Did you know that Iran will back down?
You heard it here first—from Valerie Jarrett, Obama aide and foreign policy expert extraordinaire:
[NOTE: Jarrett has an interesting history. A lawyer, most of her experience has been as a mover and shaker in local Chicago democratic politics, and she was an early friend, supporter, and booster of Obama. But she was born in 1956 in Iran, where her American-citizen father was a doctor who ran a hospital there “as part of a program where American doctors and agricultural experts sought to help jump-start developing countries’ health and farming efforts.” She lived there for the first five years of her life, and learned Persian as well as French when she was a child.
Long ago I noted that Barack Obama seemed to value such experiences of foreign residence in childhood above the foreign policy credentials of so-called “experts.” Remember when he said:
Ironically, this is an area””foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain.
It’s ironic because this is supposedly the place where experience is most needed to be Commander-in-Chief. Experience in Washington is not knowledge of the world…So when I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa”“knowing the leaders is not important”“what I know is the people. . . .”
“I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college…
So Valerie Jarrett’s early childhood experience of Iran would fit right in with Obama’s theory of what constitutes foreign policy expertise.]
Well now! I lived in Vietnam for four years back in the early 60s.
Can I get a job with the state department?
You know – since the federal government is the only outfit hiring.
btw – Any word on how young barry went to Pakistan at a time when it was closed to non-muslims; and to Americans in particular? Just curious.
I bet Barry and company really believe that rot.
My G-d there are not riots in the streets demanding this guys head.
It also explains Obama’s foreign policy. It was dreamed up when Valerie was 5 years old and he loves it.
If the president really values the advise base on living in a country as a toddler, we are all in more trouble than I thought.
We are a strong country and will survive this, perhaps damaged, but still the United States of America.
Which reminds me that one thing that set the Mullahs off against the Shah was that in the 1960s was land reform that the Americans strongly recommended to the Shah.
Perhaps Valerie Jarrett should be informed that basing her opinion of what the Mullahs will do based on her childhood experience in Iran would be comparable to someone citing his experience as a preschooler in Russia circa 1903 as a guide for how to deal with Stalin.
I would take Valerie up on a bet: if she is wrong, have ∅bama etc. resign and make Dick Cheney Secretary of State.
Solaratov: source for Pakistan being closed to non-Muslims when Barry visited it?
Various commentators have tried to construct complex strategies that could account for Obama’s baffling mid east actions. This shows that the simplest one is correct, Stupidity combined with astounding naivete.
God help us
Ms. Jarrett is walking talking proof of two axioms:
1) You can’t insult a whore.
2) Once a bear is hooked on garbage, there’s no cure.
To say that Iran will back down implies that they have been strongly advised that there will be negative consequences if they persist in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. You don’t back down unless you fear action on the part of your adversary. Have I missed that threat?
Hmm. Let’s briefly review the facts:
(1) The leadership of Iran is an apocalyptic Muslim death cult sworn to kill or enslave every infidel (that’s us, folks) in the world, and likely to do whatever it can to bring about the final apocalypse to ensure world wide Muslim domination and imposition of sharia. They have mentioned, once or twice, their desire to do just that.
(2) Iran has been killing our soldiers and citizens for decades and has been our intractable enemy for decades.
(3) Iran is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world. See #2 above.
(4) Iran has threatened to destroy Israel and the United States. See # 2 and #3 above.
(5) Iran has repeatedly told Barack Obama and his Chicago advisors where to stuff it, in very clear, public and explicit terms.
(6) Barack Obama can’t seem to understand why Iran is telling him this. After all, he’s The One. He’s transformative. He’s pushing the reset button. He’s a Muslim, well, maybe not a Muslim, exactly, but he went to a Muslim school, sort of, when he was younger, and studied Islam sort of, and he’s black and the first Pacific president, and all, and he’s just so cool, and he’s not Bush. Did you hear me, he’s not Bush!
