The Obama Watch - A Clear and Present Danger

Posted by Gordon on October 2, 2009 at 8:30am

By Peter Ferrara on 9.30.09 @ 6:08AM

A cherished maxim of self-congratulatory liberals is the notion that diplomacy and negotiation are always the best course of action because "as long as the two sides are talking, they are not shooting." That was not true on the morning of December 7, 1941. On that very day, Japanese diplomats were in Washington to continue ongoing talks for peace between Japan and America, as Japanese planes were slaughtering some 2,400 American servicemen at Pearl Harbor.

President Obama now has America, and Israel, on that same course in regard to Iran. Finally, Obama is to begin his much ballyhooed talks with Iran tomorrow over its nuclear weapons program. But Iran, not just dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has already clearly stated its answer to Obama's entreaties on the issue. Iran will not even consider changing course on its nuclear weapons program. Indeed, it has insisted it will not even discuss the program in its talks with President Obama. To underscore the futility of any negotiations, Iran celebrated this week's planned talks with a series of missile launches over the weekend.

These extended talks will just give Iran even more time to develop nuclear weapons, and the missiles to deliver them. An American President should have the moxie and insight to see that. If we wake up one morning, surprised as we were on that fateful day in 1941, to find that Iran has nuked an Israeli city and murdered millions of Jews, I would expect President Obama to resign in disgrace.

What else could he do at that point? He is not going to launch a nuclear attack on Iran. And once Iran demonstrates that it has and will use nuclear weapons, is Obama going to risk a conventional attack on them? No, he is just going to give another speech. But will anyone be listening at that point, in the face of the carnage of the Israeli nuclear counterattack on Iran? This bloodiest day in world history, Holocaust 2.0, is what Obama must be acting to avoid now, through effective means, not dreamy, flower child platitudes.

America's Nuclear Disarmament

Last week, Obama enjoyed the honor of being the first American President to chair a session of the U.N. Security Council. Obama devoted the session to the topic of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. But, as Bret Stephens explained last week in the Wall Street Journal, "[L]est anyone suspect that this has something to do with North Korea and Iran, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice insists otherwise: The meeting, she says, 'will focus on nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly, and not on any particular countries.'"

Obama made his point clear in his speech to the General Assembly on September 24, saying, "I have outlined a comprehensive agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons." He added that America has already begun its own nuclear disarmament:

In Moscow, the United States and Russia announced that we would pursue substantial reductions in our strategic warheads and launchers. At the Conference on Disarmament, we agreed on a work plan to negotiate an end to the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons. And this week, my Secretary of State will become the first senior American representative to the annual Members Conference of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

In other words, on a global platform, with the whole world watching, Obama focuses not on the threat to world peace from the rogue powers Iran and North Korea acquiring nuclear weapons, but on the nuclear disarmament of America and its allies!

As Stephens further explained:

But the problem with this euphemistic approach to disarmament…is that it shifts the onus from the countries that can't be trusted with nuclear weapons to those that can. Is Nicolas Sarkozy…about to start World War III? Probably not, though he has the means to do so. Should Mr. Obama join hands with Iran and the Arab world in pushing for Israel's nuclear disarmament, on the view that if only the Jewish state would set the right example its enemies would no longer want to wipe it off the map? If that's what the President believes, he should say so publicly, especially since he's offering the same general prescription for America's nuclear deterrent.

What Stephens is suggesting here is the awful truth. Obama believes that America does not have the moral credibility to ask Iran to give up its nuclear program unless America gives up its own. His strategy is once again the opposite of Reagan's. Instead of peace through strength, Obama believes in peace through weakness!

If only America would set the moral example through nuclear disarmament, we could count on our enemies to do the same, Obama thinks. Instead of fulfilling his oath of office to defend America, President Obama with his flower child nuclear strategy puts every American family in mortal danger.

Even if we could achieve worldwide nuclear disarmament by mutual agreement, that would not be good for America. America's nuclear deterrent has prevented world war for 65 years. Our overwhelming nuclear advantage, which President Obama and the Democrats are already trashing, is the cornerstone of our dominant military. It is the reason Americans never have to fear for the nation's defense. Giving that up would only weaken America, greatly, even if everybody else did the same.

But in a dangerous world of aspiring tyrants, plunderers, and even mass murderers, we could not count on rogues to abide by international agreements. Could we count on Putin not to maintain a force of nuclear attack weapons hidden in Siberia or Ural mountain caves, especially if he would become master of the universe through such cheating? Could we trust the Communist Chinese, with a recent history of mass murder, not to do the same? What about Muslim powers aching to reestablish their former dominance of centuries ago, especially with an ideology of mass murder rampant among their ranks? Would it be wise to trust the safety of the American people to the honesty of such rogues, or to the reliability of any verification program?

And without the American nuclear umbrella, would not the whole world be on hair trigger for nuclear development, lest anyone's enemies secretly develop such weapons first? Would America end up the only "power" without a nuclear deterrent?

Yet, Mark Helprin writes in the Journal on September 23 that Obama's talks with Iran will be about America's nuclear disarmament, not Iran's:

Last fall, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad set three conditions for [negotiations with] the U.S.: withdrawal from Iraq, a show of respect for Iran (read "apology"), and taking the nuclear question off the table. We are now faithfully complying, and last week, after Iran foreclosed discussion of its nuclear program…the U.S. agreed to enter talks the premise of which, incredibly, is to eliminate American nuclear weapons.

If only Obama last year, when he was falsely preening as the only American leader to even think of talking to Iran, had told the American people that his strategy for talks with Iran on giving up its nukes was for America to give up ours.