The Obama Conundrum

There’s a problem out there for Obama that he’s trying to avoid at all costs. It is Iran. Iran has not moved one inch off of line since Obama took office. They are proceeding with ever more technology to enhance ever more uranium. Just last week the IAEA noted in their late August report that Iran had doubled the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at an underground facility.

President Obama has stated “I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” [2] Yet despite this bold language, he has taken no positive action to stop Iran, save the reported computer worm allegedly deployed in the Iranian facilities. Meanwhile, Israel, the assumed target of any Iranian aggression, has openly beseeched the world to support a pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear development facilities. Within the past days Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying:

“The world tells Israel: ‘wait, there is still time.’ Wait until when? Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have the moral right to place a red line before Israel.”

So here are the options from President Obama’s position:

* He can strike at Iran, risking a terrorist counter-strike by Hezbollah in the U.S. and potentially losing the election as a result. This would likely have the effect of swinging Jewish voters overwhelmingly to his side, but alienating other liberal factions who would oppose any military action.

* He can attempt some other cyber attack as was apparently carried out in the past, in an effort to buy time. This would be something clandestine and not involve ‘boots on the ground’ and therefore not have the political liabilities of a military attack. It would however immediately be recognized and publicized by Iran as an attack by the U.S., causing his campaign a good deal of turmoil

The third option is to simply do nothing, and thereby perhaps avoid the political fallout that will undoubtedly follow any act, but this allows both further alienation of Israel and will allow Iran still more time to not only improve their technology, but also protect it.

While these options are all real, one has to wonder what Iran is thinking. Have they not also come to these conclusions? Highly improbable. They undoubtedly (in my view) have reached the very same conclusions. This leaves Iran in the perfect position. They know Obama will not strike militarily, for fear of losing the election. They also know if they are too provocative toward the U.S., they could influence the election in favor of Romney, something they are likely disinclined to do, as they’ve had wonderful success with Obama’s ever present ‘negotiate’ posture, which they have completely commanded and overrun for the past four years. Their biggest worry is the clandestine cyber strike, which they have undoubtedly taken ample precaution against based on the success of the stuxnet worm.

So while Obama, et al, dither on the Iran nuclear issue, Israel feels more and more alone in confronting this threat. Simultaneously the IAEA is sending strong of warnings that they suspect nuclear weapons development is progressing, and they advise they continue to be thwarted from conducting inspections that could be conclusive. As this goes on, Iran pushes ahead toward being the first true theocracy with the bomb. Albiet Pakistan has the bomb, in fact LOTS of bombs, but there is the counterbalance of India that they confront. Further, Pakistan is not a theocracy, at least not yet. The military still controls Pakistan and most of what happens there in their diplomatic soft spots.

So here we are, four year after the election of President Obama who promised he would resolve the Iran nuclear threat, and who as recently as this March made the declaration that he would “prevent Iran” from having a nuclear bomb, and yet it all has been shown to be empty rhetoric. The real shame is that while Iran sees this, Israel sees this, and surely the Obama administration sees this, the American people, delirious over the new Iphone 5, have no idea that the middle east is about to undergo a tremendous geo-political power shift. What happens in the coming weeks and months will be momentous in one way or another. It is my view that Iran must be stopped, for there is every reason to believe that if they had nuclear bombs they would use them. And Iran is playing the Obama administration, and the U.S. election to its best advantage. Perhaps Israel is right, they may be only months away from a functional nuclear bomb, we don’t really know. Moreover, if not a functional nuclear bomb, they at minimum have highly enriched uranium, a highly toxic substance to humans, which could readily be incorporated with a standard explosive, making the dreaded “dirty bomb.” This with the combination of command of a world-wide clandestine paramilitary organization (identified as a terrorist organization in the U.S. – Hezbollah – ‘Army of God’) is a genuine world threat.

This is not an easy situation for anyone who wishes to see Iran’s aspirations put to an end. But the unfortunate truth is that it is to the Obama administration’s advantage for re-election purposes to ignore the entire situation, or put on the good face of negotiating with Iran, who have continuously lied for more than a decade, (and repeatedly been shown to have done so), in an effort to avoid the potential fallout on the Obama re-election. This is perhaps an all-time low in politics, for it is risking nations, potentially millions of people, purely for the benefit of the political aspirations of a handful of “national leaders.” It is perhaps the epitome of “American hubris” in my view.

Tags: America, bump in the road, election, Iran, Israel, Obama, politics, Rick Hahn, Terrorism

This entry was posted on September 25, 2012 at 5:38 pm and is filed under election, terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.