• Obama’s Blunder On Iran

We cannot listen to Iran’s Ahmadinejad posturing on the expansion of the Iranian atomic energy program, without recalling Obama’s dramatic reversal on the U.S. land based missile defense system in Europe only days ago. The blunder was not in the reversal, but in its timing and its process.

The degree to which Iran has advanced its uranium enrichment capabilities will remain an unknown factor, and the international community reaction will continue to be perplexed, and marooned in paralysis of fear. Iran will not let anyone into whatever enrichment facility exists. No one will see what the ayatollahs do not wish to make public, sending us into recollections of the disastrous outcome following a long hide-and-seek dance with Saddam Hussein seven years ago. This leaves the world, Israel and the U.S. in particular, with a conundrum of literally seismic proportions. Iran’s nuclear progress is not new, nor is it news. What is new is the loss of one very powerful strategic negotiating tool that could have been useful in addressing Iran’s dangerous belligerence – the land-based European missile defense system.

When Obama backed off the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe, he did so without gaining a single concession from Putin and Russia. Russia had long blustered and railed against the U.S. missile deployment plan. Putin claimed the missiles were intended to threaten Russian sovereignty in the region, and that they were not meant to defend against Iran. The hovering menace from the U.S. was a significant affront to Putin's self-image. Obama’s abrogation of such significant “stance” on behalf of the United States suggests that this Administration learned nothing from the Ronald Reagan approach to international negotiations. Reagan changed the world when he boasted of his Strategic Defense Initiative satellite based defense system. The long list of concessions extracted from Gorbachev by Reagan, as well as his brilliance throughout the process of negotiations, should be compulsory reading for any student of Presidential impact on history.

Disclosure that Obama has known about Iran’s second uranium-enrichment facility all along, and that he has supposedly sprung an international trap for Iran, as some media such as the Washington Post are now suggesting, is peculiar analysis, as well as it is pandering in the extreme. Obama gave up a major negotiating card that could have been used to push Russia toward joining the strengthening of sanctions against Iran. China cannot be counted on to assist any future confrontation with Iran, having taken itself out of the equation with investments in Iran to feed its own requirements for energy and natural resources. The only other power, whose advocacy is truly needed in the region for serious containment of the ayatollahs in Tehran, is Russia. China and Russia provide Iran with enough trade to successfully finance the Ayatollahs through many more elections no matter what sanctions Obama might think of adding to the existing limitations. Iran’s path to becoming a nuclear power appears unobstructed.

The alternative to the controversial land based system being mothballed, according to Obama, is cheaper, quicker and more effective. This means the decision to embrace the new technology is very likely a good one. If you had this information in hand, would you have run headlong into an announcement, given that the planned European shield had been a major thorn under Putin’s belly? The diplomatic clout that the West’s tension with Iran has provided Putin still remains, and no concessions have been extracted, nor are we likely to see any extracted in the near future. Russia’s response has been to provide more rhetoric, and more blustering. The Russian envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said, “… Americans have simply put their own mistake right. And we are not duty-bound to pay for someone to put their own mistakes right.” Putin will continue to view Iran as an economic opportunity that will be exploited without interference from the West. The threat of crisis and instability in the region will also maintain energy prices at levels that Russia requires to finance its annual operating budget.

Adding to the confusion of signals emanating from the White House, Obama suggested that he could resurrect the European missile defense plan if Russia doesn’t help with the threat presented by Iran. This kind of accessory statement further weakens America’s hand. It suggests a lack of resolve on the initial reversal of the strategy, and it also infers apprehension about the new strategy and the underlying technology. Can America rely on the new capabilities and technologies or not? Are the interceptor capacities more flexible and cost-effective? Are the advanced sensor technologies capable of detecting and tracking enemy missiles, or aren’t they? Why would Obama even hint at such uncertainty?

The signals showered on Americans and their allies by this Administration’s decisions and announcements are confusing, but to Russia, they seem to be welcome and they reinforce its strategy of saber rattling. Sanctions have also not deterred Iran's ayatollahs. Now, with the loss of a major strategic and negotiating option against the Kremlin, the enlistment of the Russian bear’s assistance will undoubtedly be impossible, and will lead to a more belligerent Iran. We can expect an increase in its destabilizing activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its financing of terrorism. The violence we witnessed against the Iranian people after the recent elections should be indication enough that a strategy pursuing, "engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect," as Obama wishes it, is simply just that, … wishful thinking.

