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eah, yeah, we sure tweeted about the #iranelections and blogged about how awful the Tehraniacs were, quashing political legitimate dissent over a fraudulent election.  But please, the Mullahs in Iran have nothing over the Commies in Beijing, who know how to quickly crush any expression in favor of political freedom.

AP reports from the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi, in the Uighurland west of China, that at least 140 have been killed and nearly 900 arrested after police a protest that up until than had been peaceful, demanding justice for two Uighurs killed last month during a fight with Han co-workers at a factory.  Soon thereafter, columns of paramilitary police were seen pouring into Urumqi, ready to open up a little Lhasa on the minority Uighers.

Sorry for not having a Tehran-like photo of suppression in action, but this is China, folks, and photos aren’t exactly flooding out of there.  In fact, Youku, China’s version of YouTube, and Fanfou, China’s Twitter, were both slammed shut in Xinjiang, and all Internet traffic slowed – a sure sign the government was heavily monitoring chatter.

Now that’s totalitarian suppression! The Mullahs should be moping, ashamed of themselves for their lily-livered response to pro-Democracy demonstrators.

Except not really.  Tehran was dealing pretty much with an all-Persian uprising; the Beijingoists are in the much more comfortable area of racial hatred and tribal supression, something they are very good at – the same thing that made the attacks on Tibet so pleasurable to the Han Chinese majority that runs China.

In Urumqui, as in Lhasa, the unrest is as much racial as it is political – if not more so.  With Chinese economic expansion, the majority Han ethnic group is spreading out throughout China, displacing Tibetans, Uighurs and others as they do.  The minorities complain to Beijing, but the Commies there see them as merely an inferior, backwards minority.

As for the Obama admin, as of 10:45 PST, there were no statements from the White House or State.

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f there is one thing the people of Iran have learned since the “glorious” Islamic revolution, it’s to take the words of the supreme ayatollah seriously.

Yesterday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that he’d had enough of this liberty and fair vote crowd and would be clamping down, pronto. And today, the crowds that were reported to be as high as one million yesterday, shrunk to 3,000, according to the Times (UK).  And here’s what they were met with:

Police in Tehran used teargas, metal batons and water cannons on protesters who continue to challenge the recent presidential elections.  …

Earlier today thousands of black-clad riot police were deployed to nearly every public square in the city, outnumbering those on the streets.

They completely blocked off Tehran’s Enghelab ‘Revolution’ Square after Mousavi supporters arranged to meet there.

Those who tried to gather were confronted by officers from all sections of Iran’s security services including the revolutionary guard, military police and religious paramilitaries called the Basij.

Smoke was seen rising from the square as tear gas was deployed on the protesters heard chanting ‘death to the dictator’ and crowds were dispersed with water canons.

Yes, I’ve tinted my avatar green on Twitter in solidarity with Iran’s freedom-hungry people, but that doesn’t mean I’ve ever given this little revolution any chance of succeeding.  I’ve seen totalitarianism at work, with faint memories of the Hungarian revolution when I was five, then Prague’s Velvet Revolution, then the Chinese dictators’ bloody suppression of Tianenmen, and the fade-out of the Azerbaijani revolution, the quick suppression of uprisings in Myanmar and in an encore, the Chinese dictators’ slaughter of monks and citizens in Tibet, Olympics or no Olympics.

Totalitarianism is a bear, a vicious, powerful bear. American presidents should always speak in favor of freedom, promote our system and our ideals, and speak out strongly against the actions of despots. They should pledge America’s strength towards diplomatic and economic actions. But they need to be very cautious when offering encouragement or succor, because history proves that totalitarians are in total control and will kill, torture and imprison to stay that way.

Obama is right not to say anything to encourage the Iranians to take to the street, because if they do and are massacred, he is not prepared to do anything in support of them.  (I’m not saying he’s right not to do anything to support them; only that since he’s not going to help, he shouldn’t encourage them to put themselves in a situation where they may need his help.)

But he didn’t go far enough in condemning Iran’s leaders, not by a long shot. It is not difficult to find the right position in a matter like his – especially if the president puts America’s role as the light for freedom throughout the world ahead of his own ludicrous desire to be photographed sitting next to Mah- I’m in the -moud for some serious head bashin’ Ahmadinejad (rhymes with “Hanging chad? We don’t need no hanging chad!”)  The president is, we’re told endlessly, brilliant. He’s supposed to be so good with words, so fresh diplomatically. 

