While President Obama enjoys his sixth vacation of the year, at the exclusive playground of America’s liberal elites at Martha’s Vineyard, the United States’ most dangerous state-based adversary on the world stage is celebrating the opening of its first nuclear reactor, the Russian-built power plant at Bushehr. Although purportedly for civilian purposes, there can be no doubt that this is a huge leap forward for Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, with US officials acknowledging Iran is just “12 months from a nuclear weapon.” Earlier this week, Tehran announced it was building 10 uranium enrichment plants in protected mountain strongholds, and on Friday the Iranian regime ominously test-fired a new surface to surface missile, with an undisclosed range.
As the brutal Islamist tyranny led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inches closer to its nuclear ambitions, and its stated goal of wiping Israel “off the map”, the Obama administration seems to be in a state of suspended animation. Its naïve and disastrous strategy of engagement towards Tehran, which began with an embarrassing video appeal to Iran from the White House early last year, now lies in tatters. The Obama presidency’s policy of appeasement of Ahmadinejad has been a spectacular failure, and has only strengthened the hand of the Mullahs who view Washington’s weakness as a green light to proceed with their nuclear ambitions.
Aside from supporting economic and political sanctions through the UN Security Council, which will take years to take effect, and are continually watered down by the Russians and the Chinese, the Obama administration has no real plan in place for preventing the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran. Time is not on the West’s side, and the huge looming threat not only to Israel but to the entire Middle East grows greater by the day.
It is time for President Obama to get tough on Iran, including the credible threat of military force, support for the democracy movement in Tehran, stronger sanctions outside of the UN, and powerful backing for Israel, but unfortunately there’s no sign of this on the horizon. There is a striking lack of real leadership coming from Washington at this time, with an increasingly weak presidency focusing desperately on only one thing – its own survival. The Iran debacle has badly exposed Barack Obama’s foreign policy for what it is – an empty shell that has emboldened America’s enemies, undermined key US allies, and left the world a far more dangerous place.