(7) As a child born to a Muslim father, Obama is, in the minds of observant Muslims everywhere (and certainly in the minds of apocalyptic death cult Muslims), a Muslim. A Muslim who abandons Islam is an apostate and is subject to death. No doubt this really impresses the Iranians and makes them very likely to listen to Obama (just before they cut off his head with a dull, rusty knife just in time for the Al Jazeera nightly news).
(8) Valerie Jarret is female. A black female. She is an American regardless of where she lived from birth until the age of five. Actually, she’s a Democrat, which these days, sadly, is all too often different from being an American, but that’s not a distinction the Iranians are likely to waste time pondering. Because she is an infidel and not a Persian, the Iranian leadership is even less likely to pay any attention to what she has to say than they do to Obama, and would be as likely, if not more, to kill her on sight. After an appropriate beating, of course, to show her her proper place in Muslim society.
(9) To suggest that Americans can deal with the “Iranian People” and somehow ignore their government, is particularly stupid, or should we say, a classic example of “smart diplomacy.” It is particularly stupid in that the only known support the Obama administration has given the Iranian democracy movement is a feckless promise to “bear witness” to their torture and slaughter.
(10) The Iranians are feverishly working on atomic weapons and will, absent overwhelming military intervention, have said weapons sooner rather than later. They will use them. On Israel and on us, perhaps even simultaneously. Conventional deterrence does not work on people who want to die and take their enemies with them.
So, considering the facts, I can see why Valerie Jarrett would think that Iran will back down. I mean, what other conclusion could any reasonable community organizing, Chicago political machine, Van Jones drooling slumlord (slumlady?), draw? I mean, it’s the very model of smart, reset button-pushing diplomacy, isn’t it?
This means, without question, that whatever Iran does is “backing down”.
Can’t be anything else.
Dear Neoneocon:
Val’s father worked at the Namazi hospital in Shiraz in the south. There was a neighborhood of pastel-colored homes within walking distance of the hospital. My mother was a pathologist at Namazi and our family socialized quite a bit with the Bowmans (Val’s maiden name). I was born in Chicago in 1957, but we moved back to Iran (my parents are Iranian-born) in 1960 and lived not far from them. Val and I were playmates. We rode our tricycles around the hospital compound, and she was invited to my birthday parties. I don’t mean to flatter myself, but I remember she had a bit of a kiddie-crush on me and wouldn’t let me get away when I wanted to be left alone. I liked her, but I thought she was a little clingy, and something of a cry-baby. After all, she was only 5 or 6.
After both families came back to the States, we continued to have periodic get togethers. The cordiality between us and the Bowmans was pretty warm. I saw Val from time to time, but the last time was at a dinner party at my parents’ house in about 1991 or 92, when she was Richie Daly’s Commissioner of Planning in Chicago.
I really feel weird about all of this. I have fond personal memories of Val, but I despise Obama with a passion. Unfortunately, all of my other family members are Obama Kool-Aid drinkers. It’s very lonely in my family these days.
I think all of you would find Bruce’s TED talk on this very subject to be very interesting. Below is an excerpt about Bruce from the TED site.
http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_bueno_de_mesquita_predicts_iran_s_future.html
A consultant to the CIA and the Department of Defense, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has built an intricate computer model that can predict the outcomes of international conflicts with bewildering accuracy
Solaratov: Americans could go to Pakistan at that time as long as they got a 30-day visa.
abdul7591: that’s fascinating.
It is my impression that people can be very nice on a personal, social level, and at the same time in their public lives can advocate policies that would make your hair stand on end. It is quite possible to compartmentalize these aspects of the personality.
Jarrett has a pleasant and cordial demeanor, even in this clip. There is nothing that seems unreasonable—or even dislikeable—about her except for what she’s actually saying. Of course, she is (I assume) just speaking in her capacity as spokesperson and water-carrier for Obama. But my guess is that he holds her out to be some sort of expert on Iran based on her childhood Iranian connections, since he is on record as highly valuing such experiences as evidence of expertise in foreign affairs.