He’s showing none of it … and the supreme ayatollah is showing us this (caution, upsettingly graphic):

Meanwhile, the NYT reports Obama is steadfastly resisting pressure to step up his rhetoric:

Mr. Obama, officials said, was determined to react to events as they unfold, rather than make statements that might play well politically but hinder his longer-term foreign-policy goals. The administration still hopes to pursue diplomatic engagement with Iran on its nuclear program.

Still, one senior official acknowledged that a bloody crackdown would scramble the administration’s calculations.

It looks increasingly that the bloody crackdown is happening in real time, right now. Will it scramble Obama’s calculations – or will he continue to put his desire to talk to Ahmadinejad, the recipient of the benefits of the corrupt election, ahead of America’s role as the world’s foremost advocate for human dignity and freedom?

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s I understand it, here’s the Obama/Clinton State Dept’s take on how they will win what we used to call the war on terror:  The problem between the U.S. and the jihadists is that we just haven’t been likable enough. We’ will win over Islam if we spend less on the military and more on fish sticks for orphans.

That was the gist of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith A. McHale’s talk to the Center for a New American Security today.  (I thought the old Bush security was just fine, by the way, since no Americans were killed by jihadists on American soil during his watch, post 9/11.)  Here’s some excerpts:

Whether we are strengthening old alliances, forging new partnerships to meet complex global challenges, engaging with citizens and civil society, or charting new strategies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, our national interests depend on effective engagement and innovative public diplomacy. The stakes could not be higher. We must get this right…This is not a propaganda contest — it is a relationship race. And we have got to get back in the game.

Enhanced public diplomacy is a key component of the President’s new strategy in the region…To achieve the President’s aims, we are launching a multi-faceted strategy to provide platforms for local moderate voices, support democratic institutions and civil society, and position the United States as a long-term partner working to create opportunities and enable the people of the region to chart the futures of their own countries.

We are responding to requests from the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to help meet the needs of their people. Secretary Clinton recently announced more than $100 million in humanitarian support for the people of Pakistan. And Ambassador Holbrooke just announced another $200 million. Since 2002, the United States has provided a total of more than $3.4 billion to alleviate suffering and promote economic growth, education, health, security and good governance in Pakistan. [Oh, wait! You mean Bush tried this to the tun of $3.4 billion and they're still trying to kill us? No matter; just apply the Universal Obama Solution - throw lots of money at it.]

Yet we have a credibility gap with many in the region — some have called it a ‘trust deficit.’ So part of our task is reassuring the people that our aim in the region is to support their own aspirations. We need to do a better job of getting the word out about what we are doing to help Pakistan and Afghanistan become more stable and prosperous, both through the local media and by communicating directly with people.”

It is not about getting the word out, or the trust deficit, but it is most definitely about the aspirations of the people of the region.  A significant percentage of them have a deeply imbedded aspiration to bring pain, suffering and death to the Great Satan, and no amount of communication or prosperity is going to change that.  Only rewriting the Q’ran will change that.

Islam has nurtured radicals since the dawn of the religion, through times of great wealth and times of great poverty alike.  Radical Muslims abound in Lebanon, where Democracy still hangs on. And education? Cairo University, where Obama spoke to the Muslim world last week (except for Iran, of course, where the state didn’t broadcast it), has spawned its share of very well educated Islamo-savages.

McHale concluded her comments with a bizarre historical reference:

A few days after I started at the State Department, I moved into George Marshall’s old office. General Marshall saw a world beyond our shores devastated by war and reeling from economic crisis. He knew that our fates and our fortunes were intertwined and that America had to engage with the world to ensure our future. So he launched one of the most far-reaching engagement efforts in history. And today we are still reaping the rewards of that investment in mutual prosperity and security. From Cairo to Kabul, from quiet villages to crowded cities, America is once again reaching out a hand of friendship and seeking new relationships. We know it is the right thing to do and we know, like General Marshall did, that our future depends on it.

