{"id":8001,"date":"2014-11-11T07:48:48","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T15:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8001"},"modified":"2014-11-11T07:48:48","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T15:48:48","slug":"obama-midwifes-a-nuclear-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-midwifes-a-nuclear-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Midwifes a Nuclear Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Khamenei
Khamenei and Obama via Breitbart.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The news that President Obama has sent a secret letter to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei\u2013\u2013apparently promising concessions on Iran\u2019s nuclear program in exchange for help in defeating ISIS\u2013\u2013 is a depressing reminder of how after nearly 40 years our leaders have not understood the Iranian Revolution. During the hostage crisis of 1979, Jimmy Carter sent left-wing former Attorney General Ramsay Clark to Tehran with a letter anxiously assuring the Ayatollah Khomeini that America desired good relations \u201cbased upon equality, mutual respect and friendship.\u201d Khomeini refused even to meet with the envoys.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Such obvious contempt for our \u201coutreach\u201d should have been illuminating, but the same mistakes have recurred over the past 4 decades. But Obama has been the most energetic suitor of the mullahs, sending 4 letters to Khamenei, none directly answered. In May of 2009 he sent a personal letter to Khamenei calling for \u201ccooperation in regional and bilateral relations.\u201d Khamenei\u2019s answer in June was to initiate a brutal crackdown on Iranians protesting the rigged presidential election. Obama\u2019s response was to remain silent about this oppression lest he irritate the thuggish mullahs, who blamed the protests on American \u201cagents\u201d anyway.\u00a0Even\u00a0Carter\u2019s phrase \u201cmutual respect\u201d has been chanted like some diplomatic spell that will transform religious fanatics into good global citizens. In his notorious June 2009 Cairo \u201capology\u201d speech, Obama assured Iran, \u201cWe are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.\u201d This latest letter repeats the same empty phrase.<\/p>\n

But our president is nothing if not persistent. In October of 2009, it was revealed that Iran had failed to disclose a uranium enrichment facility in Qom. Obama commented on this obvious proof of Iran\u2019s true intentions, \u201cWe remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran,\u201d and promised that the \u201coffer stands\u201d of \u201cgreater international integration if [Iran] lives up to its obligations.\u201d Iran answered by increasing the pace of enrichment, helping the insurgents in Iraq kill our troops, and facilitating the movement and communications of al Qaeda with other jihadists.<\/p>\n

Indeed, every concession and failure to respond forcefully to Iranian intransigence and aggression confirm its belief that Iran is strong and America weak. As Khamenei has said, \u201cThe reason why we are stronger is that\u00a0[America] retreats step by step in all the arenas [in] which we and the Americans have confronted each other. But we do not retreat. Rather, we move forward. This is a sign of our superiority over the Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given this long sorry history, how long will it take for our foreign policy geniuses to figure out that Iran\u2019s theocrats don\u2019t want better relations, or \u201cmutual respect,\u201d or \u201cinternational integration,\u201d or anything else from the infidel Great Satan and its Western minions, other than capitulation? The mullahs and their Republican Guard henchmen may lust for wealth and power as much as anyone, but the foundation of their behavior is a religious faith that promises Muslims power and dominance over those who refuse the call to convert to Islam and thus by definition are enemies of the faithful to be resisted and destroyed.<\/p>\n

Given these spiritual imperatives, the material punishment of the regime through economic sanctions, particularly limited ones, is unlikely to have much effect. During the hostage crisis, mild sanctions and the threats of more serious ones were brushed away by Khomeini. The Economist<\/i> at the time pointed out the obvious reason why: \u201cThe denial of material things is unlikely to have much effect on minds suffused with immaterial things.\u201d Khomeini made this same point after the humiliating disaster of Carter\u2019s half-hearted attempt to rescue the hostages in April 1980, when mullahs were televised worldwide poking their canes in the charred remains of 8 dead Americans. Speaking of the sandstorm that compromised the mission, Khomeini preached, \u201cThose sand particles were divinely commissioned . . . Carter still has not comprehended what kind of people he is facing and what school of thought he is playing with. Our people is the people of blood and our school is the school of Jihad.\u201d<\/p>\n

With their eyes on Allah\u2019s intentions for the faithful, the leaders of Iran see the acquisition of nuclear weapons as the most important means of achieving the global power and dominance their faith tells them they deserve as \u201cthe best of nations produced for mankind,\u201d\u00a0as the Koran says. Thus duplicitous diplomatic engagement and negotiation are tactics for buying time until the mullahs reach \u201cnuclear latency,\u201d the ability quickly to build a bomb. Every concession or offer of bribes from the West are seen not as an inducement to reciprocate in order to meet a mutually beneficial arrangement, but rather as signs of weakness and failure of nerve, evidence that the mullahs can win despite the power and wealth of the West. That\u2019s because the Iranian leadership views international relations as resting not on cooperation or negotiation, but on raw power. As Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institute quotes<\/a> from a hardline Iranian newspaper, \u201cOur world is not a fair one and everyone gets as much power as he can, not for his power of reason or the adaptation of his request to the international laws, but by his bullying.\u201d And the Iranians believe that their power politics serves the will of Allah.<\/p>\n

Obama is not the first president who has completely failed to understand the true nature and motives of his adversary. FDR misunderstood \u201cUncle Joe\u201d Stalin, and George Bush misread the eyes of Vladimir Putin. This mistake of diplomacy reflects the peculiar Western arrogant belief that the whole world is just like us and wants the same things we want\u2013\u2013political freedom, leisure, material affluence, and peaceful relations with neighbors. Some Iranians may want those things too, but a critical mass wants obedience to Allah and his commands more. Obama\u2019s endemic narcissism has made this flaw worse in his relations with the rest of the world, for he can\u2019t believe that the leaders of other nations, many of them brutal realists indifferent to the opinions of the \u201cinternational community,\u201d aren\u2019t as impressed as he is with his alleged brilliance\u00a0and persuasive eloquence.<\/p>\n

As a result we are on the brink of a dangerous realignment of the balance of power in the Middle East. Despite Iran\u2019s continuing defiance of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, and its long record of lies and evasion, Obama allegedly has offered to raise the number of centrifuges enriching uranium from 4000 to 6000, bringing the mullahs closer to \u201cnuclear latency\u201d\u2013\u2013in a regime that has officially been designated the world\u2019s largest state sponsor of terrorism; that has threatened genocide against Israel, our most important strategic asset in the region; and that for the last 40 years has stained its hands with American blood.<\/p>\n

Rather than the ornament of his foreign policy legacy, as Obama hopes, his pursuit of a deal that will make Iran a nuclear power will be remembered as his Munich.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2014 FrontPage Magazine. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine The news that President Obama has sent a secret letter to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei\u2013\u2013apparently promising concessions on Iran\u2019s nuclear program in exchange for help in defeating ISIS\u2013\u2013 is a depressing reminder of how after nearly 40 years our leaders have not understood the Iranian Revolution. During the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[28,124,126,842,22,102,524],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-253","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1090,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iran-on-the-brink\/","url_meta":{"origin":8001,"position":0},"title":"Iran on the Brink","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. 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