Just wanted to note that Obama’s response to Iran via his press conference on Friday was a good start – now the President-Elect needs to get his advisors together and work out the exact language necessary to tell Iran, “you be damned”.
The Iran situation is a good chance for Obama to prove us wrong about him – we on the right feel certain that Obama will flub the issue. In an urge to get US troops out of Iraq as soon as possible and cobble together something which can be presented as a nuclear agreement with Iran, our fear is that Obama will give away the store. The lunatics who run Iran also see this – though they are delighted with the prospect.
Obama supporters can say what they will about it, but the plain fact of the matter is that our enemies around the world view the election of Obama as a signal for American withdrawal. They see a weak man who will refrain from using real US power against them. They may be right, but if they aren’t – if, that is, Obama is determined to assert himself as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world – then there is no place better for him to demonstrate it than Iran.
The Iranian government is in quite a fix right now. The economy was a basket case when oil was $140 a barrel and is just more so now at $65 a barrel. The cash from oil is the only thing the Iranian government has to pay for their military build up (including their nuclear program), support their surrogates Hamas and Hezbollah and provide just enough to the Iranian people to prevent revolution. Right now, Iran is the softest of soft targets and just a bit of firmness on the part of Obama will bring them genuinely to the negotiating table.
The best course of action remains what I’ve figured all along – a blockade against Iranian gasoline imports (Iran imports the majority of its gasoline) to be emplaced until the Iranians agree to a verifiable dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program. Working with Obama Administration policy, our withdrawal from Iraq can be made conditional upon Iran’s surrender of its nuclear option. Do this – or something similar to it – and Obama will prove he’s got guts, weaken Iran’s strategic position and reassure nervous allies in the region that our withdrawal from Iraq does not mean an abandonment of our friends.
Obama has a host of troubles to deal with, but he also has plenty of grand opportunities to cement the advantages we have gained through much effort and great cost. President Bush has left victory in Iraq and the larger War on Terrorism for Obama – it will be up to Obama to use this victory wisely.
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