It is deeply, deeply troubling.
It’s like a Chicago city council is in charge of the Free World. Not sure God can do much for Chicago, but the United States sure could use some help.
Obama and his people are beyond my understanding. The treatment of Netanyehu by Obama will bring war. It has turned Israels’ enemies loose and Israel must and will fight back regardless what this administration stance is or will be. God be with them and give them victory.
Well, the state run media knows what the narrative is now.
Between the Feds preparing to reemploy all the legacy journoes at PBS and NPR and the White House commissars telling them what to say, just what does their trade really require as far as talent or skill?
Not too damned much. Not at all.
Wow, we are having foreign policy based on what five year olds think. Yikes. That’s even scarier than when Princess Caroline wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes saying her junior high kids were telling her to vote Obama so that’s what she was gonna do. We’ve gone from junior high kids calling the shots, to kindergartners.
It is, unfortunately, not an entirely bad theory. My father is from Europe and I spent plenty of time there as a child. I’ve also been interested in our history as a result. In the end, I think I do know quite a lot about history and politics over there. Considering how made universities are these days and little clueless the CIA and State Department are… I probably do know more than many of people about certain countries…
Obama’s problems with the theory are:
A: It’s all through a leftist prism for him.
B: someone people spend a few years somewhere but don’t make it a life long pursuit to study the history and culture of the place in question.
“It’s very lonely in my family these days.”
Thanks for your uniquely personal comment Abdul, your incredible courage in disclosing this kind of personal background is awesome. As an American Jew, you really struck a cord, I feel the exact same way; but in addition to much of my extended family it extends to long-time old friends who are mostly still loyal Obama Dems, and annoyed by my refusal to shut my mouth and defer to their shallow, smug kool-aid cult behaviour. It has all become surreal, something out of a science fiction or horror film. There is this insidious demeanor, with the condescending smile, and the vacuous silence, and the look followed with “After all these years?”, kind of remark, while for me the experience is a serious foreboding, and feeling I can’t abandon honesty and truth just to get along. This must be a bit how every genocide germinates. Family, friends or not, we can’t let them get away with it unchallenged, the consequences will be staggering, and we’ll never forgive ourselves for going along with the crowd just for convenience. Thanks again for your personal courage Abdul.
With Val Jarrett’s Iranian credentials , why didn’t
Barry Satero support the protestors ? When did the legally adopted Barry Satero become Barack Obama ? It is really creepy how much Barry looks like his white grandfather and how little he actually cares about his Kenyan father’s side of the family other than for street cred.
It is all so sad.
mikemcdaniel is right, as to some of the reasons why Iran won’t back down. There’s also the support of Russia and China that Iran enjoys, plus Iran’s impossible to avoid assessment that Obama is a poseur.
So, the only question is whether Obama is basing his actions in a la, la land reliance upon ‘smart diplomacy’ or if he knows exactly what he’s doing and has decided that he can ‘live’ with a nuclear Iran.
I vote for the latter. He’s a hard-nosed leftist, not a wide-eyed liberal dreamer.
If so and in which case, Jarrett’s assurances are mere window dressing meant to create a political backfire, to deflect conservative criticism.
anon Says: March 28th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Interesting, yes. Worth a half hour of my time, no. (To save others the time: BdM’s prediction is consistent with Jarrett’s.)
BdM probably regrets the throwaway line that the stock market isn’t going up anytime soon. (It’s up about 35% since.)
I consider myself a techno-optimist, but the TED/transhumanist/Singularity crowd spews out waaay too much BS. Stuff like BdM’s might well be worthwhile but is so overhyped that it’s difficult to assess. (He uses science and math to make predictions! Golly!)
