When Barack Obama finally piped up last year about the massive protests following the rigged June 12 presidential election in Iran, he quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” An eloquent line, but, as Obama used it, grossly misplaced.
King, when he talked about an arc of history, was not sitting around waiting for that arc to bend. He was fully committed to a great struggle for equality, and urging his followers to keep going. Obama, when he brought up the long arc, was at pains to tell the world he had no interest in getting involved with the protesters who were dying in the streets of Iran. He described their calls for freedom, and the brutal response of the Iranian regime, as “not something that has to do with the outside world.” Obama contented himself with “bearing witness” – or at least tuning in on TV — while he waited for the demonstrations to simmer down, so he could resume extending his hand to the mullahs. That was the context in which he brought up “the arc of the moral universe,” assuring us all that he and the “international community” believed the arc would bend “toward justice.”
It was a strange choice of phrase from the president who rode to office on slogans not about any long arcs of anything, but “this is our moment,” “now is our time.” Apparently that was fine for things like 2,000 pages of ObamaCare legislation. But in Obama’s worldview, when Iranians rose up to challenge the Tehran regime that has bedeviled America since the days of Jimmy Carter, it was not their moment, and not their time.
And now, here we are, a year after the “re-election” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sparked those demonstrations calling for justice. Whatever the final shape of history’s arc, right now it is bending toward an Iranian nuclear bomb, and a rising Iranian-centered axis of trouble that extends not only to Syria, Venezuela and North Korea, but to Turkey and Brazil (with China and Russia arranging for their cut of the action). And what of the Iranian demonstrators who braved the beatings and bullets in the streets? After a year of terror, arrests and executions, there were still reports of sporadic demonstrations on Saturday, here and there in Iran. Try to imagine how much courage that must take. But the huge protests of last year have been smothered, thwarted, silenced. Obama talks about the increasing “isolation” of Iran’s regime, but — as I argue in a column on Iran’s Arc of Injustice – those who are genuinely suffering from isolation are not Iran’s rulers, but Iran’s dissidents.
And, from the White House, here it comes again: the arc of history, this time not from the lips of Obama himself, but from one of his “human rights advisors,” reading a presidential statement (which may explain why either the AFP or the advisor bungled the phrase, and referred this time not to the “arc” but to the “arch” of history).
Here’s the quote, from the AFP story: “The courage of the Iranian people stands as an example to us and it challenges us to continue our efforts to bend the arch of history in the direction of justice.”
Bearing witness my behind. I hope that American people will get this clown into “witness protection program” in 2012. Maybe Barry and Michele will even enjoy it – so one day there will be a movie called “Did you hear about the Obamas”. Although, I doubt Obama’s will enjoy Ray, Wyoming as much as Morgans did. In all fairness though, Morgans are fictional characters – but on the plus side, Obama is also 99% fiction, and only 1% real. Just check out his promises.
Obamas view of human history is a projection of his own
personal history. He has been sleepwalking through life.
Things just happen to him. No effort or self awareness is required. There are no sacrifices made, no painful
choices, no lonely moments of decision. For OBama Harvard applications get shuffled to the top of the pile because he is black, he becomes Harvard Law Review President
because he fits another liberal checklist, no scholarship occurs..but he is declared “brillant”. Out of school he doesnt search for work, spends no time
in dead end jobs, is never unemployed, instead he is ushered into top flight law firms.
When asked to write a book..he cant, he has nothing to say. But then Bill Ayers
writes it for him crafting a political personality and
philosophy for him on paper. The personality he never had on his own. He is now a “charismatic leader”. Money
appears out of nowhere, political connections. The Chicago Democratic machine takes over. He sleepwalks
up the escalator to national political level. He introduces no legislation no ideas, votes for nothing.
There is visionary future if you just believe in it.
Look how well it has worked so far. After being a US Senator for 4 months he declares for the Presidency of the United States..the teleprompter keeps kicking out the canned phrases about a future where everyone gets
along, there are no wars, all cultures are the same.
Everything will be fast, fun and easy. It works. He is
elected President of the United States. Now this is BarrackObamas own personal “Arc of History”…from this
he projects his vision of how World History itself evolves. The grotesque naivete and delusions
of the Barrack Obama have become the basis of US policy in the real world where they will get us all killed.
