COMMENTARY:
President Obama is setting the stage for a possible war in the Middle East. During last week’s press conference, he said his administration will be “persistent” in courting Iran‘s mullahs.
The centerpiece of his Iran strategy is direct diplomacy. He seeks face-to-face negotiations, maintaining that dialogue and economic incentives will convince Tehran to abandon its quest for the nuclear bomb. The Bush administration’s policy of containment is being replaced with one of engagement.
Yet, Mr. Obama is hoping to succeed where the EU-3 (Germany, Britain and France) has failed. For years, the EU-3 has been pushing the diplomatic rock up the Iranian mountain - only to see it fall every time.
Mr. Obama recently sent a personal video message, offering an “open hand” to Tehran’s Islamic fascists. Their response: Take a hike. Still, Mr. Obama will continue to push for talks until Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “unclenches his fist” and agrees to participate. Like Britain’s Neville Chamberlain at Munich, the president is bent on appeasement, whatever the cost.
Throughout the Bush years, the left made one central argument: His neoconservative ideology trumped reality; his desire to spread liberty in Iraq - and the wider region - conflicted with the cold, hard facts of Islamic authoritarian culture. Democracy, however, is slowly sprouting from the sands of Mesopotamia. Ironically, it is Mr. Obama who allows entrenched policy positions to blind him to the evil, odious nature of the Iranian regime.
Recently, a senior defector, former Deputy Defense Minister Ali Reza Asghari, revealed that Tehran has been funding Syria’s nuclear weapons program. A central element was the North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria, which Israel destroyed in September 2007. Mr. Asghari’s revelations should shake the Obama administration to its very foundations: Tehran has established a nuclear axis with Damascus and Pyongyang. In fact, the Syrian reactor was modeled on North Korea’s at Yongbyon.
Contrary to the claims of liberal State Department apparatchiks, Iran’s mullahs are not using the nuclear issue as a bargaining chip to maximize concessions from the West. Rather, they are using negotiations to mask their clandestine program. Protracted diplomacy buys more time. Tehran has an overriding interest in stringing out the process.
Israeli intelligence officials are convinced Iran is less than a year from acquiring the bomb. A nuclear Iran will trigger a regional arms race. It may also unleash a military confrontation with Israel and plunge the Middle East into a bloodbath.
Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly vowed to wipe the Jewish state off the map. He has called Israel “a rotting, stinking corpse” whose “days are coming to an end.” The Israeli government plans to launch devastating air strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Hence, Mr. Obama faces the specter of an all-out war in the Middle East, one that may even involve nuclear weapons if Tehran gets the bomb.
