Whether by incompetence or design, the post-American president is enabling a post-American world

Iran is on the march, and we have Barack Obama to thank.

In Tehran, Iran, Brazil and Turkey signed a deal on Monday to swap nuclear fuel. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Brazil’s President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu raised their hands in triumph after signing the deal.

Ambassador John Bolton spells out the implications of the deal: “If this continues, it cuts the kneecaps off the administration’s sanctions effort. I think it’s a jujitsu move by the Iranians that undercuts the Obama policy.”

An unsigned editorial in the Wall Street Journal characterized the deal as “a political coup for Tehran and possibly delivers the coup de grace to the West’s half-hearted efforts to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.” The editorial adds: “Full credit for this debacle goes to the Obama Administration and its hapless diplomatic strategy.”

And that’s not all. A new Israeli report shows that Iran has formed an alliance with China and North Korea, focusing on the development of missiles and nuclear capabilities.

Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said last week that North Korea is sending WMD’s to Iran’s reliable Middle Eastern client state, Syria. And few weeks ago it was revealed that Iran is sending paramilitary troops to Venezuela. What for?

A nuclear-ready Iran is preparing for world war. Here, there, everywhere. And we have … impotent Obama.

Heckuva job, Barry

President Obama is the backward man. Teddy Roosevelt's advice to "speak softly and carry a big stick" was meant as a guide to successful foreign relations.

Obama has completely muddled the message. He speaks softly to foreign adversaries and uses the big stick on American dissenters.

Iran and Syria are wooed endlessly with carrots, apologies and promises of grand bargains. They respond with taunts and threats and pay no penalty.

North Korea sinks a South Korean ship, and our secretary of state says it means no more business as usual. That's an admission it has been business as usual even after the loony kingdom tested nukes.

The Mexican president comes to Washington and berates American citizens for expressing their views through the democratic process, and Obama shamefully nods in agreement. A State Department aide apologizes to China -- to China! -- about our treatment of illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, American "fat-cat bankers" and "greedy" doctors and sundry opponents are demonized as enemies of the state. They respond by sullenly surrendering the health-care and financial industries to Big Government.

Welcome to a double disaster. America now has a foreign policy that is a dangerous flop and a homeland as bitterly divided as ever.

And don't forget 10 percent unemployment and skyrocketing deficits and debt.

Heckuva job, Mr. President.

Mark Steyn on Obama's skittishness toward Iran

... when it comes to “keeping you safe” from real threats, such as a millenarian theocracy that claims universal jurisdiction, America and its allies do nothing. There aren’t going to be any sanctions, because China and Russia don’t want them. That means military action, which would have to be done without U.N. backing — which, as Greg Sheridan of the Australian puts it, “would be foreign to every instinct of the Obama administration.” Indeed. Nonetheless, Washington is (all together now) “losing patience” with the mullahs. The New York Daily News reports the latest get-tough move: “Secretary of State Clinton dared Iran on Monday to let her hold a town-hall meeting in Tehran.”

That’s telling ’em. If the ayatollahs had a sense of humor, they’d call her bluff.

Krauthammer on fire over stupefied White House

"And our fundamental values demand that America stand with demonstrators opposing a regime that is the antithesis of all we believe.

And where is our president? Afraid of "meddling." Afraid to take sides between the head-breaking, women-shackling exporters of terror -- and the people in the street yearning to breathe free. This from a president who fancies himself the restorer of America's moral standing in the world."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/19/obama_clueless_on_iran.html