Obama doesn't bluff? He is certainly sending Tehran mixed signals. In December, Obama sought to torpedo the bipartisan Kirk-Menendez Iran Sanctions Act (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/iran-obamas-secret-agenda.html), and now is pushing, via Senator Harry Reid, for a new toothless Senate sanctions bill. As stated in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Thursday (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303299604577327800154544244.html?mod=googlenews_wsj):
"Harry Reid is now pushing a watered-down sanctions bill that gives the Administration wide discretion in applying the bill's penalties. The Majority Leader also closed the bill to additional amendments, most conspicuously one from Illinois Republican Mark Kirk.
The Kirk amendment—which would have more of an impact on Iran than the rest of the bill combined—would close loopholes in existing sanctions, including one that allows a handful of Iranian financial institutions (and the Iranian government itself) to continue to do business with the outside world. It would also strengthen disclosure requirements for foreign financial institutions tempted to do business with Iran, effectively putting them to the choice of whether they want to have business ties with the U.S. or with the Islamic Republic."
A week ago, there was also Obama's secret message to Tehran, conveyed via Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/04/obama-sends-message-to-irans-supreme.html), in which Obama informed Khamenei that the US is prepared to tolerate an Iranian civilian nuclear program and hinted that his ongoing opposition to international action against Iran's ally, Syria, is conditioned upon Iranian cooperation involving the nuclear weapons development issue.
What does Iran think of Obama's "veiled warnings"? As translated by MEMRI, an April 8 article (http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6256.htm) in the Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan, which is closely tied to Khamenei, informs us that Khamenei indeed believes that Obama is bluffing:
"'Examining an entire decade of the conflict between the U.S. and Iran, one can characterize it as a record of [instances in which] the U.S. adapted its 'red line' to the Iranian [stance]. The Americans always started out with an extreme [position] and ended up with a nominal one...
. . . .
If we plot [these changes] on a graph, it will show an amazing downward plunge... The American administration... always sets large goals [for itself], and makes a huge fuss over them, but, once it realizes that they cannot be implemented, quietly adapts them [to reality] and replaces them with other, humbler, goals, while continuing to make a fuss.
. . . .
So one might say that the West's hands are completely empty [of means with which] to threaten Iran in the upcoming talks... The simple conclusion... is that the West's distress vis-à-vis Iran, on the strategic [level], has become acute, and it seems that the statesmen in the White House have neither the courage nor the wisdom to extract themselves from this historic dead end... Iran is proving that it has no need to compromise with the West in order to grow strong.'"
Yet another Obama foreign relations disaster . . .
The last chance before the next last chance.
ReplyDeleteThey must be chuckling in Tehran.