The American Spectator

Political Hay

Obama Can't Be Trusted on National Defense

By Peter Ferrara on 9.17.08 @ 12:08AM

A couple of weeks ago, the Left was having a grand old time yucking it up over Sarah Palin, even starting a little pool taking bets as to the date when Palin would withdraw. A couple of days ago, the Huffington Post called on Joe Biden to withdraw so that Hillary Clinton could take his place and save Obama from the Palin tidal wave.

But while they are reopening the Democrat ticket, they may as well replace the top of the ticket as well.

Should Obama Withdraw?
In 1991, when President George H. W. Bush was preparing to run for reelection, a devastating charge was raised by Gary Sick, who had served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. Sick alleged that during the 1980 campaign, candidate Ronald Reagan had dispatched his running mate George Bush to negotiate a deal with the Iranians to delay release of the American embassy hostages they were holding until after the election. In return, the Iranians were supposedly offered arms to be sent by the Israelis.

Sick actually had no evidence to back up his charge, except a record of a short trip by Bush to Paris in the fall of 1980. But the charge still caused a firestorm among Democrats and the media at the time, who were in agreement that if true the charges would amount to treason. The watchword among the liberal lynch mob was that even though there was no evidence to support it, the very seriousness of the charge required a complete investigation. So both the House and the Senate each did such a complete investigation, finding nothing.

Just two days ago, on September 15, the New York Post published an explosive article by Amir Taheri, an Iranian born journalist who has long covered the Middle East for a wide range of publications. He was editor in chief of Iran's largest daily newspaper from 1972 to 1979 and has in the past been a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Newsday. He has also long been widely published throughout Europe and the Middle East. He is currently a regular contributor to CNN, National Review, and the New York Post.

In the article, Taheri says that Obama has done in regard to the troops in Iraq what Reagan and Bush were alleged to have done in regard to the Iranian hostages. Taheri writes:

While campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

Taheri further reported:

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops -- and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its ‘state of weakness and political confusion.'....Though Obama claims the US presence in Iraq is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that American troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate….His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

Taheri has far more evidence than Sick ever had, obtaining his information from the Foreign Minister of Iraq and other top Iraqi officials Obama spoke to while in Iraq this past summer. If the media is to have any credibility at all, it should reassign a few of the dozens of reporters it now has in Alaska investigating the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter to investigate the explosive charges now raised by Taheri. They can start by interviewing Taheri, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, and other Iraqi officials.

I am calling on Obama now to answer these charges, or withdraw from the race, freeing the American people from the trouble of having to impeach him after the election, if he should defy the now lengthening odds and somehow win the race.

Mission Accomplished
The desperation that may have led Obama to engage in this gross misconduct stems from his belated recognition of the new reality in Iraq: The war there is over. America has won. It is too late for Obama to surrender, on behalf of his uninformed, misguided, anti-American netroots.

Victory for America in Iraq has meant a disastrous rout for Al Qaeda's terrorists. As another New York Postcolumnist, Ralph Peters, wrote in July:

A terrorist organization that less than a decade ago had global appeal and reach has been discredited in the eyes of most of the world's billion-plus Muslims. No one of consequence in the Arab world sees Al-Qaeda as a winner anymore. Even fundamentalist clerics denounce it. For all of our missteps, Iraq's been worth it.

Peters also reported:

Al Qaeda has been driven from the Arab world, with nowhere else to go....Unwelcome even in Sudan or Syria, the Islamist fanatics have retreated to remote mountain villages and compounds on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border.

With this smashing victory in hand, American troops are already coming home. The surge troops have been withdrawn. Bush has accepted the recommendations of General Petraeus to withdraw more troops this fall. Most importantly, the Bush administration has negotiated a permanent status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government. The draft, which requires no congressional approval in the U.S., but still requires formal Iraqi approval, provides for Iraq to take over responsibility for security in every province next year, with American troops withdrawn from Iraqi cities and serving in a back-up role from military bases. A phased withdrawal would continue after that, depending on conditions inside Iraq.

Based on his Iraqi sources, Taheri reports Obama's attitude towards this American victory as follows:

Obama has given Iraqis the impression that he doesn't want Iraq to appear anything like a success, let alone a victory, for America. The reason? He fears that the perception of US victory there might revive the Bush doctrine of "preemptive" war -- that is, removing a threat before it strikes America.

But this is a vain hope, for, again, it is too late for Obama to turn victory into the defeat he prefers as a matter of both politics and policy. Sometimes, Obama tries to claim credit for the victory, arguing that the troops are coming home on his timetable after all. But this just ignores the huge difference between troops coming home in smashing victory, and troops coming home in devastating defeat.

Imagine if America had listened to Obama and his left wing base, rejected the surge, and withdrawn American troops in defeat. Al Qaeda would now be enjoying the surge of new recruits from all over the Muslim world, triumphant as the victors in the historic defeat of the newly failing American superpower, like Rome in its last days. Al Qaeda would be setting up a new base of operations in Iraq, from which to launch new conquests and terror attacks.

This is the defeat for America that Obama would have engineered. How could we possibly trust this man now with our national defense? What future defeats would lie in store because Obama is philosophically opposed to "removing a threat before it strikes America"?

The Talking Fool
The sweeping, historic victory in Iraq still leaves the grave threat of Iran. Islamic extremists have remained firmly in power there since 1979. Their current front man is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the ruling mullahs have expressly said that he represents their thinking.

Ahmadinejad, of course, has said several times that Iran intends to "wipe Israel off the map." Less well known is that another Ahmadinejad theme has been to ask Islamic audiences to imagine a world without America. That is now possible, he has said

Iran has long been the chief state sponsor of terrorism in the world. It is also the chief barrier to peace in the Middle East, providing the key support to those who insist on fighting to eliminate Israel rather than settling with it. It is the source of the rockets that Hamas rains down on Israel. It is the financial patron of Hezbollah, arming them with another store of rockets. It is Syria's patron as well, keeping them in the fight.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Foreign Policy, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, Islam, Military, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, European Union, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Energy, Alaska