“Bearing witness” – my behind. I hope that American people will get this clown into “witness protection program” in 2012. Maybe Barry and Michele will even enjoy it – so one day there will be a movie called “Did you hear about the Obamas?”. Although, I doubt Obama’s will enjoy Ray, Wyoming as much as Morgans did. In all fairness though, Morgans are fictional characters – but on the plus side, Obama is also 99% fiction, and only 1% real. Just check out his promises.
That you would invoke Dr. King to smear President Obama is shameful. You are a racist bigot who will say anything to damage our president.
Grow up, Alice. Obama is not beyond criticism, and his shameful distortion of King’s words deserves exposure.
Obama isn’t fit to shine MLK’s shoes, much less walk in them.
Are you trying to make a joke out of this? The handle Wigglebottom is a great disrespect to our great President.
Arc, arch who cares?
Obama is about a trajectory.
His own.
Obama is a course, a narrow path in and of himself that forever centers and focuses on himself. It is a way of life that makes sure that he is the center of attention no matter where he is at.
Obama is at once arrogance, boisterousness, intimidation, the privileged who is entitled to ignore the customs and rules of society everyone else lives by and respects, his music is always louder, his is bobbing and jiving his own head so he can look down his nostrils while blaming others for his endless failures and short comings, his is threats backed up with gangs of brass knuckle clad street thug enforcers blocking the doors and paths of any and all that dared to challenge or question his authority, majesty, power, superiority and wisdom.
But, then..
Ms. Rosett is way too kind.
Just like most of our nation continues to be.
However understand this:
Obama is what Martin Luther King feared and hated more than anything else. He is the “one of his own” that would repulse the world and destroy everything.
Be that as it may.
America wanted him.
America got him.
America wasted itself.
And now America has to suck it up.
Arcs in history do not happen in a vaccuum. Arcs occur because there is leadership. Unfotunately for the past year leadership has been sorely missing from the Oval Office. You cant’ vote present when you are President of the United States and it appears Obama doesn’t know how to make a decision or stand up for anything remotely resemebling human rights, except of course unless he is bowing to tyrants, dictators and apologizing for the United States view of freedom. OK , he has made a decision to abandon every western democracy, most notably Israel and England. The only arc that is being created today is the arc that we will have to repair in 2012 once we rid ourselves of this sad excuse for a President.
“It was a strange choice of phrase from the president who rode to office on slogans not about any long arcs of anything, but “this is our moment,” “now is our time.”
Yes. This is a strange presidency supported by the the strange bunch that chants that well worn nonsense about, “What do we want? Fill in the blank! When do we want it? Now!” Well, Now has arrived and the Now crowd seems completely unable to cope with having their wish fulfilled. They passively observe, go to parties and spend money. To paraphrase Dr. Phil, “how’s that workin’ for us?”
I am looking forward to that arc that moves from petty leftist one term American Presidents to great world leaders like Ronnie.
From the Gemara, (Sanhedrin 98a), Rabbi Chanina says,
” That when the waters are heavy with oil, and the fish can no longer live, then these are the days when Moshiach (Messiah ) is imminent “.
http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2010/05/the-prophecy-of-gushing-oil.html
Written almost 2000 years ago, when petroleum was unheard of.
History is a continuum.
Asking people with flexible morality to take a firm stand is not really realistic.
The President claims to have sat in Rev. Wright’s church for 20-odd years and never heard him bad-mouth the USA… He sides with people who think the murder of 40-million plus unborn Americans is a good thing… He accepts no blame for anything that has happened while he has been President… And he thinks acting indignant about the oil spill in the Gulf will fix everything…
The “Arc of History” in our case os going to be pretty damning testimony…
Obama was not, in fact, even willing to “bear witness.”
His administration actually cut off funding for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center — one of the most important organizations tracking both past and present abuses in Iran and issuing in depth reports — last October, right when their work was most urgently needed. I believe the IHRC may not have been the only human rights related groups that lost long standing support.
This is quietly a very big one. Yet there isn’t even a whisper about it in the media.
Nor on Wikipedia, if it is as you say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Human_Rights_Documentation_Center
We’ve arrived at the Raising Awareness Presidency.
Points given and moral superiority assured by merely noticing an event and venturing a narrative – compliant sound bite.
Teddy Roosevelt is throwing up in a bucket somewhere.
And George Washington is holding it for him.
Let’s just say it – Obama is one of the greatest narcissists ever to sit in the office. He puts Clinton and LBJ shame. He wants to be a dictator.