Hey, I live in Indonesia now. Plus, I’ve lived in Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Afghanistan, Korea, Israel, and Jordan. Does that mean I can be the SecState?
@Gringo Says:
In 1981, Pakistan was on the banned travel list for US citizens; and al non-muslim visitors were not welcome there unless they were sponsored by their embassy or the USG for some sort of official business.
SteveH, actually it’s not quite like a Chicago city council being in charge of the Free World, since I would be willing to bet they understand power politics–Chicago-style–very well. The transitional leap they seem to be incapable of making is the one that would cause them to understand that power politics also functions in the international arena. Suggest that aldermen might simply talk through their differences, and you would be laughed out of the council chambers. That, however, is exactly their plan in the Gulf.
Anyone out there willing to place a bet on how quickly Val’s assertion fails? There has to be a good pool somewhere in this.
Dear Neoneocon:
Just to add, a propos Val’s comments, I too have lived in Iran when I was a small child. I am of Persian heritage, and I speak both reasonably decent, unaccented Persian, and even some Azerbaijani. I have read numerous books about the history of the Islamic world, and I even teach courses in the history of art that deal – among other things – with Islamic architecture. None of this, in my view, makes me an expert in how to deal with Ahmadinejad or that insane government. I would just as soon kill the bastard and everyone else associated with him politically and worry about the consequences later. I suppose this makes me, in French parlance, “simplistique” and “aggressif”, but at least I am not “stupide”. This is more than I can say for Monsieur Obama.
One last point. Val is one year older than I am, I am sure of it. She would have been born in 1956. I remember on one occasion, when I was in 7th grade, aged 13, our family had just come out of movie theater on a winter night after watching the Peter O’Toole musical “Good-Bye, Mr. Chips.” There they were, the Bowman clan, and I remember noticing how grown-up Val was getting to be. She was in 8th grade at the time.
abdul7591: I stand corrected on Valerie Jarrett’s birthday. “1958” was a typo. I got the date from the Wiki entry I linked to, and sure enough when I just checked again it says “1956.” Your recollection is correct—I was in a hurry and made a careless error. I’ll fix it now.
She’s an attractive woman even now. I’ll bet she was a very striking teenager back then.
She’ll say Iran is backing down up until the point they fire missiles at Israel and U.S. bases in the region. The delusion will only be shattered by the mushroom clouds of reality.
Perfected Democrat, I think this division among long time friends is a huge untold story in this saga. Obama the “uniter” is dividing this country like nobody could have ever imagined. My upbringing taught me to spot a weasley little narcissistic man child when i see one. And i ain’t shutting up if you wont.
Just a thought about the provenance of some of the Leftism these wizards are so in love with: I remember reading, a while back, about some of Frank Marshall Davis’ objections to a free society and a market economy, and his expounding upon them to the young Mr. Obama (it may in fact have been through a neo-neocon link). Mr. Davis was unhappy over the fact that mass-produced shoes did not include a shape that matched the heel structure displayed by African-Americans. I remember thinking at the time I read it, well, shoot, why did Mr. Davis prefer to gripe and regard this as a major (racist) slight? Why didn’t he see it as an opportunity to start a new shoe company, whose products would fill a previously unidentified market?
I still don’t know the answer to this, if there is an answer, and I cannot for the life of me understand why Marshall’s paranoid objection should translate into a mandate for government-imposed equality of some sort, and in every field of endeavor.
In short, we may all have to pay dearly for Frank Davis Marshall’s imagination failure and consequent self-indulgent BS.
Excuse me. I meant, of course, Frank Marshall Davis–not Frank Davis Marshall.
abdul7591:
Thanks for your comments here. It’s always interesting to hear from someone who has a personal connection to someone that most of us only know through our TV screens.
This is one of the things I love about blogs. You never know who you’ll run into.
# waltj Says:
“Hey, I live in Indonesia now. Plus, I’ve lived in Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Afghanistan, Korea, Israel, and Jordan. Does that mean I can be the SecState?”
