This One They Can't Blame on George Bush
<http://www.bizzyblog.com/2010/05/18/this-one-they-cant-blame-on-george-bush/>
Filed under: National Security
<http://www.bizzyblog.com/category/national-security/>, Taxes &
Government <http://www.bizzyblog.com/category/taxes-government/> ---
TBlumer @ 9:57 am
Oh of course they'll try anyway. As noted yesterday
<http://www.bizzyblog.com/2010/05/17/thank-you-chuck-green/>, it's what
they do.
A Wall Street Journal editorial
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703315404575250172000040654.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h>
this morning dissects a serious diplomatic botch. The nation's lapdog
press establishment will ignore this, or dress it is up some way, but
the real result is that our country and our allies are less safe:
*Iran's Nuclear Coup*
Ahmadinejad and Lula expose Obama's hapless diplomacy.
What a fiasco. That's the first word that comes to mind watching
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raise his arms yesterday with the leaders of
Turkey and Brazil to celebrate a new atomic pact that instantly made
irrelevant 16 months of President Obama's "diplomacy." The deal is a
political coup for Tehran and possibly delivers the coup de grace to
the West's half-hearted efforts to stop Iran from acquiring a
nuclear bomb.
Full credit for this debacle goes to the Obama Administration and
its hapless diplomatic strategy. Last October, nine months into its
engagement with Tehran, the White House concocted a plan to transfer
some of Iran's uranium stock abroad for enrichment. If the West
couldn't stop Iran's program, the thinking was that maybe this
scheme would delay it. The Iranians played coy, then refused to
accept the offer.
But Mr. Obama doesn't take no for an answer from rogue regimes, and
so he kept the offer on the table. As the U.S. finally seemed ready
to go to the U.N. Security Council for more sanctions, the Iranians
chose yesterday to accept the deal on their own limited terms while
enlisting the Brazilians and Turks as enablers and political shields.
... Under the terms unveiled yesterday, Iran said it would send
1,200 kilograms (2,646 lbs.) of low-enriched uranium to Turkey
within a month, and no more than a year later get back 120 kilograms
enriched from somewhere else abroad. This makes even less sense than
the flawed October deal. In the intervening seven months, Iran has
kicked its enrichment activities into higher gear. Its estimated
total stock has gone to 2,300 kilograms from 1,500 kilograms last
autumn, and its stated enrichment goal has gone to 20% from 3.5%.
If the West accepts this deal, Iran would be allowed to keep
enriching uranium in contravention of previous U.N. resolutions.
Removing 1,200 kilograms will leave Iran with still enough
low-enriched stock to make a bomb, and once uranium is enriched up
to 20% it is technically easier to get to bomb-capable enrichment
levels.
Only last week, diplomats at the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy
Agency reported that Iran has increased the number of centrifuges it
is using to enrich uranium. According to Western intelligence
estimates, Iran continues to acquire key nuclear components, such as
trigger mechanisms for bombs. Tehran says it wants to build
additional uranium enrichment plants. The CIA recently reported that
Iran tripled its stockpile of uranium last year and moved "toward
self-sufficiency in the production of nuclear missiles." Yesterday's
deal will have no impact on these illicit activities.
The deal will, however, make it nearly impossible to disrupt Iran's
nuclear program short of military action.
... The U.N. is certainly a dead end. *After 16 months of his
extended hand and after downplaying support for Iran's democratic
opposition, Mr. Obama now faces an Iran much closer to a bomb and
less diplomatically isolated than when President Bush left office.*
Israel will have to seriously consider its military options. ...
The "downplaying support for Iran's democratic opposition" is an
especially disgraceful (see "Related" items below). This administration
will focus more energy on a state like Arizona doing something to
protect itself from federal folly than it will to support freedom
fighters with a chance of upending the civilized world's most immediate
threat.
Now the threat is even more immediate.
Heckuva job, Barry ... and Hillary.
_________________________________________________
*Related:*
* Oct. 6, 2009
<http://www.bizzyblog.com/2009/10/06/state-dept-pulls-funding-from-iran-human-rights-watchdog-as-regimes-weakness-begins-to-show/>,
at BizzyBlog --- State Dept. Pulls Funding From Iran Human Rights
Watchdog Despite Tehran's Vulnerability
* Aug. 21
<http://www.bizzyblog.com/2009/08/21/that-engagement-thing-with-iran-isnt-working-so-well/>,
at BizzyBlog -- That 'Engagement' Thing With Iran Hasn't Worked
Out So Well
* July 11, 2009, from Andy McCarthy at National Review
<http://article.nationalreview.com/399763/obama-frees-iranian-terror-masters/andrew-c-mccarthy>
--- "Obama Frees Iranian Terror Masters"
* July 5, 2009
<http://www.bizzyblog.com/2009/07/05/techs-repressive-dark-side-threatens-us-all/>,
at BizzyBlog -- Tech's Repressive Dark Side Threatens Us All
* June 27, 2009, from Jose Maria Aznar in the Wall Street Journal
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124605649582063489.html#mod=djemEditorialPage>
--- "Silence Has Consequences for Iran; The less we protest, the
more people will die."
* On June 20, 2009, Victor Davis Hanson
<http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/this-is-the-moment/>
asked, "Does not Obama see that the world has been given a rare
chance, thanks to brave Iranians---as if the German people had
risen up in 1938 in fear of what was on the horizon?"
* On June 16, 2009, yours truly said this in a "Roundup" post
<http://www.bizzyblog.com/2009/06/16/lucid-links-061609-morning/>
--- "It has become downright embarrassing watching this
administration dither and fumble around trying to figure out how
to react straightforwardly to humanity's cry for freedom and
representative government in Iran."
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