through Election Day -- something that will have strong appeal beyond his swooning acolytes.

Military action against Iran would fill the bill. I'm not suggesting Obama will make the "gutsy call" to take out Tehran's nuclear facilities; anything that would overtly help Israel is probably off the table. Besides, I think he'd want to try a much softer action, one from which he could extricate himself easily when his purposes had been served.

One possibility would be to gin up a kerfuffle over, say, "threatening" actions by the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf, and mobilize our ships in the area to "protect the world's oil supply." Iran would bluster and threaten, but do little else, saving its apocalyptic chips for a bigger, nuclear play. Meanwhile, back at home, Obama would be portrayed as courageous and resolute, and his surrogates would remind voters that it's not prudent to change leaders in mid-crisis. Romney, as the candidate of the loyal opposition, will have to be at least tacitly supportive. And quiet.

After a few weeks, and post-11/6, Obama can declare the crisis to have eased, and unilaterally withdraw most of the ships. Then, Iran would bluster some more, claiming that America blinked first, and both sides would claim victory.

In the spirit of Obama's philosophy of never letting a crisis go to waste, he will have manufactured a crisis, benefited from it, and then defused it. Indeed, this scenario is totally in line with the down-and-dirty politics Obama and his crew have practiced for years.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Iranian nuclear threat, Mitt Romney

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:35 AM