BTW, AtlasShrugs is quoting a source in Israel who translated an appearance by the Egyptian Foreign Minister Gheit (last month he referred to Israel as ‘the enemy’), acknowledging that Obama told him, Gheit, that he was ‘a Muslim’ – just like his two fathers, his half-brothers in Kenya, etc.
BHO sees himself as part Alinskyite, part UN secretary general, part head of the OIC – a representative of the Ummah to the world.
This is the person that Americans voted to lead them.
OIC, containing 57 states –the same number Obama misspoke during the campaign, referring to the 50 states of the USA.
[Ed. note: The OIC takes a certain license with this, listing its 57 members as "states"; but the membership actually consists of 56 states plus the Palestinian Authority].
But “the arc of history” is a string of pretty words, and what else has the Obama administration to offer but pretty words? What, they have to mean something?
Obama’s gonna need an ark when Congress is flooded with Conservatives after the Dem’s get their collective (pun intended) asses (again, intended) handed to them this coming November.
Hopefully, the arc of history will bend in the direction of revealing a 1-term US President around November, 2012.
The context in which they are using the ‘arc’ or the ‘arch’ seems suspiciously as if the President and his staff are injecting their worldview as dictated by dialectic materialism.
The big Marxist world-historical gut-check: Max Eastman, visiting Trotsky in Mexico, asking him why, if the dictatorship of the proletariat is so inevitable, anybody has to fight or sacrifice for it.
Obama’s “human rights advisor” is also quoted as saying the following…
“Obama said he looked “forward to the day when Iranians will be able to speak freely, assemble without fear and express their views without facing retribution, a day when the Iranian government will represent and foster rather than fear the aspirations of its own people.”
Substitute Americans/American for Iranians/Iranian, and it’s a little eerie, given this administration’s efforts to demean the tea party, to use the FCC to control free speech and the President’s personal advice to college students to balance out his critics by reading people & news outlets still enamoured of him, like the Huffington (cough) Post.
Claudia, our attitude toward the whole of the Middle East has become apparent for some time now. Israel and Bibi Netanyahu can go sit in the corner and cool their heels, (or, I suppose…in the new legacy media/Helen Thomas wing of Auschwitz), while our “savior” ponders his next cameo appearance on the world stage as the “Drone of Arc”.
A professional sideline sitter when it comes to the interests of middle America or our traditional allies, (whether being slandered for 20 years to the ears in the pews by the vitriol of Jeremiah Wright, by the “back to the ovens” undertones of Robert Malley, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said or Helen Thomas, or whether by the “dreams of my slaughter” thoughts of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn), we have come to expect the mildest of rebukes, faint damnation and mostly passive acquiescence.
Leftism in Europe oozes with many of these same sentiments. The undercurrent is clear.
Israel and America and the followers of freedom and democracy are being isolated in a witch hunt. And, Drone of Arc…is willing to sit back and watch them burn at the stake.
Good post, cfbleachers!
But Obama’s no couch potato “sitting back” as you say. He’s leading the charge for isolating America and Israel and, as executioner in chief, is busy piling up the firewood and setting up the stakes in the ground. He’ll even light the fires in person, if he manages to get that far.
Did you really expect anything else from this garbage administration? His rhetoric hasn’t changed, neither has his infantile beliefs. Obama has a warped view of the world that won’t change either.
Had Obama bothered to study the ‘arc of history’ he’d have found many leaders such as himself that set their nation – and indeed – the world on an arc of collision with nations of evil intent. It has been feckless (dare I say cowardly?) leaders such as himself (Chamberlain et al) that have helped describe the arc of collision. Because of the indecisiveness (indifference?) of leaders such as himself wars are produced – and made worse than they might have had they only stood up to the bullies of the world.
History has a habit of repeating itself – but only because we allow these feckless leaders to guide us into perilous waters.
How many soldiers died on the beaches of France and the march to Berlin because the English French and leaders of all the other nations refused to see Hitler for what he was? For many an individual the arc came to end on the beaches of Normandy – the sands of N. Africa Italy and a hundred other otherwise insignificant shitholes in the world – all because of feckless leaders of the same cut of cloth as Obama.
This time around the weapons are more terrifying than ever – nuclear – biological – chemical – electromagnetic pulse bombs. The world cannot afford another Obama/Chamberlain.
Is the fuse lit?
The San Antonio Tea Party has a wrist band with the dates 3-23-1775 and 3-23-2010. The first is the date of Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech and the second is the date of Obamacare being signed into law.
I take those two dates as proof there is no inherent trend of progress in human affairs.
