Defenders of President Obama’s unprecedented string of consecutive foreign policy defeats may have been cheered by a headline in yesterday’s New York Times:
“Iran to Allow Women in Sports Stadiums.”
Is that a favorable omen for the atmosphere in which the fuzzy Iranian nuclear bomb ban talks are being conducted?
Who knows?
As has been the case in foreign policy dickering since this president came to power, little actually is known about his latest sally, much is heatedly speculated, and the president and his latest oddball interlocutor are presenting contradictory scenarios.
This is like to people who never have seen a play arguing its merits.
But then deceptiveness has been Mr. Obama’s hole card throughout his political life.
We only know that Iran will be allowed to retain the entirely of its nuclear bomb framework, that Iranians will be warned in advance of the alleged arrival of international inspectors and the sanctions that have choked Iran’s will be lifted around June 30, when the to-be-resumed talks are to conclude.
Since Iran has not kept an agreement since the ayatollahs seized control in 1979, the side that daily cries “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” the smart money is on Iran.
Unlike previous Washington administrations, we have learned we cannot trust our leader any more than the fella across the table.
We might believe that winless President Obama could snooker an enormously backward land such as Iran in nuclear talks.
No reasonable person, however, can believe that the cerebrally limited Mr. Obama could snooker Iran when you consider that the enormously backward land also is the unrivaled champion of global Islamic terrorism and cruelty.
The last American presidents to go winless in foreign policy – because they did not deal with foreign governments — ruled in the 19th century.
Kenya Hear Me?
In a related development, it is instructive to remember that our tone-deaf president announced last week he is planning a July trip to Kenya, his land of origin.
The overt reason: To co-host a forum on entrepreneurship, still another subject he knows less about than negotiating concessions with the worst country on earth.
As the Times noted with a wily wink last week, since he does not have to face voters again, it is safe for Mr. Obama to make admissions to those who criticized the various evasive fairy tales he weaved about his birth early in his presidency.
After all the grief he caused — and encouraged — in his early years as president, why would Mr. Obama deliberately re-leap into a dumb controversy?
Finally
Would that he or the equally incapable secretary of state define, spell or possess integrity – one out of three will do – American prestige would have remained at the Bush level.
As it stands, Mr. Obama would do well to go on Facebook and try to friend somebody.
