OPINION:
It’s hard to exaggerate the strategic disaster of Barack Obama’s celebrated deal with the mullahs in the Islamic Republic of Iran. With “lone wolf” murders proliferating and no central command over them, the president has emboldened a vicious wing of radical Islamic terrorism.
The president early on lost his bearings in dealing with the fanatical regime in Tehran which aims to be the controlling power in the Middle East. His weakness shows itself at every level — strategically, militarily, economically, and in the arts of propaganda. The difficulties do, in fact, date from a time before Mr. Obama arrived at the White House. Ronald Reagan failed to cope with Tehran, declining to answer the suicide bombings which killed 299 American and French Marines in October 1983 in Beirut. He called it a “despicable act,” and it certainly was that, and more — circumstantial evidence of Iranian complicity.
But when a grass-roots movement against the mullahs took to the streets, following the stolen presidential election of 2009, and the good guys begged for help, Mr. Obama turned his back on them. For all the empty talk about “moderates” in Tehran, there’s scarcely any realistic hope that the mullahs will leash their allies and their worldwide aggression as long as it continues to spread Iranian influence. The mullahs have taken the measure of the American president.
Mr. Obama has tried to work with the mullahs, counting on expensive American concessions to slake their appetite. But the mullahs are determined to feed that appetite. The lengthy negotiations to limit Iran’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction have turned into a farce. When Tehran objected to inspection of their military installations as part of the enforcement arrangements, the demand was simply dropped from discussion by Mr. Obama. As the agreement was celebrated at the White House, Iran launched new tests of intercontinental ballistics missiles that could one day reach targets in the United States.
There’s still no answer to questions about why and how American gunboats and their crews were captured and brave men publicly humiliated by Tehran to demonstrate American impotence. Whether it was a navigation miscalculation and engine problems which called for a “non-confrontational return,” or a demonstration of Iranian technical capacity to interfere with the boats’ GPS, is still not clear. But the incident damages the reputation of the United States in the region for a long time to come. As with the swapping of prisoners with the Taliban, the president has given back proven terrorists, including several accused in bombings of Jewish installations in Argentina, just as a new government in Buenos Aires promised to take up a serious investigation of the incidents. More terrorists were freed to plot more violence against America and its allies.
The removal of sanctions and return of blocked funds, perhaps as much as $200 billion, will help get the mullahs through the Iranian economic crisis brought on by large military expenditures, including the stationing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Syria. Renewed oil and gas sales in the world market will help, but only marginally. There’s little likelihood of regime change without substantial help from abroad. Barack Obama, however, prefers to lead from behind — far, far behind — where he doesn’t see the threats to peace, stability and threats to American interests that are clear to everyone else.
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