It depends, are you completely devoid of common sense?
Great satire on Ob’s foreign policy achievements at http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
I second the interest in abdul7591’s comments. His comments actually prevented me from making snarky ill-informed comments of my own about her.
I even teach courses in the history of art that deal – among other things – with Islamic architecture.
Islamic architecture is an interesting thing to me, I’ve developed an eye for it: here in the American southwest, the Spanish brought influences of Moorish architecture that was incorporated into our amalgam of “Southwestern Style”. A lot of the oldest buildings, including the old churches here look positively Islamic.
I always wondered if once all the shooting stopped someone would ever do an architectural analysis of Saddam’s palaces. Some of them seem striking, with a lot of traditional influences. Are Saddam’s palaces “of a piece” with traditional Islamic architecture or just modernist schlock?
(Heck, Albert Speer’s ideas for Berlin were amazing.)
I’ve always wanted to visit Iran. Hopefully not looking through a rifle sight….
Joe Biden has distinct views on Israeli architecture….
Of course this caused me a digression to look up stuff about Albert Speer (I gotta re-read his books):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer
Much of the controversy over Speer’s knowledge of the Holocaust has centered on his presence at the Posen Conference on October 6, 1943, at which Himmler gave a speech detailing the ongoing Holocaust to Nazi leaders. Himmler said, “The grave decision had to be taken to cause this people to vanish from the earth … In the lands we occupy, the Jewish question will be dealt with by the end of the year.”
Isn’t that nearly word-for-word what Amadinejad has said? Is that where that little basij-training muppet got his speech?
How do you “back down” from that?
Gray,
I had not considered the Southwestern Architecture as having been influence by the Moors via the Spanish. Makes sense though now that you point it out.
“El Deguello”, the song reportedly played by the Mexican army outside the Alamo to signify no prisoners would be taken, is reportedly of Moorish descent. A haunting tune to say the least, though there now appears to be variants of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Deg%C3%BCello
Very interesting, Jon Baker. I didn’t know that.
A Deguello–the head-chopping. Sounds pretty moorish to me….
I suspect it sounded something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG6GsiaMzSA&feature=related
Beware of the stacatto bugle calls. No good ever comes of those….
I hope the stories that it was answered with the bagpipe from the Alamo are true; something rousing from the Jacobite Wars like “Hey Johnny Cope.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcVY3xsxgcU
If you look around the city of Chicago, and see what sort of planning took place during Ms. Jarrett’s time as Planning Commissioner, you will be shocked. Or not.
The planning seems to have involved making sure the “right” people got lots of money to provide substandard “affordable” housing. Affordable housing is one big scam from start to finish anyway, no matter where it is located.
Tony Rezko was closely involved in the housing biz at that time in Chicago, too. And guess what, he was also born in the middle east, so maybe when he gets out of prison he can be Sec of State?
About B.B. de Mesquita’s TED talk:
He seems to be doing interesting things with game theory.
Note that Iran has already enhanced a nontrivial amount of uranium–not to weapons grade, but using the processes they already have working, relatively straightforward extension.
My understanding is that most moneyed interests and Qom ayatollahs lost the struggle that followed this past fall’s election in Iran, while Ahmadinejad gained power (by force), so his graph of winners and losers appears to be quite off the rails compared to reality now.
The nation’s in the very best of hands. As a teenager, Eric Holder hung out in a civilian food court.
Sam, BdMis sticking by his Iran prediction.
I inferred that from the text on the linked site, leaving it to motivated parties to play the 50-minute lecture there.
Imagining an Israeli Strike on Iran
Two big blasts happened in Moscow metro several hours ago. 37 people killed, many more a wounded. Women suicide-bombers from Caucasia are suspected. Israeli analists speculate that this is Iranian retaliation against Moscow-Washington secret agreement to stop Iranian nuclear program.