Yeah, but back then Europe was a Christian continent. And the enemy was broken, broke and starving – a point we’ll never get to if the administration can’t even admit that we’re fighting terrorists.  There is a role for public diplomacy – what we used to call foreign aid – but alone, it will have no measurable effect on the level of jihadist violence against us.

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o political choice is ever a 0/100 or a 100/0 affair.  We balance, sift and finally settle, selecting the candidates we will reject and the ones we will vote for.

With Barack Obama, I quickly felt that his leftist voting record and his transparently disingenuous rhetoric was bad news for America and I hoped Hillary would win the Dem nomination – not so much because I thought that would make it easier for the GOP nominee to win, but because it meant that no matter who won, America would be in better hands than it would be if it was in Obama’s.

Still, he wasn’t 0/100 with me.  I thought that his unique heritage could play well on the foreign policy stage, even if I didn’t trust his own policies.  When gaps are huge – as they are between radical Islam and us – bridging has to come first, with policies following.  Obama could be a bridge, and even if there are downsides to bridging, there is an upside (again not a 100/0 or 0/100 thing).  The upside was that Obama might spark a “moderate revolution” in Islam, creating the opportunity for the religion’s worst elements to be censored – eliminated – from within, instead of by us.

Today in Cairo this was either going to happen or not happen.  And none of us know, now that the speech has been given, whether sparking the moderation of Islam will be Obama’s legacy or not.  But we do know, and have to admit, that he was uniquely qualified by his heritage and life story to give this speech. I have read no commentaries or news reports.  I don’t know how it was received in Cairo, Tehran, Dearborn or either the right or left side of the blogosphere.  I just read the transcript on Real Clear Politics, and this is what I think.

Structurally, the speech is very basic.  It defines seven issues and introduces each by finding and celebrating our common ground in that area before detailing our differences and the Obama vision for resolution.  In the seven issues, he covered everything I wanted him to cover, including in #5 the one with the most potential power: women’s rights. If the women of Islam begin to demand rights, it will be a great force toward moderation and economic development, and I hope that Islamic women and men will be inspired by those words. 

The speech strained credulity and history at times trying to find common ground, as was the case early on when he cited the Treaty of Tripoli as evidence of a long, normal history between America and Islam:

I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.”

“Recognize” is a unique way to put the relationship characterized by this treaty, which was all about war and piracy and slavery and extortion – hardly the basis for Islam always being a positive part of America’s story.  And it wasn’t John Adams that drafted the very controversial Article 11he quotes from, it was the diplomat Joel Barlow, who negotiated the treaty.

These oratorical stretches at the beginning of each of its seven sections are the points of the speech that are the must vulnerable, and surely will be the target of criticism.  I get it; he wants to show the connection, but the very fact that the connction is sometimes so hard to find reveals the difficulty of the challenge.

It is naive to think that one speech would transform the world; that’s the “magic bullet” theory that Obama seems to believe in but simply is not true.  Certain of his statements will stick in certain peoples’ craws and certain nations’ collective craws and will become their point of focus, building gaps, not bridges.   

On policy, a few things jumped out at me, most of all that he did not say unequivocally that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons.  The closest he came to making a horrifying apology was in this section, when he appeared to apologize for our nuclear capabilities:

I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons.

Is he saying it was wrong for America to make the choice to become a nuclear nation?  It certainly seems so, and if that’s his belief, he’s got a lot of historical explaining to do, looking back, and he’s created a diplomatic quagmire, looking forward.

He satisfied me with his basic statements of support for Israel and surprised me in an extremely positive way with his frank condemnation of antisemitism and his statement – in Egypt, where antisemitism and Holocaust denial is a state-run business – that denying the Holocaust “is baseless, ignorant, and hateful.” I was less thrilled with his seeming acceptance of Hamas as a legitimate party going forward and his condemnation of Israeli settlements – but I loved that Holocaust talk!  How will it play in the Muslim world? We’ll see, but it certainly did no harm.

The other thing that troubled me is the promises he made to American Muslims, and the commitments he made on behalf of we non-Muslims.  He promised to make it easier for Muslims to fulfill the zakat – Islam’s charitable giving mandates – under U.S. tax law.  I wasn’t aware this was a problem, and I hope he’s not talking about making it easier for American Muslims to give to Hamas and other terrorist groups.