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• A Nuclear Weapons-Free World? Really?

When hearing someone of influence establish a goal for a nuclear free world, there is anticipation that the stance is strictly intended as precursor to some stimulating arguments, all preceded by extensive critical thinking and analysis. When the statement comes for the podium of the U.S. Presidency, the reaction is more puzzlement than anticipation of a lucid deployment of creative concepts, and it makes one wonder what Obama could possibly be leading to.

Other than making the brash statement, the President has provided little insight since making his pronouncement to clarify what analysis might have provided his administration with such a conclusion.

It would be disconcerting to think that thorough analysis led to what can only be considered a naïve objective. Reversing the trend of nuclear weapon proliferation is obviously in the interest of all humanity. Eliminating nuclear weapons altogether, on the other hand, is by any measure of common sense an impossibility. A world leader setting such a goal demonstrates an ignorance of the reality that is human frailty, and dismisses the existence of the many implacable, narcissistic egos that too often gain control of countries and the arsenals at their disposal.

Is it really so obscure that nuclear weapons have provided the world’s major powers a level playing field? Has there not been a greater sense of international security since the end of WWII? Regional conflicts have always, and may forever exist, however world scale war is a completely different beast. Why would Obama think that undermining the past fifty years of security would be an intelligent concept? International oversight of nuclear capabilities and control of nuclear technology proliferation may be difficult, but not impossible.

Making the assumption that all existing nuclear weapons would be destroyed by their owners, would require taking countries such as Russia, China, and Pakistan at their word. That assumption is well beyond the margins of wishful thinking. It borders on the idiotic. The obsession for evermore powerful arms, will always lead countries toward the nuclear door. If there were no nuclear weapons in existence, scientist would be enlisted to produce them.

Obama is obsessed with making change, although the change he campaigned on to reach the Presidency was apparently not the change American taxpayers are now succumbing to. His push for change on the nuclear front should be to stimulate the building of nuclear energy plants, not the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Paranoia and fear were centerpieces of military strategy long before Ghengis Khan’s “wrath of Khan” psychological warfare founded the largest contiguous empire in history during the early 13th. century. Nuclear arms moved this doctrine to the top of the security objectives list for most nations during the past 50 years. Fear of the extreme destructive force available with nuclear weapons makes statesmen of would-be aggressors, instilling the need to find alternatives to annihilation when searching for settlement of disagreements.

The challenge of reducing the total nuclear arsenal around the world is a daunting task which would have to start with getting an inventory remotely resembling the actual number of warheads, and the number of delivery vehicles. All one can honestly expect from this endeavor will be approximations. The Moscow Treaty of seven years ago came closest to an established and agreed-to measurement which was termed “operationally deployed warheads,” which only included warheads virtually sitting on missiles-ready-for-launch. Evidently the veracity of any international nuclear warhead accounting is about as valuable as that used by past A.I.G. executives prior to calculating their bonuses.

The most critical consideration is the capability of launching a devastating first-strike. This is where real stability between the superpowers rests, and the point on which control must be operationally and practically retained over arsenal developments of all nations. Countries considered “rogue states,” which seek nuclear arms should be held in check through the only viable tool, fear. Debate and discussion is valid only when negotiating with reasonable people and reasoning individuals.

The Pandora’s Box that was opened on July 16, 1945 in the New Mexico desert unleashed a devastating force on humanity. Although our wisdom seems not to have advanced, the physical power handed to mankind on that day can never be extinguished. It can, however, be controlled. In the arsenal of all weapons ever developed, nuclear warheads remain the most fearsome. Nuclear attacks are never an option, until they are.

A world without nuclear weapons is impossible, and a world leader, such as America, not having nuclear weapons is not remotely conceivable. Setting as an objective the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons is more evidence of the incomprehensibly simplistic contemplations and decisions exhaling from the White House. The real concern now is whether there is real political will in this new administration to carry out what might be needed to prevent proliferation of nuclear power in rogue countries.

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