How Obama views Iran
We often talk about Obama’s approach to Iran, offering theories that run the gamut from “fool” to “knave” to various combinations of the two.
Here’s an excellent article by Michael Doran in Mosaic that fleshes out the details of a theory of Obama/Iran. It doesn’t take the most extreme stance of all—which would be the “Obama is a secret Muslim Iranian sympathizer who wants America and Israel destroyed” theory—but the piece’s premise is extremely credible and it is well worth taking the time to read in its entirety.
It’s a bit difficult to summarize, but the article makes several points. The first two are that much of Obama’s approach focuses on his deep contempt for Bush and his deep desire to differentiate himself entirely from him (this is something I’ve long thought), as well as Obama’s penchant for secrecy. There’s much more:
During the Bush years, an elaborate myth had developed according to which the mullahs in Tehran had themselves reached out in friendship to Washington, offering a “grand bargain”: a deal on everything from regional security to nuclear weapons. The swaggering Bush, however, had slapped away the outstretched Iranian hand, squandering the opportunity of a lifetime…
Obama based his policy of outreach to Tehran on two key assumptions of the grand-bargain myth: that Tehran and Washington were natural allies, and that Washington itself was the primary cause of the enmity between the two. If only the United States were to adopt a less belligerent posture, so the thinking went, Iran would reciprocate. In his very first television interview from the White House, Obama announced his desire to talk to the Iranians, to see “where there are potential avenues for progress.” Echoing his inaugural address, he said, “[I]f countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”
Unfortunately, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, ignored the president’s invitation…
Because, of course, the entire thing was a myth.
Did Obama actually believe the myth? Your answer to that depends on how you answer that old, old “knave vs. fool” question. But I can practically guarantee you that many of Obama’s liberal advisors and aides believed it and believe it still, and that they are fools—otherwise known as “useful idiots.”
Later developments forced Obama’s hand—for a while:
In 2010, [Obama] signed into law the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA), which eventually would prove more painful to Iran than any previous measure of its kind.
In later years, whenever Obama would stand accused of being soft on Iran, he would invariably point to CISADA as evidence to the contrary. “[O]ver the course of several years,” he stated in March 2014, “we were able to enforce an unprecedented sanctions regime that so crippled the Iranian economy that they were willing to come to the table.” The “table” in question was the negotiation resulting in the November 2013 agreement, known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), which we shall come to in due course. But masked in the president’s boast was the fact that he had actually opposed CISADA, which was rammed down his throat by a Senate vote of 99 to zero…
Obama’s heart was not in it, to say the least. “For Obama, to force a confrontation with Khamenei would destroy any chance of reaching an accommodation on the nuclear front and put paid to his grand vision of a new Middle East order.”
That grand vision fits in well not only with Obama’s idea of the reasonableness of the mullahs (let’s not forget the influence of Valerie Jarrett, although the article does not mention her), but it fits in even better with Obama’s own towering grandiosity. Obama is the one who can do it, because he’s smarter, more reasonable, craftier, more perceptive, more persuasive, more whatever-is-needed than all his predecessors. This is something he truly believes.
As for Syria, Obama’s Syrian policy (which looked to some like mere confusion) was dictated by his fear of antagonizing Iran and jeopardizing the wonderful transformative agreement that’s just on the horizon. The author also believes that shortly before the 2012 election, Obama assured Teheran (as he did Russia) that in his second term he’d have a lot more freedom and “flexibility.” The course of subsequent negotiations makes for depressing reading, although we pretty much already know the gist of it, which can be summarized as “Obama concedes.”
Obama’s Middle Eastern policy has been so Iran-centric that even lowly bloggers like me have noticed the pattern; it’s nearly impossible to miss. But Doran’s article offers a detailed history and a coherent way of looking at the big picture. That it will make your blood run cold is no surprise; your blood has probably already been running cold for a long time.
Sounds like liberal views of all our enemies. Just like the old attitudes toward the USSR — it’s all our fault.
Foolish, arrogant and ignorant is no way to go through life.
Many have been working with Iran behind the stage curtain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyQ4zhUsoCM
Somewhere Hillel Kook is staring in disbelief …
and:
Touting an approach she calls “smart power,” Clinton urged America to use “every possible tool and partner” to advance peace.This, she said, includes “leaving no one on the sidelines, showing respect even for one’s enemies, trying to understand and insofar as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/05/clinton-says-america-should-empathize-with-its-enemies/
Yesterday, the state department was put in the position to admit that they LIED, er, “misrepresented” to journalists a white house meeting last week with the Muslim Brotherhood.
More of the same—-lack of transparency, and, meeting with terrorist-linked states and organizations with “no pre-conceived conditions” (Obama’s words of intention in 2008)
http://nation.foxnews.com/2015/02/02/obama-state-dept-busted-lying-about-muslim-brotherhood-meeting
Oh wait, it was only reported by FoxNews so it must be false…
Back in 2008, when I learned the personality and history profile of Valerie Jarrett, I was prepared for just about anything.
Having lived in Iran, she is a big influence on Obama in his perspective of that (state-sponsored terrorism) regime.
She pulls a lot of strings in that area.
Then when one considers all of the suspect muslims in U.S. government positions, the plot thickens.
Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner’s wife, was like the “Walmart greeter” for incoming muslims:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/312211/huma-abedin-s-muslim-brotherhood-ties-andrew-c-mccarthy
I still question rather Obama actually has ever had any grand schemes, or whether he’s basically just a small-time guy who got lucky. If it’s the latter, he may be doing what he’s been doing with Iran because he’s not that deep a thinker and/or he wants to delay the crunch-time with regard to Iran and a bomb until it’s time for the next U.S. president to take over.
I do not see bho as a bumbling fool. He is on a mission to diminish America’s influence in geopolitical terms and enable others, typically, those who are anti – Western nations and regions. He’s following the dreams of his father.
JORDANIAN PILOT BURNED ALIVE WHILE CAGED
“This event emphasizes just how important it is that we sit down and talk with ISIS. Finding out what it is we can do to appease them. How we can get past all of this unnecessary violence and killing while hijacking a peaceful and beautiful Islam religion.”
Barack Obama
An outstanding article that fails in one notable area; Obama’s inner motivation in ignoring the abundantly clear bankruptcy of his foreign policy. What could explain such willful blindness? The moral cowardice of an appeaser? The problem with assuming Obama to simply be another Chamberlain is that it ignores the formative, major influences in Barack Obama’s life.
Specifically, his early Muslim childhood in Indonesia, which he remembers with great fondness. His communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis’s influence in his teen years, a mentorship supported by his communist sympathizing grandparents. His 25 year attendance and ‘spiritual’ mentorship by the hate filled, black liberation theologian ‘Reverend’ Wright. And not to be underestimated, the political advisement of domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.
Barack Obama is willfully blind to the results of his foreign policy because he is a racist Marxist with strong Muslim sympathies. If he can’t “fundamentally transform” America, he’ll settle for mortally wounding it.
Clarityseeker,
Is that a direct quote?
neo writes, “Obama is the one who can do it, because he’s smarter, more reasonable, craftier, more perceptive, more persuasive, more whatever-is-needed than all his predecessors. This is something he truly believes.”
At this point, I wonder whether he still believes that, or if he’s play-acting it out now. I see two mutually exclusive and exhaustive cases (someone help me with my logic here if they are not mutually exclusive and exhaustive).
Case 1 — Every instance of events not working out in an optimal fashion is the inevitable result of people simply failing to appreciate his superior vision and intelligence.
Case 2 — There are instances, however isolated, in which he brings himself to accept that there are areas of expertise in which there is still something for him to learn, still room for him to grow. But he continues to act as if there are none.
I’m wondering, not asserting. I know he’s awfully far gone as to his being convinced that he is “smarter, more reasonable, craftier, more perceptive, more persuasive, more whatever-is-needed” than anyone anywhere.
What I’m wondering of it’s an absolute, metaphysical axiom for him, or whether there is any room for him to secretly concede there’s room for growth (it has to be secret, because he’s got to maintain that self-image).
Ann:
I think it’s a huge mistake to consider Obama “just a small-time guy who got lucky.”
He is either, as Geoffrey Britain writes above, “a racist Marxist with strong Muslim sympathies” who would like to wound America and/or transform it to his liking, or he’s as author Rodan describes, misguided and narcissistic but with a very clear plan that he’s following. In either case, his election was not “lucky,” it was the product of decades of planning and cunning, not merely by Obama but by other leftists who recognized his value and helped him along the way.
M J R:
That’s an interesting question. I can only guess at the answer.
Obama is a narcissist of large magnitude. As such he really does believe he is the best, the most wonderful, the smartest, etc. But even if he is always the smartest person in the room not everything can always go perfectly. I would imagine he thinks it’s a mark of his superiority that, even though he’s superior to everyone else, he still believes he can learn from his (very rare) mistakes and widen the gap between him and the rest of the world.
Geoffrey,
It’s an amalgam, a compilation of everything he’s already said.
It’s an effort to help him change up the verbiage.
Restate it. Without compromising his ideology, and without all of the “ums” and “ohs” and “uhs”…
Kyle W. Orton: America’s Silent Partnership with Iran and the Contest for Middle Eastern Order – Part I, Part II, Part III
“or he’s as author Rodan describes, misguided and narcissistic but with a very clear plan that he’s following.”
Obama is certainly misguided and narcissistic and he does indeed have a very clear plan, which in no way obviates a deeply held, malicious motivation. It’s not one or the other but both. His narcissism is psychological compensation for a deep insecurity. His ‘misguided’ ideology the intellectual rationalization used to justify in his own mind, his racism and Marxism.
Everything Obama has embraced in his life is rationalization to justify his narcissistic defense of his deeply held inferiority complex.
He’s ALSO acting out against his grandmother’s activist-interventionist advocacies.
He’s STILL fighting against his grandmother — from the position of a Gonnabee.
I still question rather Obama actually has ever had any grand schemes, or whether he’s basically just a small-time guy who got lucky. If it’s the latter, he may be doing what he’s been doing with Iran because he’s not that deep a thinker and/or he wants to delay the crunch-time with regard to Iran and a bomb until it’s time for the next U.S. president to take over.
I seriously doubt you would harbor similar opinions concerning Marine’s Front party or PEGIDA if they were to gain majority rule in their respective regions and countries.