I’m also not sure which Americans, exactly, he was talking about here: 

Americans are ready to join with citizens and governments; community organizations, religious leaders, and businesses in Muslim communities around the world to help our people pursue a better life.

I know a few Americans who are doing that.  They’re called “missionaries,” and they have to live almost underground, fearful of religious persecution at any turn.  I fear Obama is calling for something akin to the radical Americans who went to Cuba in the 60s to harvest sugar cane – will there be troops of progressives trekking to Libya now, coming back with Islamic doctrination rather than leaving behind American ideals?

Then there was the ludicrous.  There always has to be the ludicrous in an Obama speech.

We will open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new Science Envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, and grow new crops.

Barry, Barry, Barry.  These people are living with intermittent electric power, water they can’t drink, and they use dangerously over-crowded public transportation or motorbikes or even donkeys and camels to get around.  Digitizing medical records when you’re going to clinics that wash and re-use wound dressings?  Green jobs when any job will do, thank you?  Leave the appeasing of the U.S. Greenies at home!

Still, I go back to the beginning and say this was a speech only Barack Obama could have given, and I have to say he did it well.  His audience wasn’t us, it was them, and he did not come off as either weak or arrogant, the two directions that would have sunk this initiative.  He positioned – perhaps too subtly for some – his country as a force for good, and held us up as an economic and human rights ideal.  He will be the source of many, many conversations in the Muslim world for some time to come, many of them focusing on this, the big question:

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort – a sustained effort – to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

My guess:  As is the case now, most of us will work toward common ground, a good future for our children and respect for others.  And a few radical Islamists will continue to focus on destroying all things not Islamic and creating a new caliphate.

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hall we take a little peek at the Euro-press and see how our prez fared on his recent trip across the pond?  It may be a good idea because Robert “Jive Talkin’” Gibbs is telling us it was a wonderfully successful trip, so applying the sort of cynicism I learned as a journalist (“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”), I’m going to do a little verifying here.

No doubt, some loved it.  Spiegel quotes from the German paper Süddeutsche Zeitung:

“There will be some in America who say: ‘So, what has Obama gained in Europe? More troops for Afghanistan? More money to fight the recession? Nothing.’ A few hard-boiled Republicans have already started criticizing Obama for precisely these things. But they represent the old school.”

“According to the new school from Obama’s new Washington, this is the way to look at it: The president has brought home the most valuable thing he could have and the thing that the superpower critically needs at this time — credibility and the ability to win others’ faith.

But to see the other side, an opinion piece in today’s IHT is a pretty good place to start.  Somebody find Gibbs and make sure he doesn’t see this:

The gap between myth and reality at last week’s G-20 summit in London was truly breathtaking. On the one hand, President Barack Obama proclaimed he had come to London to listen, not dictate. That was the myth.

On the other, the prime drama of the G-20 was the attempt by the Obama economic team to bully the Europeans into doing additional fiscal stimulus. That was the reality.

Europe had good reason for saying no to the new American president.

Saying “no” to the American president?!  Where were his magical powers of persuasion, the magic words he assured us he, and he alone, had and would unleash once elected?

Here’s NRC, from the Netherlands:

Rarely does Obama express understanding for French or German skepticism of large government investments, and seldom does he openly give attention to the global nature of the crisis. Because of that, protectionism – “buy American!” – sneaks into his policy. According to Dale, Obama would “truly show leadership” if he would use the G20 summit in London to explicitly turn against that idea – and with that, against his own supporters. …

Some followers of the president have wondered the last couple of months why Obama has not yet used his popularity in Europe for personal appeals for more European solidarity in Afghanistan and for the closure of Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo).

Despite extensive efforts, Americans diplomats did not succeed in securing extra European troops for Afghanistan; The Hague conference did not bring any change in that department yesterday. In addition, American requests for the reception of released Gitmo prisoners hardly got any response in Europe.

Yeah, they loved him.  Sure.  Another outlet from the Netherlands, Elsevier, followed up Obama’s visit with a little piece called How Barack Obama Violates Human Rights, which contained this:

The [NATO Afghanistan] conference was also marked by contact between Islamic Iran and the United States. President Barack Obama wished Islamic Iran and Iranians happiness for the Iranian New Year. So did George W. Bush. He did it via the radio, but Obama used TV and the internet.

