Israel Matzav

Sanctions? What sanctions? Iran triples uranium production since Obama took office

Don't let the headlines about 'mixed results' and partial successes fool you. And don't let him blame Bush for this one as he is still doing with regard to just about everything. Here's the bottom line: Iran's rate of uranium enrichment has tripled since Barack Hussein Obama took office.

At the same time, the Obama White House has proven to be no more successful than its predecessors at halting Iran’s nuclear advance, the singular goal that has driven U.S. policy on Iran since the George H.W. Bush administration. Indeed, Iran’s rate of production of enriched uranium has nearly tripled since Obama took office, while hopes that the president can deliver a solution to the crisis have faded, even among his former admirers in Iran.
“This hand that was stretched out to us turned out to be covered in iron,” said Mousavian, the Iranian diplomat.
As Obama nears the end of his first term, the mixed results of his Iran policy have provided ammunition for supporters — who point to the president’s unparalleled success in uniting the world against a nuclear Iran — but also for his chief political rival, Republican Mitt Romney, who has pounded the White House for failing to halt Iran’s march to a nuclear-weapons capability and accused the president of abandoning Israel, the United States’ top ally in the region.

...

“The administration says, ‘Judge us by how effective our sanctions are,’ but that’s the wrong measure,” said Elliott Abrams, a former senior adviser on the Middle East to the George W. Bush administration and a frequent Obama critic. “The question is, how many more centrifuges does Iran have now, compared to where they were in 2009?”

One of the things this article (which is actually quite long) glosses over is the extent to which the administration had to be 'prodded' into taking action. In fact, Obama resisted sanctions every step of the way, convinced well into 2010 (at least) that his personal charm would be enough to stop the Iranians short of the goal line (and that's putting the most positive pro-Obama spin on it that I can think of). It should be obvious by now that Obama's charm is not enough and sanctions - without a credible military option that no one believes Obama is really going to undertake - aren't going to be enough either.

What could go wrong?

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:38 PM