His administration is a treasure trove of pre-written comedy.
Obama’s warning came after Iran rejected a compromise proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium abroad so that it could not be further enriched to make weapons. Talk of fresh sanctions also showed that Obama is preparing for the next phase should Iran fail to meet his year-end deadline for progress in negotiations.
“They have been unable to get to `yes’, and so as a consequence, we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences,” Obama said at a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA. The Last Imam cultists are building nukes with which to end the world, and Obama says the consequence will be a discussion about consequences. Hilarious stuff.
He went on:
“Our expectation is, is that over the next several weeks we will be developing a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran.”
Yea, that’ll show ‘em.
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Wow :
Jules Crittenden comments on President Sarkozy’s statement at the United Nations last week: “It’s a sad state of affairs when a Frenchman mocks an American president and you have to go with the Frog.” Here’s what the man said:
President Obama dreams of a world without weapons … but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite. Iran since 2005 has flouted five security council resolutions. North Korea has been defying council resolutions since 1993. I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community? More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map.
You know America is losing its teeth when the French President criticizes American foreign policy as being too timid.
The Europeans have always felt comfortable taking contrarian stances toward American foreign policy in the past, a luxury they knew came from the inevitability that America would eventually take care of our mutual problems regardless. But now, as Iran arms itself with nuclear weapons and the Russians begin to flex their muscles again, European leaders are having to reevaluate their enthusiasm for an emasculated USA under (mmm mmmm mmm) Barack Hussien Obama.
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No surprise here:
Ahmad Vahidi, nominated Thursday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to serve as Iran’s defense minister, is a suspected international terrorist sought by Interpol in connection with a deadly 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina.
Mr. Vahidi, a former commander of the elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard known as the Quds Force, was one of 15 men and three women named to Cabinet posts by Mr. Ahmadinejad as he begins his second term in office. The choice is likely to further chill relations between Iran and the international community, especially Israel.
This is the regime whose illegitimate election the White House went above and beyond to defend while turning its back on democracy advocates. This is the regime with which the White House thinks it can faithfully engage. The judgment of this White House is, to put it mildly, quite suspect.
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The President finally speaks up for democracy and freedom:
CommentsThe Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
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How often were we told that America was hating because of Bush? How many implications were made that, if we just we a little bit nicer, we wouldn’t have America-hating countries making spurious allegations against us? I don’t know the exact answer to either of those questions, but whatever the number, it was too many:
An Iranian official accused the United States on Friday of involvement in a mosque bombing that killed more than 20 people in volatile southeastern Iran, two weeks before a presidential election.
Washington denied the allegation.
Jalal Sayyah, of the governor’s office in Sistan-Baluchestan province, said three people had been arrested in connection with blast on Thursday in a crowded Shi’ite mosque in the city of Zahedan, in a region where many of Iran’s minority Sunnis live.
“The terrorists, who were equipped by America in one of our neighbouring countries, carried out this criminal act in their efforts to create religious conflict and fear and to influence the presidential election,” Sayyah told state radio.
How could they accuse Dear Leader of such a thing? It turns out the enemies of America are still the enemies of America, regardless of who the president is.
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Strong langauge from the new administration:
High-level members of the Obama administration have voiced conviction that Iran is determined to acquire a nuclear weapon, largely discounting a 2007 intelligence finding that the Middle Eastern state halted its formal bomb development efforts more than five years ago, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 11).
The National Intelligence Estimate asserted that while Iran continued to pursue ballistic missile capabilities and a uranium enrichment program that could produce a key nuclear-bomb ingredient, the nation in 2003 halted efforts geared toward “weaponizing” bomb material in a warhead. Tehran had denied that its nuclear program ever had a military component.
President Barack Obama criticized Iranian leaders this week for “their development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon” (see GSN, Feb. 10).
Answering a question on Iran last week, CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta said, “From all the information that I’ve seen, I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability” (see GSN, Feb. 6). National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair is set to discuss Iran’s atomic activities in Senate testimony today.
The administration’s strong statements might be aimed at precluding debate over Iran’s nuclear ambitions as Washington prepares some sort of diplomatic engagement with Tehran, experts said.
“When you’re talking about negotiations in Iran, it is dangerous to appear weak or naive. It guards against criticism from the right that the administration is underestimating Iran,” said Ploughshares Fund head Joseph Cirincione.
Iran’s nuclear program has “made more progress in the last five years than in the previous 10,” he added (Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 12).