As Obama addressed the Iranian government, a number of bloggers were arrested in Tehran on suspicion of attempting to throw over the regime. Can a blogger overthrow a regime with his text? … Do great civilizations arrest columnists and bloggers nowadays?

Obama legitimized the Iranian government by explicitly mentioning the Iranian state. For President Bush, the Iranian civilians were more important, and he often addressed them. At that time, the Islamic republic could only count on criticism from the American government. Times have changed.

Apparently it is possible for Europeans to see right through Obama, a skill many Americans have not yet picked up.

El Pais in Spain wrote about the trip at its outset and foresaw exactly what would happen, a sign of being decidedly undazzled:

Barack Obama, the U.S. president for whom Europe swooned, is in Europe, on his first transatlantic visit. It’s more than probable, however, that this dizzying tour (the G-20, a NATO summit, meetings with the EU and Turkey) will end in a handful of hopeful statements and gestures … that are rather empty of concrete results.

And seeing right through Obama’s call for a nuke-free world was the German newspaper Die Welt, also quoted in Spiegel:

“Of course, at least in theory, it is possible to imagine scrapping all of the world’s nuclear warheads. But the fact is that you can’t just erase the fact that people know how to build atomic weapons. … Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and reducing existing nuclear arsenals to a certain degree are worthwhile goals, but the so-called ‘global zero’ is not. ‘More security’ is more important than ‘no nukes.’”

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ith a surprise trip to Iraq, unless there are further surprises, Barry’s Big Adventure is winding down.  G20, NATO, speech to the Muslim world, visit to Iraq – as presidential jaunts go, this one was as ambitious as they come.  But was it successful?

Absolutely, at least from his perspective.  Let’s start with the high point: He wasn’t at home, so for a week the focus of the American voter wasn’t on the economy, which was a blessed relief for Dem strategist.

Now, the low point:

Don’t believe the CNN headline at the top, which is just media bias at its worst.  You saw it right.  At about 30 seconds in, our slim, good lookin’ president had a chance to give France’s too-hot first lady Carla Bruni, who’s leaning in for a little cheek-nuzzle, a little of his lips brushing her skin … but he backs off, sticks out his hand like a halfback stiff-arming, and she shifts to a handshake.  And see in back?  See Michelle’s long, withering hawkeyed check?  What’s with that?  As Red State called it, Henpecked in Chief.  Is this the image we want for our president?  You know Bush would have gone in for it, and Laura, sure of her husband’s fidelity, wouldn’t even have noticed.  But Obama held back and every straight man on the planet said, “You idiot!”

On now to less important measures. You (and I) can henpeck this trip apart as well as Michelle does Barry, but from a liberal perspective, the trip was a stunner.

At the G20, we saw an American president who let other nations lead and agenda-set, and we were not happy.  But Obama and his posse saw an American president who was properly differential and not, by any stretch of the imagination, arrogant – a word, by the way, that is much in the Lib lexicon nowadays, as in Obama isn’t, Bush was.  That, of course, is a pure fabrication; Obama is the height of arogance.  But they live in a fabricated world.  And in their world, Barry’s world, the G20 was ideal.

Off to NATO, where we saw a president not get much support for Afghanistan, but they saw a president who was not particularly militarily oriented and got lip service support for a war he, and they, must grudgingly give lip service to for appearances sake.  An upleasant but perfect stop.

In Prague, Obama outlined his vision for a nuclear free world, with a respected international agency watching over all of us, ensuring our safety.  We saw Li’l Kim Jong Il fire off a missile and blow the whole kumbayah moment, but the Libs couldn’t believe their ears.  I mean, man, it was like he was like wearing a peace sign or something.

Then to Istambul where he spent far too much time from our perspective bad-rapping America and its history, but on  this score, I’m going to give him some leeway. As much as I don’t like the message, I can concede that it may well have been the correct message for the audience he was speaking to. He has given the Muslim world his best shot.  He has laid out America as a flawed but great nation that’s ready to be a friend.  He’s said we think Islam’s just fine even if some of your folks periodically fly planes into our skyscrapers.  That’s what the Muslim world wanted to hear, so for that purpose, it was a well delivered speech.  And since he talked about American weaknesses in front of a foreign audience, the Libs were experiencing an unadulterated Dixie Chick moment.

