Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — the Izod Ayatollah who,
clad in a cool golf shirt, tan slacks and blue blazer, charms the
media — has offered to meet with President Obama when the two
are in New York next month at the annual convening of the United
Nations General Assembly.
Ahmadinejad said that the two should meet for a
face-to-face televised debate. And why not? This is the Iranian
“madman” who should be one of the characters in the “Mad Men”
television series. He’s so good at manipulating American liberals
he clearly relishes the chance at doing it again, this time with
Barry as his foil.
In 2006, A-jad had CBS’s old Mike Wallace eating out of his
hand and was mau-maued around New York a year later culminating
in a televised speech hosted by Columbia University. Now, he
wants to chum for another media frenzy that could raise himself
to the Simon Cowell level of celebrity and further diminish the
U.S. president, if that is even possible. Barry has shrunk so
quickly, his feet may no longer touch the floor when he sits
behind the big desk in the Oval Office.
And, sigh, Barry is indicating that he may meet with A-jad
in September. Obama’s National Security Advisor, Gen. James
Jones, said that Obama may be willing to meet with A-jad if the
Iranian kakistocracy indicates it is willing to negotiate with
the UN’s purblind nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, on Tehran’s nuclear
program. Negotiate, not stop, redirect or even agree in advance
to international inspection of its disclosed nuclear sites far
less those of which — as was the uranium enrichment plant near
Qom — we don’t know of.
If the meeting comes off, our Incredible Shrinking
President will have surpassed Jimmy Carter in reducing America’s
ability to influence world events. Consider how he’s being set up
— not only by his own missteps — but by Iran and its closest
allies.
Last week, KGB (er, Russian) President Vlad Putin’s regime
announced that the Iranian nuclear plant the Russians are
building in Iran will go online by the end of this month. The
Russian Lukoil firm discharged about 250,000 barrels of
much-needed gasoline in Iran last week, and it will continue to
ship gasoline to Iran, ensuring its economy will not be affected
by the newest round of UN sanctions. China’s Zhuhai
Zhenrong state-run oil company is also
continuing gasoline sales to Iran.
By pushing the Iranian project to completion and providing
the gasoline Iran’s economy must have, Putin is cornering Obama.
What little leverage Obama might have had in a meeting with A-jad
has evaporated. In any meeting with A-jad, Obama would be reduced
to a supplicant.
Obama, like his predecessor, has utterly failed to stop
Iran’s interference in Iraq and Afghanistan. A year ago this
month, Gen. Stanley McChrystal reported that unless the trend in
Afghanistan were reversed within a year, we could face a
situation in which defeating the Taliban was no longer
possible.
And, in his last quarterly report to Congress submitted in
April, McChrystal wrote that Iran’s “lethal assistance” to the
Taliban was “most concerning,” and that “Iran’s historical,
cultural and economic ties with much of western Afghanistan, its
religious affinity with Afghan minority groups, and its extensive
border with Afghanistan will ensure that Tehran continues to
attempt to influence events in Afghanistan for the foreseeable
future.”
Like any supplicant, Obama would have to have some
face-saving result from such a meeting. What might A-jad offer
that Obama’s media could spin as a positive result? Lots.
Such as a “promise” from Ahmadinejad to “negotiate” with
the IAEA on some future disclosures of Iran’s nuclear work. Iran
would buy more time for its development of nuclear weapons
without having to actually disclose anything.
Or perhaps a “promise” from the Iranian to “help” stabilize
Afghanistan. Iran has for years, in Afghanistan and Iraq,
directly and indirectly taken the lives of American soldiers.
Will Obama the supplicant even raise this issue with Ahmadinejad?
If he does, the “concession” will be designed to help Obama spin
his failed strategy in Afghanistan.
Those facts are more than enough to prevent any positive
result from an Obama/A-jad meeting, but Obama’s own actions
further weaken his position going in.
Obama is apparently willing to swallow any bit of Islamic
agitprop that appears on his plate. His endorsement of the Ground
Zero mosque is just the latest example.
At a White House “iftar” dinner celebrating the Muslim holy
month of Ramadan, Obama jumped into the Ground Zero mosque
controversy, strongly endorsing the construction of an Islamic
“community center” and mosque on the site where a big chunk of
the landing gear from one of the airliners that struck the Twin
Towers on 9-11 hit the ground.
Obama said, “I understand the emotions that this issue
engenders. Ground zero is, indeed, hallowed ground,” adding:
“This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be
unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome
in this country, and will not be treated differently by their
government, is essential to who we are.”
But who we are is different from who Obama is. The Ground
Zero zone is hallowed ground, and the public outcry at Obama’s
endorsement of the mosque there has him back pedaling fast. This
is an argument we can win. There are at least 100 mosques already
in New York City. There can be another, but not in the Ground
Zero zone. Americans are justifiably outraged, and we can — and
should — block this monument to the Islamist ideology just as we
would block a memorial to the Japanese Shinto religion at Pearl
Harbor.
Ahmadinejad — and Putin, Hu Jintao and every other enemy
we have — see Obama’s vulnerability to any claim made in the
name of Islam and take advantage of it at every
opportunity.
There is nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, in an
Obama-Ahmadinejad meeting. Iran is the principal state sponsor of
terrorism in the world. It must be defeated, not embraced by our
Incredible Shrinking President.
