Obama wins praise for orchestrating response to Iran

[babylonsister]

Obama wins praise for orchestrating response to Iran

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama always said he'd be willing to meet with rogue nations such as Iran without preconditions, but he never said he wouldn't try to set the stage.

The revelation Friday that Iran has a secret nuclear facility capped a calculated effort by Obama to build pressure against Iran days before a multinational confrontation over its nuclear plans on Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland.

For weeks, Obama played a form of international chess to build a unified multi-national front against Iran while preserving the option to talk and negotiate. He abandoned plans for a ballistic missile defense in Europe, apparently in part to win Russian cooperation, slapped tariffs on Chinese tires, arguably to prod them along, then huddled with their leaders and finally rolled out the news that he'd held close to the vest for months — that Iran has a secret uranium enrichment plant.

"This is a very clever way of doing it," said Fariborz Ghadar, a professor at Penn State University and Iran scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"We've been taking baby steps. Now we have the Oct. 1 meeting coming up and we have an ace in the hole, knowing that these guys have been cheating again. He played the cheating card. They're making Iran look really bad."

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/76091.html

[ShortnFiery]

1. Yes, flanked by the leaders of two other, what could be "Christian" nations ...

bravo, we're inching ever closer to Armageddon. :( :nuke:

[babylonsister]

9. Jeezus, do you ever have anything cheery to say? Your doom

and gloom gets old. :nuke:

[boppers]

11. Yes, because India launched.

Pakistan launched.
China launched.
Israel launched.
France launched.
US launched.

Every single one of these nations has nuclear weapons, and has been in one form of conflict or another during or *after* they got the capability... and yet, only one has seen fit to use nuclear weapons, *ever*.

[MadMaddie]

13. I suppose that you would prefer the previous presidents method

of antagonizing Iran and allowing Iran to continue build it's nuclear arsenal? Then when Iran decides to strike we would hear well no one saw that coming?

No matter what President Obama does it will never be the right thing with some folks.

[butterfly77]

21. Exactly, I saw the little guy on Mclaughlin...

this morning it was just eating him up that everyone on the panel gave him an A and A+ even Pat Buchanan. I forgot the guy's name on the panel he just kept on digging in with neg comments,everyone on the panel said they didn't think the Pres would bomb Iran the guy said yes.

It just eats them up that Obama knew for 9 months and they didn't know anything. Why don't they go to bush and Cheney they will help them out.. I think they are so afraid of some of these leaders to be interviewed because they may tell us what Bush and Cheney were up to in the negotiations for eight years..

[cliffordu]

15. Right on time.

The never ending cavalcade of hate dressed up as religious expertise.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

[TomCADem]

16. Delete

[DevonRex]

2. He has done an excellent job with this. Nice to see what diplomacy

can do for a change.

[Cha]

3. We are so fortunate to have President Obama

and his Reality Team navigating the way in a dangerous world..when their Mission Statement is a Peaceful World:patriot::hippie::hippie::patriot:

[TheWraith]

4. Kicked and recommended!

Finally we're getting somewhere.

[Peacetrain]

5. It was a very excellent move!!

[DevonRex]

8. It was...

Some people here will never admit it, though, since they're stuck in their Obama = Bush lunacy. For those threads I have a personal policy called UMO - Unrec, move on.

[Mrs. Overall]

6. Is diplomacy fashionable again? I sure hope so!

Good for Obama.

[DevonRex]

7. Why yes. Yes it is.

:hi:

[Phx_Dem]

10. "International chess" . . . Obama style.

:7

[Cha]

14. Yeah, PO had better be the

Grandmaster of Chess}(

[Tarheel_Dem]

12. K&R. (nt)

[BlooInBloo]

17. Smart people literally live in a different world from stupid people....

There are so many more possibilities, and inter-relations between possibilities, than stupid people can even imagine.

While there are a number of reasons I support Obama, the overriding reason is simple: he's the smartest motherfucker in the room.

[DCKit]

18. +1 And not a hard act to follow (BushCo*)

We've got to prove election fraud. Two terms of "short-bus" Residency is, otherwise, inexcusable.

[iceman66]

19. The contrast between Bush and Obama foreign policy could not be more stark

Ahmadinejad played Bush like a fiddle. In interviews to Western media, he would deliberately act rational and scholarly and, when compared to Bush's blustering and intransigence, he would always come across as the more reasonable of the two.

Now, Obama's skillful use of diplomacy has iran on the defensive and international public opinion trending our way.

[autorank]

20. Playing the "cheating card" is better than the war card

This looks more like an Obama foreign policy style than that displayed by the cold warrior faction that tried to pull off their own coup in Honduras (thus embarrassing Obama). He's dealing with a delusional leadership in Iran. That requires a different approach than simply threatening them. In his Cairo speech, Obama said these hugely significant words:

The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.

This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question, now, is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build. Link.

That statement on the 1953 acknowledged the toppling of the Mossadegh presidency by the US and Great Britain for the sole purpose of stopping Iran's move to nationalize their oil reserves. No president of the United States has ever been that honest.

If Obama's approach can corner the deluded leaders of Iran into backing off without forcing US and others to act in ways that prop them up, it's possible that the forces fighting the illegitimate Iranian government may succeed in the meantime.