Obama Bent on Stopping Israel, but Not Iran

This is a brief follow-up to Friday’s post about the feckless current president. I came across Charles Krauthammer’s assessment of Obama’s AIPAC speech and follow-up. Obama followed the AIPAC speech, in which he insisted, “I do not bluff,” by admitting in a news conference two days later, (as Krauthammer phrases it) “this phrase is just a historical reference to supporting such allies as Britain and Japan—contradicting the intended impression he'd given AIPAC that he was offering special protection to an ally under threat of physical annihilation.”

So, I was right about Obama’s speech being a feckless example of rhetoric, excuses, and obfuscation. 

Krauthammer’s summary is even more direct:

Obama garnered much AIPAC applause by saying that his is not a containment policy but a prevention policy. But what has he prevented? Keeping a coalition of six together is not success. Holding talks is not success. Imposing sanctions is not success.

Success is halting and reversing the program. Yet Iran is tripling its uranium output, moving enrichment facilities deep under a mountain near Qom and impeding IAEA inspections of weaponization facilities.

So what is Obama's real objective?

"We're trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel," an administration official told the Washington Post in the most revealing White House admission since "leading from behind."

Revealing and shocking. The world's greatest exporter of terror (according to the State Department), the systematic killer of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, the self-declared enemy that invented "Death to America Day" is approaching nuclear capability—and the focus of U.S. policy is to prevent a democratic ally threatened with annihilation from pre-empting the threat?

Obama isn’t just occasionally wrong; he is consistently wrong. When he’s that consistent, it has to be purposeful. He is purposefully making America less strong and the world less safe. If this is true, then the next speculation is why? I don’t think he’s insane, and I don’t think he’s stupid. That means he has reasons for weakening America and endangering the world. His actual reasons are what we need to know—and have the public know—before there is another election that could risk irreversible harm to our freedom and prosperity, and safety in the world for ourselves and our allies.

Resolute vs. Feckless

Today is, in part, about adjectives. I was entertained a couple of days ago listening to Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. He noted that Phillip Rucker andDavid Farenthold had written a news piece (not an opinion piece) for the Washington Post in which they referred to the “famously genial” Mitt Romney. That means that the description is so widely accepted as to be considered fact rather than opinion.

It’s a positive term, and reinforces the theory that the most cheerful candidate is likely to get elected. Hewitt went on to conduct an exercise, to see what word(s) would be so widely accepted as to be considered fact about Obama. Callers contributed a number of suggestions, mostly negative about Obama, and also mostly very unlikely to pass the editorial rules of the Washington Post. The closest to being generally accepted was “thin skinned.” I would add (as some callers did) “narcissistic,” “arrogant,” and “condescending,” regardless of any editorial board. But then I came across another I think is fitting: “feckless.”

The word is used in an editorial in Monday’s Washington Post by Mitt Romney, in reference to President Jimmy Carter during the time when “U.S. diplomats were held hostage by Iranian Islamic revolutionaries for 444 days while America’s feckless president, Jimmy Carter, fretted in the White House.” Romney reminds us that a new president made a big difference: “On Jan. 20, 1981, in the hour that Reagan was sworn into office, Iran released the hostages. The Iranians well understood that Reagan was serious about turning words into action in a way that Jimmy Carter never was.”

The editorial looks at the similar, but possibly more dire, situation concerning Iran today. The response now, as ever, is to be strong and resolute:

The same Islamic fanatics who took our diplomats hostage are racing to build a nuclear bomb. Barack Obama, America’s most feckless president since Carter, has declared such an outcome unacceptable, but his rhetoric has not been matched by an effective policy. While Obama frets in the White House, the Iranians are making rapid progress toward obtaining the most destructive weapons in the history of the world.

Romney then lays out a “peace through strength” policy. It’s nicely done. But there’s even more about this piece that indicates some brilliance. This was the day before the Super Tuesday vote, but it was written for a  Washington plus national audience, not one of the target states. And it didn’t at all follow the narrative Obama had been prescribing for the past week or two: “those evil Republicans want to take birth control away from women,” which is absurd on its face, untrue to the nth degree, but a surprisingly effective reframing of the actual issue: coercion against religious freedom. Romney simply doesn’t let Obama decide on the narrative.

Obama had two speeches this week, one of which was on Israel (and so peripherally about Iran policy as well), which was exactly what you’d expect from either Carter or Obama: rhetoric, excuses, obfuscating. Nothing convincingly strong. But you can decide for yourself.

I agree with Romney’s assessment: “We can’t afford to wait much longer, and we certainly can’t afford to wait through four more years of an Obama administration. By then it will be far too late.”