And finally this morning the mandatory “secret” trip to Iraq, where he met with Gen Ray Odierno, said perfectly fine things about our wonderful troops and will meet with Iraq’s leadership.  Libs may squirm a bit at this, but they’ll probably concede that he did well with it, just as I did for his stop in Turkey.

So, he’s given it his best shot.  He’s rolled out the Obama mystique, the Obama vision, the Obama pixie dust, at every major venue that matters.  He did it cooly, without significant gaffe and with integrity, in the sense that whatever you may think, he was true to himself in this trip.  (Yeah, yeah, I know … what “self” does he have to be true to? But c’mon, try to see it through other eyes.)

Now he’s got nowhere to go but the White House. 

The market’s down 150 points, unemployment’s up, the Dem leadership is uncontrollable, his constituents have tasted blood and want more, the Tea Parties are spooling up … and overseas, the Europeans are going about being European and whatever good feelings he engendered among Muslims, I guarantee you, has not stopped the plotting, bomb-making jihadists. Those who bought the promise of the Obama campaign are still thinking that after all this, the pixie dust will hold strong, that change will come by the mere magic of His Presence and the power of His Words. 

We’ll see about that.  He did indeed give it his very best; now we’ll see what his very best can accomplish in a world that doesn’t curry much to pixie dust.

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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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inds of change are blowing, and Mah- I’m in the -moud for victory Ahmadinejad (rhymes with “I think Barack can be had”) has  his nose in the air, sniffing intently.  He likes what the breeze is blowing his way:

Without mentioning President Obama by name, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Wednesday repeatedly referred to those who want to bring “change,” a word used often in Obama’s election campaign, and seemed to indicate Iran would be looking to see whether there would be substantive differences in U.S. policy under Obama.

“We will wait patiently, listen to their words carefully, scrutinize their actions under a magnifier and if change happens truly and fundamentally, we will welcome that,” Ahmadinejad said, speaking to a crowd of thousands. (USA Today)

So is this a new sign that there is indeed hope for real change in US-Iran relations, that Obama’s much scoffed-at calls for talks with Iran might actually be a sane idea?  Given Ahmadinejad’s terms for change, I certainly don’t think so.

“Change means giving up support for the rootless, uncivilized, fabricated, murdering… Zionists and let the Palestinian nation decide its own destiny.”

Disparaging adjectives aside, there’s a problem with Mahmoud’s position here.  The trouble is, the Palestinian nation wants to decide its destiny and Israel’s, and their idea of Israel’s destiny sounds familiar:  Wipe them off the face of the earth.  Any Obama dialog with Iran had better state quickly that we won’t go along with that.

Then, as Iran spoils for war, fighting a barely clandestine war against us in Iraq, threatening transport in the Gulf, building nukes, Ahmadinejad defines change in U.S. military policy as he would like to see it:

“Change means putting an end to U.S. military presence in (different spots of) the world.”

Nifty.  Why do I get the feeling that you just can’t talk to this guy?

And finally, Ahmadinejad smells something he doesn’t like, and he wants Obama to change it right away:

“The change will be to apologize to the Iranian nation and try to compensate for their dark records and the crimes they have committed against the Iranian nation.”

He wants us to pay retribution for having supported the Shah.  How do we compute the price if the Iranian people are far more poor and repressed now than they were under the Shah?  How do we compute the price if the Shah was preceded by British and Russian imperialism and the either brutally repressive or lamely ineffective Qajar Persian heads of state? (Have you forgotten that the Russians actually seized Iranian territory and marched on Tehran after the 1917 Communist revolution?)  And are we to offset the price with their payments to us for seizure of our embassy and diplomats, and for the U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by Iranian-supplied weapons and Iranian-trained jihadists?

Ahmadinejad’s latest rant comes in direct response to Obama’s Al-Arabia interview Tuesday, in which the prez said, “”it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress.”  How much progress can there be if the Iranian starting position is for us to abandon Israel, withdraw our military from pretty much everywhere and pay them reparations?