Pingback:Neo-​​Neo Droll re: Obama Moll
Every time I see Jarrett, I think Second City TV, maybe it’s the haircut, I don’t know. Just heard there was a bombing in Moscow, and that the U.S. President has commented. Apparently, he was a lot closer to a microphone this time. This time?, what am I saying? This is another isolated incident.
Valerie Jarrett?, Obama? Iran? Hahahaha!
When I was five years old, I lived in America and learned a lot about its people, their values, their customs. Doesn’t that qualify me as an expert on domestic policy?
If living in a foreign country for a few years when you’re a kid qualifies one as an expert on foreign policy, shouldn’t one be required to live in America as a kid to run domestic policy? Isn’t that really what the founders were after when they required that the President be native-born?
Israeli analists (sic) speculate …
Did they? Care to back yourself up with a link?
I have different sources that supply me with much more plausible explanation: remember Ryazan-99?
Wiki: “Incident in Ryazan gave rise to a theory of Russian Governmental conspiracy, according to which the bombings were a “false flag” attack perpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimize the resumption of military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin to power[8][9].”
As someone said in my “friends’ band”: there is a folk saying already: ” Something goes Poof in Moscow – look at VVP in Kremlin”.
Don’t try to hang your own transparent disinformation assignment on Israelis – you’re too crude, officer.
Gray: very perceptive of you to notice the Moorish-Spanish-Mexican connection in US SouthWestern architecture.
*jon baker -that’s a fascinating piece of trivia; I didn’t know about it either.
Bulgakov in Master… spoke through one of the characters of the strange ways the blood trickles through generations: “The stack of cards is dealt with in surprising ways…”
Boot: I always suspected that about “affordable housing”, i.e. that it is in fact a scheme, contrary to all the idealistic smokescreen that instigators surround it with.
Actually, Ayn Rand already described it perfectly in Fountainhead.
It depends, are you completely devoid of common sense?
Ah, not quite yet, Bob. But it is certainly a rare commodity in this administration. The only sensible grownups I’ve identified in it so far appear to be at the Pentagon and at Langley. Too bad there don’t seem to be any across the river, where it really counts. Just fools, megalomaniacs, and combinations thereof on the east bank of the Potomac.
I can’t get past that video of Valerie Jarrett singing the praises of Van Jones, and how they have had their eyes on him for many years, because of his total awesome-ness.
If you watch about 30 seconds of a Van Jones speech, it is impossible (in my view) to come away with any opinion other than that Jones is a complete wild-eyed lunatic. And not just from the substance of his views; I’m talking about the rhetoric, the delivery, the clown show he puts on, i.e. THE TOTAL PACKAGE.
Ever since I saw Jarrett gushing about Van Jones, I can’t look at her the same. Something seems “off” with her. Like, crazy time “off”. Maybe it’s the hair helmet thing she has on her head or whatever. But in a million years i would NEVER judge her to be someone who should be within a country mile of the POTUS, even a dummy like Obama.
Waltj wrote: “The only sensible grownups I’ve identified in it so far appear to be at the Pentagon and at Langley.”
Langley? you mean those sensible grownups who assured President Bush that Iran had stopped working on the A-Bomb?
Maybe you would like to adjust that statement a bit.
Iran will back down only when Israel pre-empts them. Sadly, Israel will have to go it alone. Barack ain’t got Bibi’s back.
Looks like we are heading towards another world war of sorts… solves a whole lot of the issues going on for those with issues to solve…
Maybe you would like to adjust that statement a bit.
Not really. I was talking about the guy at the top, who seems to be getting down to business, much as his immediate predecessor did as well, without attempting to impose an overtly partisan agenda. At least, that’s what it looks like to me from my vantage point 10,000 miles away. Whether this percolates down to those Iran-watchers, who I’d agree don’t seem to have learned much since their days of predicting the continuing reign of the Shah, remains to be seen.
from my vantage point 10,000 miles away
🙂