Bullseye. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Obama had angels – Red angels – providing downfield blocking for him. Or, in another sports metaphor, that he was groomed in the Reds’ farm system. He’s the Reds’ answer to Milli Vanilli.
As for Obama’s arc, it’s going to be pretty much the same as Wile E. Coyote’s after he’s run off a cliff.
Let’s face it, the problem with a lot of the analysis here is that it quickly degenerates into hyperbole and Obama bashing. Is anyone seriously suggesting that we should publicly push Iran toward Civil War? There is a reason that GWB and now Obama did not start a war with Iran, and that judgment does not make either one of them Neville Chamberlain. GWB clled them out as part of the axis of evil, but did nothing to them. Obama makes nicer but gets a few sanctions.
Yes, Iran is a serious problem, but you guys are implying some myth that a strong, focused leader would “solve” this problem by…invading? nuking? publicly jawboning more for the dissidents? But never mind, we don’t need a solution, we just need to say for the thousandth time that Obama is a clueless jerk. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Yes.
Let me posit the converse straw man: Is anyone seriously suggesting that we should facilitate Iran’s incinerating Israel – and possibly us – with nuclear weapons?
Clueless jerk he is, and that is the foundation of all that follows. Clueless above and beyond his own founding principles, which seem to be a pretty transparent mix of campus communism and postmodern posturing.
We aren’t talking a pundit or public figure famous for being famous. We are talking the President of the United States of America, skulking on a world stage populated by dictators, thugs, and autocrats waiting for Republican democracy to be disassembled so the Better People may usher in their utopia…
We are in a lot of trouble. We deserve to be, because citizens that don’t take responsibility for their governance deserve to become serfs.
When they came for the Communists, I didn’t speak up, because I didn’t have a properly nuanced solution to offer…
” Is anyone seriously suggesting that we should publicly push Iran toward Civil War? ”
There is a difference between the overthrow of a tyrannical regime and a civil war. The only reason the mullahs have lasted is they rule with an iron fist. The population of Iran, by a huge majority, would love to see them gone.
Obama’s a big believer in impersonal forces, like “History.” When History is doing all the heavy lifting, there’s no need for Obama to do anything difficult or distasteful– like take a principled stand, make a decision, and the rest of that leadership stuff. Pathetic.
I wonder if it might be a Freudian slip to use ‘arch’ instead of ‘arc’. the arc of history is the course of history which we have not yet fully traveled (we are in the middle of the arc of history). the arch of history is all that has happened in the past which makes the present what it is now. to curve the arc of history is to change the direction in which the world is moving while to to curve the arch of history is to re-write the historical record so it changes the way the present is supported by the past.
It could also just be a slip of the tongue (Bushism) or a transcription error.
”Arch of History” and the very funny ”Drone of Arch” would best refer to the adjective ‘arch’ meaning cunning, crafty, sly, mischievous, unserious. Arch of History work, with the direct object understood, where Drone of Arch is off perfect grammar (which’d be ‘drone of archness’?) just enough to make me laff even tho the whole world political situation is breaking my brain into little pieces and setting them on fire.
Anyhoo, story goes, Archie and Moronica marry and leave Riverdale High for Washington DC, which they soon rename Yes We Can DC, or Yes, We Candy, See? Meanwhile, an old song makes a comeback –except no one can do it because Archie has cancelled the program and handed all the dough off to old friends Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones, now in town running SEIU and ACORN. That’s all for now, kids, tune in again next week, if there IS one.
Yes, Dwight, everyone is just bitching about Obama. No one is seriously criticizing the most excellent solution of relying on the arc of history, which, if you haven’t noticed, doesn’t exist (see, for example, the Dark Ages – or just read Jarad Diamond’s books).
And, by the way, when will people stop assuming that everyone who criticizes Obama’s policies, such as they are, supported Bush unequivocally? Bush was as feckless as Obama is with respect to North Korea and Iran. That doesn’t make empty, false rhetoric a “solution”.
Dwight, when another few percent of those who voted for Obama realize that he IS a clueless jerk, he will continue to decline in influence and will not be renominated for a second term. And for good reason: can you name anything he has accomplished so far? Please name a single positive result from the diplomatic “Reset” button that was going to make the world love us. Obama himself has been ineffective dealing with Iran by his own words, standards and goals. In the world of realpolitik that marks him as a weak horse, a loser. Domestically, do you really think ObamaCare is going to survive the November elections, when 65% of Americans want it repealed?
Nope, this administration is not led by a jerk.
