Previous post
Next post
I’ll admit, though, that it isn’t all that difficult a thing to do.
Obama tried, unsuccessfully, to pretend he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to foreign policy. Of course, he failed abysmally:
The appeasement-of-terrorists meme is old news, but he brought us a new level of ignorance with the “defense spending” argument. Unfortunately for Obama, he gets completely and totally PWNED by Purple Avenger at Ace of Spades:
By stating that Iran isn’t a threat because they spend much less on defense than the US, Obama displays a complete ignorance of how asymmetric warfare operates. The AQ “defense budget” for pulling off 9/11, was by comparison to the US, essentially zero.
An analysis of the Iranian order of battle and where they’ve been spending their defense dollars over the past 10 years would show that they are a serious threat in certain specific areas. They’ve been investing heavily in coastal batteries, anti-ship missile systems, silent diesel electric subs, and such. They could turn the narrow strait of Hormuz into an unnavigable scrap yard faster than the US Navy could stop them or the US Air force could neutralize those batteries and missiles.
Are the Iranians going to bomb NYC or invade Chicago? No. Can they be a major PITA to the rest of the world if they decided to suicidally squeeze oil shipments through the straight? Absolutely.
Closing question: isn’t this the kind of thing that the President should have a pretty firm knowledge of?
Answer: YES.
“Asymmetric warfare” was the first thing that went through my mind, too. But it doesn’t surprise me that Obama would not appreciate that. He and his ilk hardly even see warfare. It’s all just criminal conduct to them.
And Iraq itself refutes the “tiny” and “budget” arguments.
Charles says: Horrible. At first glance talking to enemies like Iran, North Korea, et al. seems like a good idea. And most of the Obama crowd sees the superficial attractiveness in it. What they don’t seem to consider is that we’d be rewarding bad behavior, and that’s what Bush meant by “appeasement.”
Iran supports terrorists around the world.
Iran trains guerillas who fight against U.S. troops in Iraq.
Iran aggressively seeks nuclear weapons, and has said (as recently as this weekend) that no deals could deter them from that goal.
Iran publicly states that the destruction of Israel and the U.S. are among its goals.
Those are the foreign policy challenges that Iran poses to us in relation to our national security. You would think that at some point in the last thirty years we would have been involved in a much broader conflict with Iran.
However, rejecting unconditional talks with their leaders and the implied threat of bombing by us or Israel against nuclear targets has kept this conflict at a relatively low level of intensity. What does Obama hope to accomplish in these talks?
JFK backed his diplomacy up with strong threats. Reagan did, too. Obama reminds me of Carter, in that Carter sees nothing wrong with appeasing these types either. Come to think of it, who was president when Iran revolted and became a radical, anti-American and anti-Israel theocracy?
baz says: Firstly, he never said that Iran isn’t a threat. He said that it is not the threat that the former Soviet Union was in either size or type. Misquoting is never a good start to any argument. So Ace gets pwned on that one.
Secondly, the US military has proven itself pretty unprepared for asymmetric warfare. Read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” for a really embarrassing example. So holding Obama to a standard that the pentagon hasn’t met is a just silly.
I think y’all are *way* underestimating Obama. That’s OK. He wouldn’t be the first guy to become President by being underestimated.
3 Comments