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Recycled appeasement from Senator Obama
26 August, 2008
So Barack Obama has started to talk tough on the Iranian threat? As the Jerusalem Post reports today, the Presidential hopeful gave a speech on Monday in which he said that the world had to prevent Iran from becoming a regional nuclear power. Israel, he said, would feel highly threatened if Iran achieved its nuclear ambitions, given the fiery rhetoric of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
This all sounds like a far cry from Obama’s declaration earlier this year that he would sit down with the leaders of rogue states, including Iran and Cuba. No doubt the charge that he is a foreign policy lightweight with little experience has finally got to him. Hence his decision to select the very experienced and knowledgeable Senator Biden as a running mate for the White House. But if one looks carefully at Obama’s speech, it is clear that he was far from endorsing the tough line needed to deter the mullahs of Tehran.
"My job as president would be to try to make sure that we are tightening the screws diplomatically on Iran, that we've mobilized the world community to go after Iran's program in a serious way and to get sanctions in place so that Iran starts making a difficult calculation…”
What does ‘tightening the screws diplomatically’ actually mean? It presumably means yet another round of pointless manoeuvres at the Security Council, producing more watered down and impotent resolutions? It means voting for more sanctions that will be rendered useless by the machinations of China and Russia. There is no sign that Obama would tighten the screws on Iran’s hideous theocratic regime. Commenting on the effect of Iran’s belligerence on Israel, Obama said: "We've got to do that (use diplomacy) before Israel feels like its back is to the wall." But it is precisely because Israel’s allies have renounced military options that Israel feels it may have to act unilaterally.
What does seem certain is that the current Bush line on Iran (acquiescing in tough talk and rejecting tough options) is the Obama line as well. And if anyone thought that Senator Biden would toughen up Obama’s approach to foreign threats, they were much mistaken. This is not change we can believe in. It is recycled appeasement.
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