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ith Barack Obama, perhaps more than any president in recent times, symbols are important, from his very own logo to where he gives his first presidential interview. As such, the interview with the Al-Arabia TV network is symbolism of a very high order.

Comments on the transcript at Al-Arabia bear this out:

Great interview. Cant wait for the months ahead and the speech in the muslim country he talks about……….

Please do not miss the meaning of the fact that the very first interview he gives as President of the United States, is to Al-Arabiya.

This is the best Arab and Muslim world is going to get from West. He is I think sincere and want to change the relationships for good. Believe me he is taking a very high political risk and if Arab and Muslim world do not respond in Kind then I think no peace for next 50 years

well done Barack

Despite some reservations about what he said, I’ll echo that last comment: Well done, Barack. Not everyone agrees:

Guess who B. Hussein Obama is doing his very first formal TV interview as president with? Just guess. If I’m an Israeli, I would run, not walk, early and often, to vote for Binyamn Netanyahu for president there, because there ain’t no way that Obama is gonna support Israel when push comes to shove — so, therefore, the Israelis will need their leader to be a guy who is willing to do the pushing and shoving on his own regardless of whether the American president gives his okay. (American Spectator blog)

Certainly, friends of Israel have reason for concern both with the symbolism and the content of the interview. They would have preferred the interview be with Haaretz, but I see Obama’s point. He wanted something big and this was packed with more symbolism than any other symbol he could have chosen. Not that I didn’t clench my teeth when I read stuff like this:

But if we start the steady progress on these [Israeli/Palestinian] issues, I’m absolutely confident that the United States — working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab states in the region — I’m absolutely certain that we can make significant progress.

I’m sorry; did I miss it when he mentioned Israel? And there was this:

Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia — I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage — to put forward something that is as significant as that.

Significant? Like giving up land for peace? Tried that. Didn’t work out too well. But it’s an idea Obama likes:

… I also believe that there are Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace. They will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side.

That’s not change; that’s land for peace. Obama says in a portion of the interview that’s critical of Bush that he understands that words are important; these words are telling Israel, even with the obligatory “I will continue to believe that Israel’s security is paramount,” that Obama will be asking them to trust the Arabs once again.

Kick the football, Charlie Brown!

I realize that saying “Israel aside, …” is enough to throw many of my readers into convulsions, and I’m certainly not ready to put Israel aside.  But, Israel aside, there is a larger picture. I would like to see little neo-con Americas springing up from Mogadishu to Tashkent, but since that’s not scheduled for this week, a different approach to the Muslim world is worth trying. I’m not at all confident it will work because history gives me no faith in the idea of Arabs working honestly and keeping their word when it comes to Israel, and because al Qaeda leadership doesn’t give a hoot about Obama and what he says.

But go ahead, Obama. Give it a shot. You might win. But if you fail, don’t fail Israel. Just learn a lesson about the limits of charisma.

Meanwhile, AP’s coverage of the interview was, in a word, disgusting.  It was all of what we’ve come to expect of AP of late:  Blame for everything wrong in the world lies at the feet of George W. Bush, and Obama is the beginning of everything right:

CAIRO, Egypt – President Barack Obama chose an Arabic-language satellite TV network for his first formal television interview as president, delivering a message Tuesday to the Muslim world that “Americans are not your enemy.”

The interview taped Monday underscored Obama’s commitment to repair relations with the Muslim world that have suffered under the previous administration.

As I recall it, relations suffered under the previous administration because a group of guys from the Muslim world killed over 3,000 of us and would have taken out our president if it weren’t for a couple of our guys yelling, “Let’s roll!”

But no, to AP the problems all lay on Bush, even as they tried to push Obama’s choice to go on Al-Arabia as breakthrough while acknowledging that Bush had gone there before:

During his presidency, former President George W. Bush gave several interviews to Al-Arabiya but the wars he launched in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted a massive backlash against the U.S. in the Muslim world.

Again, no reference to the base cause of all this – Islamists – even though the interviewer opened the door by mentioning 9/11.

For his part, neither did Obama mention 9/11, but I can understand that.  He’s going for breaking new ground, and he’s right not to bring up 9/11 in interview number one.  But neither can he ignore it.  It’s there and all that it stands for – jihad, hatred of the Great Satan – is still very much a part of the Islamic world.

