Category Archives: Obama

U. S. Spins Its Wheels, While Iran Spins Its Centrifuges

The deadline for nuclear talks with Iran was supposed to be tomorrow, July 20.  In exchange for holding off on further sanctions, President Obama swore up and down to Congress that this was a firm deadline.

Now the deadline has been extended till November 24, which means Iran blithely continues its path to a nuclear weapon.  What does Iran need most?  Time.  What did they just get?  Time.

Look, if they had a delay of a week or two, that would be one thing.  It would show they were close to a deal.  (Whether it would be a smart deal for us is a different issue, but not one we face today.)  But a four–month extension shows that we have nothing, that we’re just spinning our wheels, while they spin their centrifuges.

November 24 gets Obama past the mid-terms and to Thanksgiving when no one will be paying attention when they announce further failure and, God forbid, another absurd extension.

Yup, They’re Running

We know that Rick Perry and Chris Christie are running in 2016 because they are making decisions purely out of fear of pissing off primary voters.

Perry refused to meet President Obama at the airport in Texas tomorrow, as governors traditionally do, because God forbid he should be photographed shaking the President’s hand.

And Christie vetoed a bill that would have reduced gun magazines in New Jersey from a maximum of 15 rounds to 10, because God forbid a mass shooter should have to re-load more often, giving his victims a chance to run.  Nah, much more important for Chris to run.

The Perry thing is just silly, but the Christie thing is sad.

Quote of the Day

“Republican hysteria still exists, but it increasingly finds its expression not in policy but in a melange of scandal allegations.  The threat to the Constitution once epitomized by such things as Obamacare, socialism, and Greece has instead taken the form of Benghazi, IRS, and Bergdahl.

“The reformicons’ retreat from Ryan-style apocalypticism is not only a shrewd tonal shift, but also a welcome — albeit unackowledged — recognition that the party’s doomsaying has not come to pass, and the the American way of life will indeed survive Obama’s reforms. … Whether or not the reformicons ever compose a workable domestic agenda, they have come to recognize that they cannot run a presidential campaign promising to rescue America from fire and rubble visible only to themselves.”

Jonathan Chait, “The Republican Party After the Apocalypse,” New York Magazine

Blame the British and French

As Iraq disintegrates, Dems are blaming Bush and Republicans are blaming Obama.  And the same arguments will take place when we finally leave Afghanistan and that God-forsaken place falls apart.

But as we apportion blame, let’s not forget the British and the French.

One of the huge problems we’ve had fighting in Afghanistan is that when we pursue the Taliban, they cross the border into Pakistan, where our ability to follow them is severely restricted.  The Afghans have a save haven there because the people are Pashtun on both sides of the border.  Rather than think of themselves as Afghans or Pakistanis, they think of themselves primarily as Pashtuns.  A sensible border would have all the Pashtuns living in the same country, but noooooo.  Back in 1893, a British colonial official created the Durand Line to separate British India from Afghanistan.  When that part of India became Pakistan in 1947, the absurd border remained, irrationally dividing the Pashtuns.

As for Iraq, the British and French arbitrarily drew the Sykes-Picot line in 1916 (and implemented it after WWI), which falsely divided Ottoman Empire territory into Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, separating Sunni tribes with a purely artificial border.  The Iraq side was for the British, and the Syrian-Lebanese side was for the French, with no regard for the Sunnis who should have been assigned to the same country.  If ISIS weren’t welcomed and joined by Maliki-hating Sunnis as they come from Syria into Iraq, they wouldn’t have been able to make the swift conquest they have.

And don’t get me started on the Kurds, who have really gotten the short end of the stick.  They are a distinct people, Muslim, but not Arab.  They should have an independent Kurdistan (and maybe will when this mess get resolved) that unites the Kurds now divided among Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.

Air Strikes Are Coming

From my reading on Iraq, it seems that the President isn’t thinking about air strikes, but has decided to do them, and is waiting for up-to-date intelligence and a better sense of the lay of the land.

It also seems pretty clear that those air strikes won’t just be in Iraq, but will be in Syria too.

We seem to be proceeding on two tracks — a military track using air power and a political track to get Maliki ousted.

Prez Slow Walks Iraq

Not that I blame him, but President Obama definitely is slow walking if/how we will get involved in Iraq again.

As ISIS takes the fight to Baquba, just forty-five minutes from Baghdad, Obama is planning to meet with Congressional leaders (Boehner, Pelosi, Reid, McConnell) tomorrow afternoon.  So not exactly urgent…

Aside from protecting our embassy personnel, the Prez really doesn’t seem eager to join the fray.

You Can’t Make Some People Happy

Especially if you’re President Obama, and “some people” are conservative politicians or Fox News commentators.

Having bashed Obama for not capturing those responsible for the Benghazi attack on 9/11/12 that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead, the right is now beating up on him because he’s captured the ringleader, Ahmed Abu Khattala.  They don’t like the “timing.”

Special Forces planned and practiced the raid on Khattala’s compound for a year, and now he is heading to the U. S. for trial in a civilian court.

But instead of celebrating the news, the right is dismissing it as an effort to distract from Obama’s other problems and to promote Hillary’s book tour!

State and Defense Need to Talk Amongst Themselves — UPDATE

As we wonder whether the U. S. will join with Iran on Iraq, we face the threshold question of whether the Pentagon will join with the State Department.

Secretary of State John Kerry says that “We’re open to discussions” on military cooperation with Iran.

But at the Defense Department, not so much.  A spokesman there says, “There are no plans to consult with Iran on military actions inside Iraq.  We are not planning to engage in military-to-military discussions with Iran.”

UPDATE — The White House is with the Pentagon on this one, saying there will be no military coordination with Iran.  So that seems to be an, um, “red line” for the Administration.