History abhors a vacuum
You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, President Obama told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and whoever else happened to be listening to his open mic, that he would be much more flexible about arms control if he is reelected. Jackson Diehl has a whole list of issues that Obama is similarly attempting to put off until after the election. These include North Korea, Iran, Syria and the 'Palestinians.' Diehl argues that if Obama tries to put issues off so as not to harm his reelection chances, others will step into the vacuum (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).That brings us to the weakness with Obama’s strategy: It hands control over events to the likes of 28-year-old Kim Jong Eun. Sure enough, the reprieve Obama thought he had purchased in north Asia expired after only 16 days, when North Korea announced the long-range rocket launch that took place early Friday. The agreement turned out to be a trap. Now that the Obama administration has withdrawn the promised food aid, the regime will have a cue to carry out the nuclear weapons test that many experts are now expecting.Obama would like some of these problems to go away, while he would rather push off others until he is better able to deal with them. In the former category, I would put North Korea, Iran and Syria, where I don't believe that Obama really cares about the outcome so long as it doesn't mess up his reelection chances. And in the latter category, I would put the Russians and the 'Palestinians,' both of whom stand to reap some serious benefits from - God forbid - a second Obama term.
In Syria, too, delay may prove disastrous. As the senior State Department official for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, told Congress on March 1, “it’s important that the tipping point for the regime be reached quickly, because the longer the regime assaults the Syrian people, the greater the chances of all-out war in a failed state.” Yet in the following six weeks Obama has been passive, delegating Syria to the feckless diplomatic hands of former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Some 1,000 more Syrians have been killed; last week’s “cease-fire” is crumbling. At this rate, the “all-out war” Feltman predicted will be underway long before November.
As for Iran, if Tehran accepts Obama’s bargain, the momentum the administration has managed to build up behind sanctions, and the resulting pressure on the Iranian economy, will be broken. If the regime then cheats, or refuses to negotiate a more lasting solution to its pursuit of nuclear technology, Obama will end his term with Iran closer to a an atomic bomb than it was in 2009.
And if Iran won’t agree, and the talks collapse? Then Obama’s effort to stop history until November will once again depend on a man who probably would like to see him lose the election: Netanyahu. That’s the problem with asking for “space”: It tends to get filled by others.
But the place where Prime Minister Netanyahu can most harm Obama's reelection chances is not on the 'Palestinian' front. It's with Iran. So you can add to Netanyahu's possible motivations to attack Iran between now and November, the possibility that it could harm Obama's reelection chances.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, North Korea, nuclear disarmament, Russia, Syrian uprising
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:36 PM
2 Comments:
Re Syria:"... because the longer the regime assaults the Syrian people, the greater the chances of all-out war in a failed state."
Not only that, the terrorist element has more time to entrench, even Iranian double agents, Mozlem Brotherhood, al qaeda and any others.
Seriously, I would ask your President Peres what strings (or restraining ropes) are attached to the BILLIONS in Obama marxist monopoly money your Israeli green start up type companies are accepting. And a new round is rumored to be on the way. Looks to me like Israel is standing at the table in a casino placing bets... and the people placing those bets may have an escape hatch set up. How about everybody else? And how about the Jews in the diaspora who will be left to the devices of the Start Up people's friend, Obama once they've helped him get re-elected by giving him scenery. Dude. It will be studied in future decades just like we study and try to figure out what happened in the '30s in Europe.
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