During the campaign, Obama noted that “a nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat,” and concluded, “the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
So, Mr. President, how do you plan to prevent what your administration is certain Iran is trying to do?
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Iran Could Have Enough Uranium for a Bomb by Year’s End
New simulations carried out by European Union experts come to an alarming conclusion: Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium to build an atomic bomb by the end of this year.
Could Iran be building an atomic bomb? When the US released a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) late last year, it seemed as though the danger of a mullah-bomb had passed. The report claimed to have information indicating that Tehran mothballed its nuclear weapons program as early as autumn 2003. The paper also said that it was “very unlikely” that Iran would have enough highly enriched uranium — the primary ingredient in atomic bombs — by 2009 to produce such a weapon. Rather, the NIE indicated “Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough (highly enriched uranium) for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 timeframe.”
It didn’t take long for experts to question the report’s conclusion that Tehran was no longer interested in building the bomb. And now, a new computer simulation undertaken by European Union experts indicates that the NIE’s time estimates might be dangerously inaccurate as well — and that Iran might have enough fuel for a bomb much earlier than was previously thought.
As part of a project to improve control of nuclear materials, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy set up a detailed simulation of the centrifuges currently used by Iran in the Natanz nuclear facility to enrich uranium. The results look nothing like those reached by the US intelligence community.
For one scenario, the JRC scientists assumed the centrifuges in Natanz were operating at 100 percent efficiency. Were that the case, Iran could already have the 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium necessary for an atomic device by the end of this year. Another scenario assumed a much lower efficiency — just 25 percent. But even then, Iran would have produced enough uranium by the end of 2010.
If this doesn’t highlight the fact that some in our intelligence service thinks it’s their job to make, rather than inform, policy, I don’t know what will. It is clear now that the recent NIE was not an honest attempt at intelligence assessment, but was cooked up by anti-Administration forces and conveniently leaked to the press in attempt to hijack American foreign policy from where it has been Constitutionally placed – in the hands of a democratically elected leader.
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A chemical weapons test gone awry kills dozens of Syrian and Iranian engineers and military personnel.
Hey, at least they know it works. If that’s not a successful test…
How long before this stuff is on Katyusha rockets flying into Israeli pre-schools in the name of resistance?
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The Washington Post is reporting that the Bush administration is preparing to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization under Executive Order 13224. The move comes as significant evidence continues to build indicating significant Iranian involvement in ongoing terrorist activity in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
. . .The main goal of the new designation is to clamp down on the Revolutionary Guard’s vast business network, as well as on foreign companies conducting business linked to the military unit and its personnel. The administration plans to list many of the Revolutionary Guard’s financial operations.
“Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately,” said a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced. “It increases the risks of people who have until now ignored the growing list of sanctions against the Iranians. It makes clear to everyone who the IRGC and their related businesses really are. It removes the excuses for doing business with these people.”
. . .Although administration discussions continue, the initial decision is to target the entire Guard Corps, U.S. officials said. The administration has not yet decided when to announce the new measure, but officials said they would prefer to do so before the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly next month, when the United States intends to increase international pressure against Iran.
Designating a military body as a terrorist group is a bold move by the administration, but it accurately reflects the nations tendency to use terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, as proxy fighters.
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“Something happened in the world today.”
“How can we blame it on Bush?”
That’s how I imagine a typical conversation goes at TIME. And then we get side-splitting headlines like this, “Did the U.S. Incite Iran’s Crackdown?”
Tehran’s jailing of Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year old grandmother who holds dual Iranian-American citizenship, as well as the interrogation of others with similar papers, is evidence that Washington’s latest attempt to foist change on Iran is backfiring ? as Iranian democracy advocates had warned. The Bush administration had trumpeted its $61.1 million democracy program, including Farsi-language broadcasts into Iran, education and cultural exchanges and $20 million worth of support for “civil society, human rights, democratic reform and related outreach” as an important effort. However, sources tell TIME that several key Iranian reformers had repeatedly warned U.S. officials through back channels that the pro-democracy program was bound to expose them as vulnerable targets for a government crackdown whether they took Washington’s funds or not.
What a joke. Does the author really think that change can happen without resistance? Did he expect the Iranian regime to just roll over and accept democracy? Resistance is not the same as a “backfire”. Crack downs are, if anything, a sign of success. When authoritarian governments crack down on their citizens, they also alienate them. The tighter the Iranian regime is forced to control its populace, the greater demands for democratic change will grow. But TIME is too busy trying to blame every little thing on Bush to see the big picture.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science, but please don't hold that against me.