It is led by an internationalist who thinks that America’s power must be destroyed. This, in his “opinion” and in the opinion of all the members of his administration, will allow the world to proceed on the road of a social revolution that will eliminate the free-market economy.
And to that end this administration and its leader do anything they can to empower all the enemies of America they can, and to weaken America in any way they can.
This is a dangerous administration, not an idiot administration (Carter).
You have to kinda refine that, Dwight.
A clueless jerk who might look longingly & jealously on the Iranian regime’s capacity for oppression and repression.
Who has given multiple indications that his own detractors in a free society bug the hell out of him…who wishes all those critics would just shut the hell up and let him get about mopping up, serving the ole arch
of the moral universe in his own way, spending outrageously, expanding the role of government, signing massive legislation that no one has read (including himself) and so on.
A clueless jerk who not all that long ago bemoaned the fact that that messy thing called “democracy” impeded all those ivory tower élitists in DC (the “globalist” crowd that sits around imagining the ideal world all day long) prevented them from just imposing some elegant “healthcare” monopoly without any debate, discussion or criticism.
There, I’ve slightly refined your phrase for you.
You’re welcome
As Obama told an interviewer:
“I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, academically approved approach to health care. . . . But that’s not how it works in our democracy. Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people.”
(and then ignore those different people and their ideas and ram through the thing using tricked up legislative devices)
Oh please! In this political climate the Repubs had already stated (Boehner, explicitly, I think) that they were going to “defeat” Obama on his health care and that defeat would be a mortal blow to his Administration. They did not say, “We will work together to craft the best bill possible.” So he made the requisite shady sausage-making deals that it took to get a health care bill passed, thereby (theoretically) avoiding the “defeat” that was going to destroy his administration. Now, you are all in a rage that he got it passed. Hmmmm.
Presidents, these days, don’t “accomplish” all that much, they just survive and, if we are lucky, help the country survive. Eventually this oil spill will eventually get plugged and cleaned up. Eventually the economy will come back, or we certainly hope so. The latter, may or may not happen on Obama’s watch. Imagine how frustrated the true believers here would be if it DID come back and he was able to get a second term. You will be as frustrated as the lefties were when GWB did not lose the war so badly that he could not be re-elected. What’s good for the country does not matter as much to either extreme of the political spectrum, as getting the opposition screwed. You see, the lefties deeply believed that the war was wrong; you guys deeply believe that healthcare is wrong and you want Obama to fail as much as the lefties wanted GWB to fail. Do I have that about right?
We hope that out of these partisan derangement syndromes that we can actually muddle onward. Good luck to all of us.
Apparently, you didn’t watch the day long Presidential healthcare (pretend) meeting this president held with various and sundry republicans, to, you know, solicit their ideas and input. (laugh now)
The meeeting where Barack Obama scowled, dismissed & looked askance at every excellent republican suggestion for healthcare legislation ?
The one where clueless jerk Obama boorishly attempted to put down John McCain by saying…”The election’s over, John. You lost.” ?
(It was Obama’s oblique way of saying…”Hey, you republicans can suggest…whatever…my congressional majority is going to do damn well whatever I want it to do.”)
Now, you are all in a rage that he got it passed. Hmmmm.
He got it passed through employing a legislative device, reconcilation, that he, himself, was on record saying on many separate prior occasions should never (that means not ever, Dwight) be used for such massive social legislation as healthcare.
You better start adjusting your sights, Dwight.
Take off the rose colored glasses and get onto the clueless jerk bandwagon.
Martin Luther King Jr.:
“The arc of the moral universe is long,
but it bends toward justice.”
Historically, there was no such thing as Justice
until the Greek citizens codified a common law;
Before then it was the codified will of the King.
Larry Niven:
‘A society has the kind of morality it can afford’
Up until the Industrial Revolution society was in a
Malthusian mire and could not afford equal justice,
let alone modern morality; The world will turn forward
or backward along the arc of affordable morality,
depending on whether it creates a more wealthy society
or allows the massive destruction of wealth caused by
war, and it is our hands which spin the wheel.
Hearing that witless idiot in the White House speak of the Arc of History is beyond laughable.
