• A Collapsed Foreign Policy

    With the focus of the coming election appropriately directed at the economy and the creation of jobs, some of the media is desperately attempting a redirection of attention toward foreign policy. More precisely, the MSM is fabricating a four year history of its protagonist’s foreign policy.

    Other than having given the go-ahead to kill Osama Bin Laden, the President’s foreign policy from the beginning of his term has been abysmal and has confused America’s allies as well as its taxpayers. The MSM is doing it best prop-up the primarily missing-in-action-unengaged leadership with incomprehensible accolades such as Where Obama Shines and How Obama’s Foreign Policy Success Will Win Him Re-election. Such is the nature of the progressive mindset. These I-think-I’m-smarter-than-most self-believing-self-annointed mental aristocrats continue to project their perceptions onto the blank slate of a Presidency only too willing to be so consecrated.

    To anyone who has been paying attention since the last Presidential election, such articles are void of insight and far removed from the world’s realities. The MSM assumes no one will have paid attention for four years.

    This is the President who sold-out Poland and the Czech Republic by the sudden abandonment of the missile-defense security arrangement without extracting a single quid pro quo from Putin. If he had a better idea, could he still not have found acuity enough to “negotiate”?  Apparently not. Today, Russia ostentatiously gloats in defiance as it ‘trades’ with, and supports, both Iran and Syria, as slaughter continues unabated by two of the worse current abusers of humanity on the planet. Putin says, “back off.”   Where is the President?

    In May, earlier this year, we could not blame the President with his attempt at political correctness (refraining from insulting Germans by using the “Nazi” word), as he mentioned Jan Karski witnessing a “Polish death camp” during a posthumous presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Karski, a Polish WWII hero. Is it that Obama has way too much on his mind? Or is it possible that he is uninterested and his handlers/writers are not terribly capable?  Has he read a book lately, or even watched TV? Any chance he’s not familiar with Poland and its history as Europe’s tromping ground?

    We can only surmise what Obama might have meant when he whispered to Medvedev, “this is my last election. After my election I’ll have more flexibility”, however, his track record does not allow for much positive speculation. Could he have meant, “flexibility” to leave the decisions to NATO? Backdoor compromises with thugs never work out, regardless what lipstick the pandering MSM has placed on this bizarre ineptitude.

    Yesterday the White House denied an Israeli newspaper’s (Yedioth Ahronoth), accusation that it had secretly negotiated with Teheran to keep it out of the Israeli-Iran conflict. Whether true or not matters less than the fact that under this President’s watch, the story presents itself as a plausible scenario, and one hoisted unsuccessfully in the White House press room.

    On the other side of the world, just as the Democratic Convention gets underway, the Nation’s Secretary of State is busying herself with non-presence. Unfortunately for Obama, as his handlers and writers scramble to prepare his speech, the Chinese have delivered an untimely, polite, but emphatic slam to Hillary, instructing her boss and his administration to stay out of their business in the South China Sea. China is stepping up its military control over the Macclesfield Bank, the Scarborough Shoals, and the Reed bank, against the Philippines, as well as the Paracel and Spratly Islands which are claimed by both the Philippines and Vietnam. Fishing rights are in play, but the bigger fight, and potential war, is over the extensive and proven oil and gas reserves which sit under the hundreds of islands forming the South China Sea archipelago.

    Wagging fingers at dictators is a foreign policy maneuver which has not worked so well in the past. At least not given all evidence. Alexander The Great had a history of being really pissed-off at those who wagged their fingers at him.  So much so that he annihilated their cities. Finger wagging measures will not bring satisfaction with China any more than they are succeeding with Putin or with ayatollah Khamenei in Teheran.

    There would be little point in asking about the intelligence which led the strategic reasoning to support the forcefully ousted Honduran President Zelayan. The MSM doesn’t much care about Honduras but it does care about Obama’s image. When Zelayan attempted to change his nation’s constitution in order to anoint himself dictator-for-life, he was simply duplicating what worked so well for his friend Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez, plus he had support from Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega. The MSM passed on that one.

    Both Obama and Hillary Clinton supported the Zelayan venture to abuse his country’s constitution. Of course if we had access to the insight which shepherded the Obama encouragement of Zelayan, we might enhance our comprehension into the more global intent of this Administration. Surely it cannot be as simplistic as the difficult to swallow explanations recited by the media that “open dialogue” with Latin American dictators is the road to positive futures for the populations of Latin America.

    The soaring rhetoric and promises of Obama’s entry into the Oval Office four years ago that he would “reset” relations with Russia; that he would “refurbish” America’s image in the Middle East; that he would “out-reach” to Iran; that he would obtain Chinese cooperation;  and of course the foundation of his election, that he would end engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, (let’s ignore Guantanamo), have proven to be little more than bombastic hay-feed for the ideologically inclined.

    When I wrote shortly before Obama’s inauguration, “Ronald Reagan prevailed, undaunted, in the shaping of his audacious foreign policy. He backed the Soviet bear into a corner,” it was anticipated, and is now obvious, that we would find ourselves very far from a Reagan foreign policy. With more dictators in power around the world now than ever before, an Administration wagging a finger, or asking for dialogue, only serves to delay the inevitable such as we are witnessing in Iran.  This Administration is kicking the can down the road,  . . . another can.

