by Ruthie Blum
One campaign slogan
that U.S. President Barack Obama has upheld to the letter was the
promise to restore hope. Indeed, America’s enemies have never been as
blessed with this coveted commodity as they are now. Their rooting for
Obama’s re-election, then, was completely understandable. But his
behavior since then — including his choices of Chuck Hagel for defense
secretary and John Brennen as CIA director — has exceeded their
expectations, if not fulfilled their wildest dreams. Even if these
appointments are not ultimately confirmed, the radical-Muslim world
perceives them as an indication of presidential intent.
If the mullahs in
Tehran had been harboring any nagging anxiety about potential hindrances
to their stepped-up nuclear program, Washington made sure to alleviate
it this week. The proverbial Valium that the U.S. administration
provided took two forms. The first was a dose of “look the other way” in
relation to North Korea’s bold nuclear test on Tuesday. The second was a
spoonful of sissy rhetoric sprinkled into Obama’s State of the Union
Address, mere hours after the bomb was detonated at the Punggye-ri test
site.
Iran is not only an
ally of North Korea — whose weapons-guiding technologies are being
perfected for the creation of an intercontinental ballistic missile that
could reach the United States — but it has proven to be in nuclear
cahoots with the similarly murderous regime. In fact, the Syrian nuclear
reactor that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attacked in 2007
was being developed with North Korean and Iranian manpower and
expertise.
It is safe to assume,
then, that Tuesday’s explosion was not merely a test of North Korean
warheads; it was also a test case for Iran — to see how the event would
be responded to by the “international community.”
Well, the warheads did
just fine. The international community, however, responded with “harsh
criticism.” Oh dear. That really had North Korea and Iran shaking in
their boots and burkas — as did Obama’s “tough” stance in his speech.
“The leaders of Iran
must recognize that now is the time for a diplomatic solution,” he
asserted, essentially giving the ayatollahs a green light to continue
centrifuge activity with no consequences.
To make sure they
understood that he wasn’t being a bully, Obama clarified that his policy
extended to everybody equally, and that America would have to set a
good example. "… We will engage Russia to seek further reductions in our
nuclear arsenals and continue leading the global effort to secure
nuclear materials that could fall into the wrong hands,” he said,
“because our ability to influence others depends on our willingness to
lead."
The following day, on
Wednesday, Iran announced that it was installing new equipment for
refining uranium. It was also on Wednesday that international inspectors
were not given access to a site believed to be used for nuclear
testing. Meanwhile, the United Nations nuclear supervisory body and the
International Atomic Energy Agency are still discussing the wording of a
document that will supposedly be drawn up at the conclusion of talks
with Iran — talks that have been going on for months with no results
whatsoever. The only outcome is that the U.N. and the IAEA are beginning
to worry that maybe Iran is actually planning on using its nuclear
power for less-than-purely-peaceful purposes.
Indeed, on Thursday,
U.N. inspectors returned from Tehran in a bad mood. They hadn’t even
been successful at setting a date for the next meeting to engage in
diplomacy with the Islamic Republic — a gathering that was supposed to
take place at the end of February in Kazakhstan.
But outgoing Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was happy to see the inspectors leave. "…
[W]hoever thinks that the Iranian nation would surrender to pressure is
making a huge mistake and will take his wish to the grave," he declared.
While the rest of the
West is bent on avoiding any confrontation with Iran — to the point of
ignoring the very real and immediate threat it poses — Israel continues
to be told that the most urgent order of business in the Middle East is
stopping settlements and establishing a Palestinian state. That such a
state would be another tentacle of Tehran has been demonstrated as often
as has Iran’s backing of terrorist groups across the globe.
Whether it is Obama’s
blindness, radical ideology, or a combination of the two that prevents
him from recognizing this reality will be deciphered when his presidency
undergoes an autopsy. In the meantime, one thing is as clear as
enriched uranium: He is putty in the hands of those who would see
America annihilated along with Israel. No wonder his “hope and change”
agenda is so popular among them.
Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3443
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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