There was an other comment on the Al-Arabia transcript that shows just how difficult this all is:

Please Mr President … make sure you meet with and listen to Hamas.

Yes, the terrorists who hold the Gaza Strip. And the nuke-crazy mullahs in Tehran. And the radical mosque funding Saudis. And the resurgent Hezbullah terrorists in Lebanon. And the Taliban sympathizers in Pakistan. And the terror spawning grounds of Somalia and Yemen. And the school girl beheaders in Indonesia.

And on and on and on it goes. Not symbols, but really dangerous real world stuff.   Obama started symbolically, and more power to him for doing so. I really hope he can capitalize his change image and truly change the Muslim world’s view of us and of jihad.

But when that fails, and the chances of failure are very great, I pray that he doesn’t try to pull a dangerous agreement out of the failure, but rather, recognizes it for what it is and sees the need to make a change of direction we can believe in.

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I

n yesterday’s Sunday Scan, I referenced a Thomas P.M. Barnett article on 12 lessons we should (have?) learned from the war in Iraq, including one I didn’t agree with.

The redirect on Iran was a complete waste of effort.

Due to our strategic tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan, America can’t stop Iran from getting nuclear unless we go nuclear. We won’t do that, meaning we should have welcomed Iran’s offered help in both locations and not wasted our troops’ lives in the meantime.

I protested that going nuclear is not the only option, and that welcoming Iranian offers of help is a risky business, like accepting large horsey gifts from Trojans Greeks (thanks, Bob). Behind my thinking on the risks of working with Iran is the utter failure of the European initiative to talk Iran out of its nukes. They’ve had five years to convince Ahmedinejad and the Mullahs to behave themselves and play by the most rudimentary of international rules, and have gotten nowhere.

I take that back: They have gotten somewhere, and it’s worse than where they started. The Europeans have been corrupted by the Iranians and are doing foul deeds at their behest – hardly a get tough policy on Iran’s nukes. Here’s what I’m talking about, from Spiegel:

Hoping to accommodate Tehran, [the EU] placed an Iranian dissident group on the EU list of terrorist organizations — and got the bloc’s agriculture ministers to rubber stamp the decision without any debate. Now lawyers from across Europe are accusing the EU of abusing the law.

Europe’s agriculture ministers had been bickering over the usual topics for hours: the reform of agricultural policy, the economic misery of many fishermen, the import of genetically modified varieties of soy, the distribution of fruit and vegetables in schools.

Then they had to deal with a particularly unusual point on the day’s agenda: the European Union’s new list of terrorist organizations. Following an “exhaustive examination,” according to the press release, the ministers voted unanimously in favor of the list.

However, those who took part in that meeting on July 15 recall that the submission was approved silently “without any discussion, without a single word being spoken and without a formal vote.” Most of those present had “no idea” what the document was about. The agriculture ministers could hardly have realized that their silent decision would lead two months later to a huge political stir.

Part of any reasonable Iran strategy is to encourage dissent within Iran, yet here we see the EU shoring up the corrupt and dangerous regime, by turning its back on a group that could attack the Mullahs from within – while getting nothing to show for it in return.

How did the EU decide to add the group – the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) – to the terrorist list? Simple … and foul:

The decision that the agriculture experts made in their meek ignorance had been prepared and formulated by a group that meets in secret. The names of the members of the group is classified as is the location where they meet and the dates of the gatherings. Every six months they update the so-called black list, which currently contains 48 organizations and 46 individuals suspected of terrorist activities. Those on the list can have their accounts frozen, and it is illegal to donate money to them or to support them in any other way. The organizations in practice lose the means to support themselves.

The EU’s handling of the matter – slipping the measure through secretly while proclaiming a public process – shows how dangerous it is to trust the Europeans with sensitive diplomacy when issues of the magnitde of nuclear weapons are in play.

If the Europeans have failed so miserably with Iran, we cannot afford to blame it entirely on the wimpy vicissitudes of the Europeans; we have to also give the Iranians their due: They are set in their policy, they are unwavering; they don’t feel threatened; they are threatening. Are these the sorts of folks we should accept offers from?

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