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• 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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• OBAMA – THE FIRST “TELL”

Throughout the election process, image is everything. Now, post-election, the Electorate looks for signals of capacities beyond the ability to get elected. We peer in, looking for tells of what an Obama Presidency will mean. Has there been a tell? … Did we miss it?

There was little satisfaction in The Pacific Gate Post having predicted back in early July that Obama would become the next President. The conditions and road signs were easy to read. The population’s unrest was conspicuous. The discontent gaining momentum rendered Hillary’s bid for the White House, and then John McCain’s charge, little more than valiant but submerged free-style strokes against a powerful current. Obama was a refreshing embodiment of eloquence which the self proclaimed intelligentsia believed accurately reflected America’s image. In contrast to George Bush’s endless public verbal faux-pas echoed with flourish by CNN, and late-night talk show hosts, Democrats agreed, and many across the political middle acquiesced, with fingers crossed.

Since the election, the mainstream media has presented us what it believes are satisfactory analyses on the transitioning process. We have been provided examinations of moment-by-moment cameos in the life of a history making President Elect, from his visit to the White House, to the pasting of fresh faces on titles fashioning the top of the new administration’s food chain. Endless Op Eds have given us “much ado about nothing” over the Rahm Emanuel pick for Chief of Staff. Will it annoy the Israel’s neighbors? Will it make this a too pro-Israel administration? Will Emanuel’s tantrums impede or frustrate relations with some Democrats in Congress? We are not getting much reporting of the fact that he failed dismally in his fiduciary duties as a Director of Freddie Mac through a time when the books were getting massaged in that institution. But then, no one seems to be held accountable for any of that corrupted abuse of the taxpayer’s cash by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

No, the Emanuel decision, although momentous, is not a tell. Neither are any of Obama’s other likely announcements on his Cabinet. How could they be? Just as George W. Bush was a product of his father’s political machine, it cannot be a surprise to anyone that Obama is a product of the Chicago political machine that produces Senators, Congressmen, or Mayors. It cannot bewilder anyone that a lawyer by training, and Senator by oratory, would surround himself with powerful members of the Democratic system that funded him into the Oval Office, or with former members of the Clinton inner circle. We expect that a couple of Republican faces will take a chair around his table in deference to campaign promises of bipartisan politics from his administration. None of this will bring change. And so, we look for signs that some may come, and we await a sign that Obama will establish a sense of history for his Presidency beyond the obvious.

We will strive to decipher the reveals on the Obama economic front, and gage his engagements to resolve the Nation’s greatest crisis. In the meantime, here is the first sign of a tell on the international relations, and foreign affairs negotiating front…

He “supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable."

Such sentiment, on the surface, appears an innocuous and even benign proclamation. Not so. Not in a time of so much international tension, or fear of nuclear proliferation. Let’s take a page from the most central and dominant figure in the end game of the Cold War. Let’s glean from a master negotiator, Ronald Reagan.

Reagan’s most sobering moment may have been his realization of the devastation that would define a nuclear war. His awakening to the outcome of a nuclear attack on America by the Soviet regime sharpened his mind to the protection of his country. To buttress against the potential of such a holocaust, Reagan threw himself behind the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). As many of you will recall, on March 23, 1983, he committed to the creation of an elaborate umbrella of space-based missile destroying long-range strategic nuclear ballistic missiles in flight, deployed from satellites, and X-ray lasers also shot from satellites. The brain center of this program may have been the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, East of San Francisco, California, but its heart was Ronald Reagan. His strategy was a dramatic shift from the long assumed doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), and it sought a leap in weapons systems unlike any ever conceived in military history.

Far from being an “intellectual”, or ever pretending to be one, Reagan’s genius was his knowing what he didn’t know, and embracing a deep seeded conviction that American ingenuity could achieve the near impossible. His Lawrence Livermore Labs would deliver. He did not question whether SDI would be "workable". The very fact that he set Lawrence Livermore Labs on track to realize his dream, would make it so. He convinced America of it, but more importantly, he convinced the world of it, particularly the Soviets and Gorbachev.

At summits held in Geneva and Reykjavik, Mikhail Gorbachev offered concessions, including nuclear armament concessions, in exchange for abandonment of the SDI program. With power of rhetorical persuasion and confidence, coupled with his fervent distrust of communism, or communists, Reagan prevailed, undaunted, in the shaping of his audacious foreign policy. He backed the Soviet bear into a corner. The already cracking Soviet economy could not support the escalating costs of competing with such exotic technological deployments as SDI. The advantage would provide America with overwhelming dominance. An initial result of the Reagan strategy was the Intermediate Nuclear Force treaty of 1987, followed a few years later with the disintegration of the Soviet empire, and the destruction of the Berlin wall.

Some of us close to the technological capacities resting in the state of the art during this period knew that the Reagan “Star Wars” system would not be achievable for at least the coming decade, and possibly far beyond. And yet, we marveled at the brilliance, the audacity, and the execution of the Reagan strategy. Even his closest aids believed that he believed. His enthusiasm was infectious. He was never in doubt.

So, back to Obama. Where was the tell? Where was the reveal? It was too painfully, and obviously obvious.

We await the next tell.

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