We all need to pray for Obama. History did not stop. He is weak by nature, and is getting weaker and weaker in our internal politics. The country is now making fun of him, and it will be a matter of time before the media joins in. His biggest problem is that he is not ruthless enough. I personally hate most of his policies, but even I recognize that there is no follow through on any of them. Our foreign enemies see the same thing. Someone, I don’t know who, will take advantage of this weakness, and attempt to alter geopolitics in a way that advantages them. It may be the Turks, or the Iranians, or Hugo Chavez. Each knows that the US under Obama will not defend traditional US interests. If I were them, I would coordinate my action with others who seek to overturn the status quo.
While Barack Hussein Obama moves along his little arc of history, here is what willbe written: today the Kanadahr Offensive in afghanistan is on hold, possibly called off. Obama wantd to start pulling troops out in a year. Already his Afghanistan War, the “just” war the Dems wanted to wage instead of Bush’s Iraq War – has failed.
Also, on our Muslim President’s watch: isolation and insults to American Allies Israel, Great Britain, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Coddling our enemies like Iran, Cuba, and Syria is the OBama path, while people who want freedom here and in Iran will die. The Obama economy is one with no REAL jobs. He wages war on the Oil and Coal industries while mismanaging the Gulf Oil Disaster.
Furthermore, on Obama’s watch we have the bribing and buying of votes for a “health care” program that does nothing to bring more health care to the people. Obama rapes the US Treasury to bail out Acorn liek groups and the Service Unions, the parasites on the American People, who have incestuous relationships with the Dems.
Yes, the Obama Arc of History is one of failure, loss of the American dream, the surrender of American Ideas and Exceptionalism to our enemies, and the real record of a demagogue who can easily be called the Petulant-In-Chief. God save us from this Obama-Pelosi-Reid history arc.
Dwight:
I have to agree in certain respects. The ratio of the usual Obama bashing, which is more general than germane to the particulars of any one column, is sometimes discouraging. It is easy enough to see that Obama’s Iran policy, such as it is, has been going badly wrong from the very first missed “deadline.” Suggested alternatives, however, have been few and far between. Sure, the military option should be on the table, but what precisely, does that mean?
The difference between Bush and Obama policy, however, is more telling than you are willing to admit, or perhaps able to see. Obama’s pretense that progress is being made covers a multitude of sins. While the U.N. is more stumbling block than useful venue, Susan Rice has been virtually missing in action when she could be taking advantage of the platform it supplies to help shape international discussion & engagement. It takes substantive pressure and regular challenges, on multiple fronts, to bring China and Russia along, not watering down resolutions to get their stamp of approval on worthless sanctions.
Bush saw the utility of multilateral, European engagement, where Obama has personalized U.S Iranian interaction to the virtual exclusion of other stake holders. Sarkozy’s comments at Obama’s Security Council disarmament fest made the lost opportunities for concerted, cooperative, initiatives pretty clear.
In addition, GWB’s support for democratizing elements in Iran was unequivocal, and his administration provided considerable low profile assistance. Truly biting sanctions have always been an iffy proposition. The Iranian people, and the Green movement in particular, have always represented the greatest threat to the current regime.
The rise of a democratic Iraq, and the potential for a countervailing, U.S. friendly force in the region could be, or rather, could have been, a real game changer — as well as the first status quo busting development on the Iranian front in more decades. Unfortunately, that was also the very first weapon Obama sacrificed on the altar of domestic politics. The Democrats were also perfectly willing to sacrifice any credible military card on the altar of anti-Bush hysteria long ago, hemming him in rhetorically at every turn and rejecting the idea of any long term U.S. presence next door right next door outright. Obama’s subsequent undercutting of Israel at every turn is yet more icing on the appeasement cake.
Our negotiating position is now hoist on those petards, and this administration looks like it is, in fact, prepared to accept a nuclear Iran — with much sighing regret I’m sure — and with no more idea about what to do once that increasingly likely possibility turns into a reality than they seem to have about preventing it.
Ms. Rosett: Just about everone who writes for this blog you included
are so anti Islam and anti muslims it is not even funny.
yet you seem to have a passion for the Iranian people(I am from Iran)
who are fighting to get un seat this brutal government in Iran.
I just wanted to let you know that Iranian are muslims.
I thought may be you did not know. i think you
thought Iranians are Jews or Christians. there are only
a few of us as jews and christains, we are mainly mulims.
do you still care for us? just wondering
miriam/37; I do, I care about you –and greatly admire the bravery of your movement. What you are seeing on these blogs is a bad habit that many of us have fallen into, of seeing the ummah as the jihad. The jihad is so large in the news, that it makes everything around it disappear. I hope you have good luck in your effort to free your people. America will have a new president someday, look for things to get better as far as support from us.