Who Is James Dobbins?
With little comment from conservative media, President Obama last week appointed James Dobbins as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the high-profile job long occupied by the late Richard Holbrooke.
Dobbins is a prominent exponent of the idea that America can live with a nuclear Iran, as well as an opponent of the use of military force against Iran’s nuclear program under any conditions. Whatever the White House might be thinking, the appointment sent a signal to Iran that the military option is pure bluff.
“Obama’s AfPak envoy may embrace Iran” is the lead of today’s Asia Times Online under the byline of MK Bhadrakumar, a former Indian ambassador to Turkey. Writes Bhadrakumar:
The probability is that the United States President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry got around to reading the congressional testimony titled “Negotiating with Iran” given by Ambassador James Dobbins on the Hill on November 7, 2007, while deciding to name him as the new U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The appointment seems odd, the former Indian diplomat explains, because:
Dobbins has been an inveterate critic of Obama’s plan to reduce the US military footprint in Afghanistan. He voiced enthusiastic support for the counterinsurgency strategy [COIN] carried out by General David Petraeus and was sharply critical that the COIN was reduced to mere counterterrorist operation.
One wonders if the Republican establishment declined to object to Dobbins’ appointment because of his COIN credentials.
But there’s an explanation for Obama’s selection, Bhadrakumar adds:
Dobbins’ real credentials lie quite somewhere else than on the kinetic battlefield. Kerry made this clear while announcing the appointment. He said, “He [Dobbins] has deep and longstanding relationships in the region, … Jim will continue building on diplomatic efforts to bring the conflict to a peaceful conclusion, actively engaging with states in the region and the international community.”
Secretary Kerry was referring, evidently, to Dobbins’ “deep and longstanding relationship” with Iran.





And as I've pointed out before, even if the Obama Administration could intimidate everyone in D.C. (and apparently it cannot -- see the IRS scandal) foreign governments still know more about Benghazi than they've said thus far. Keep pissing off the Russians Obama with amateurish stunts. How do you know they didn't tap you?
In fact, I keep seeing all kinds of misidrection plays and desperate attempts to change the subject from Fast and Furious po Arabski. Some say there were covert interrogations going on at Benghazi, and pretend that is mutually exclusive with using it as a weapons smuggling hub. Sen. Graham says Amb. Stevens died trying to collect MANPADs, rather than ship them to Syria (wonder how this White House could keep Benghazi under wraps for so long without any GOP backstopping, especially if Graham and McCain supported covertly or not so covertly arming the Syria rebels?).
No David, this time the tin foil hat wearers and paranoids are going to be proven right once more. They really are out to get us. And neocons are desperate not to open the door that Benghazi reveals: a U.S. foreign policy that kills jihadis with drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen while arming them to the teeth and funding them in Syria. This cannot be reconciled with an eternal War on Terror, and hence must be denied at all costs in official D.C. But Sen. McConnnel, whose fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul directly asked Hillary whether any weapons smuggling was going on at Benghazi, has already dropped hints the next shoe to fall comes from CIA. Well what else can the Agency insiders reveal but that Benghazi was about guns, guns, guns? Obama would not risk his whole presidency or at least reelection just to maintain the fiction that Libya was at peace after Gaddafi or that terrorism was no longer a threat. That's too mundane, Obama would order a standdown though so that dead men in Benghazi would tell no Damascene tales.
He falls into the same trap that many an investor or general has blundered into. He responds when the enemy is strong and breaks off the attack when he retreats.
Iran is stretched now. More pressure is needed and he backs off to regroup and study the situation.
Part of the problem is that we Americans tend to view every conflict as WWII. If it is not invade and conquer as in our attempts in Iraq and Afghanistan then we think there is nothing to do. What is happening in the middle east now is not that kind of war and we lack the mental construct to understand it.
He's an ideolog of the first water... but lazy.
His Leftist Media simply blow the wind his way.
I give you the 2012 'campaign.'
And Benghazigate.
A faithful reflection of his bosses' opinions.
I am sure that neither professor Goldman, nor any reader of this blog ever thought, even for a minute, that Hussein would attack Iran. Because he would rather chew off his left hand (he is left handed, you knew that too).
Obama's "red lines" are worth about as much as his promises.
- Spengler
Actually, your statement is optimistic. With North Korea we have a starving nation threatening holocaust in order to feel good and maybe put some free food on the table. With a nuclear Iran, we’ll have a nation of Moslem Twelvers waiting for a Messiah to arise from a well somewhere, whence he’ll bring to pass Allah’s command to just kill every Jew in the country, that country of course being Israel.
And it gets worse: a nuclear Iran will beget several other nuclear nations in the region, each of them led by other Moslems also guided by the Holy Ko-ran, which plainly proclaims martyrdom as the one way to get to Jannat (Moslem heaven), and commands a belief system dedicated to eternal war. Naturally, this is why that big fat Yale/Harvard brain Prez Dubya stated that Islam is a religion of peace.
Nukes and Moslems is not a good combination; it’s akin to a wild 13 year old boy being given a chain saw with a full tank of gas.
Moslems + nukes just feels wrong for some reason. Pakistan was bad enough, but the forthcoming situation is mind bending. That said, let us thank Prez Barack Hussein on his brainy choice of James Dobbins, who combines great certitude with unapologetic ignorance (another awful combination).
Oh yeah, most people weren't too keen on the old kook as president. Nah, instead we got someone who isn't just a well-meaning ding-dong, but is actively supporting those who have traditionally called for our destruction.
Eh, 6 of one - half a dozen of the other.