March 22nd 2009
Urgent And Updated
Perhaps the most important story of the week for U.S. foreign policy was Ayatolla Ali Khamenei’s swift, rude rejection of President Hope’s latest “I can talk ‘em into it” overture towards Tehran, but it was hardly the only big news. The need to make money robbed me of time to blog on these two other recent news items:
Fuoad Ajami in the WSJ:
The opponents of the American project in Iraq did not know much about Afghanistan. They despaired of Iraq’s sectarianism and ethnic fragmentation, but those pale in comparison with the tribalism and ethnic complications of Afghanistan. If you had your fill with the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites of Iraq, welcome to the warring histories of the Pashtuns, the Uzbeks, the Tajiks, and the Hazara Shiites of Afghanistan.
In their disdain for that Iraq project, the Democrats and the liberal left had insisted that Iraq was an artificial state put together by colonial fiat, and that it was a fool’s errand to try to make it whole and intact. Now in Afghanistan, we are in the quintessential world of banditry and tribalism, a political culture that has abhorred and resisted central authority.
I’ve said it ever since Obama rejected Iran and embraced Afghanistan that his position had nothing to do with commitment to or understanding of Afghanistan; it was only a pose so we could appear tough while still being for defeat in Iran. Ajami’s piece gives depth and confirmation to my position, and points out that Obama has yet to commit to Afghanistan and lay out his objectives – a position that strengthens the Taliban every day.
Also in the WSJ, John Bolton:
While President Obama’s unanticipated Nowruz holiday greeting to Iran generated considerable press attention, his video wasn’t really this week’s big news related to the Islamic Republic. Far more important was that a senior defector — Iran’s former Deputy Minister of Defense Ali Reza Asghari — disclosed Tehran’s financing of Syria’s nuclear weapons program. That program’s centerpiece was a North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria. Israel destroyed it in September 2007.
At this point, it is impossible to ignore Iran’s active efforts to expand, improve and conceal its nuclear weapons program in Syria while it pretends to “negotiate” with Britain, France and Germany (the “EU-3″). No amount of video messages will change this reality. The question is whether this new information about Iran will sink in, or if Washington will continue to turn a blind eye toward Iran’s nuclear deceptions.
That the Pyongyang-Damascus-Tehran nuclear axis went undetected and unacknowledged for so long is an intelligence failure of the highest magnitude. It represents a plain unwillingness to allow hard truths to overcome well-entrenched policy views disguised as intelligence findings.
Our intelligence capabilities in Greater Jihadistan remain a pale shadow of our Cold War capabilities, even though the threat is real and far more complex. Does anyone think our capabilities will improve under an Obama administration that has put a political hack in charge of the CIA?
Bolton thinks Obama may well succeed in sparking some talks with Tehran, but that Tehran will use the talks just as they have used the EU-3 (Britain, France, Germany) talks: A good way to cover up and stall, while the Mullahs continue to pursue their dream of nuclear jihad.
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