Plan B Forum

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_19557788

Charles Krauthammer: The wages of appeasement
By Charles Krauthammer

Posted: 12/15/2011 05:48:44 PM PST
Updated: 12/15/2011 05:48:45 PM PST


"Ask Osama bin Laden ... whether I engage in appeasement."

-- Barack Obama, Dec. 8, 2011

WASHINGTON -- Fair enough. Barack Obama didn't appease Osama bin Laden. He killed him. And for ordering the raid and taking the risk, Obama deserves credit. Credit for decisiveness and political courage.

However, the bin Laden case was no test of policy. No serious person of either party ever suggested negotiation or concession. Obama demonstrated decisiveness, but forgoing a nonoption says nothing about the soundness of one's foreign policy. That comes into play when there are choices to be made.

And here the story is different. Take Obama's two major foreign-policy initiatives -- toward Russia and Iran.

The administration came into office determined to warm relations with Russia. It was called "reset," an antidote to the "dangerous drift" (Vice President Joe Biden's phrase) in relations during the Bush years.

In fact, the Bush coolness toward Russia was grounded in certain unpleasant realities: the Kremlin's systematic dismantling of democracy; its naked aggression against Georgia; its drive to re-establish a Russian sphere of influence in the near-abroad; and its support, from Syria to Venezuela, of the world's more ostentatiously anti-American regimes.

Unmoored from such inconvenient realities, Obama went about his "reset." The signature decision was the abrupt cancellation of a Polish- and Czech-based U.S. missile defense system bitterly opposed by Moscow.

The cancellation deeply undercut two very pro-American allies who had aligned themselves with Washington in the face of both Russian threats and popular unease. Obama not only left them twisting in the wind, he showed the world that the Central Europeans' hard-won independence was only partial and tentative.

This major concession, together with a New START treaty far more needed by Russia than America, was supposed to ease U.S.-Russia relations, assuage Russian opposition to missile defense and enlist its assistance in stopping Iran's nuclear program.

Three years in, how is that "reset" working out? The Russians are back on the warpath about missile defense. They're denouncing the watered-down Obama substitute. They threaten not only to target any Europe-based U.S. missile defenses but also to install offensive missiles in Kaliningrad. They threaten additionally to withdraw from the START treaty.

As for assistance on Iran, Moscow has thwarted us at every turn, weakening or blocking resolution after resolution. And now, when even the International Atomic Energy Agency has testified to Iran's nuclear ambitions, Russia declares that it will oppose any new sanctions.

Finally, adding contempt to mere injury, Vladimir Putin responded to anti-government demonstrations by unleashing a crude Soviet-style attack on America as the secret power behind the protests. Putin accused Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of sending "a signal" that activated internal spies and other agents of imperial America. [ROTFLMFAO!......are the Ruskies REALLY this stupid?]

Such are the wages of appeasement. Makes one pine for mere "drift."

Even worse has been Obama's vaunted "engagement" with Iran. He began his presidency apologetically acknowledging U.S. involvement in a coup that happened more than 50 years ago. He then offered bilateral negotiations that, predictably, failed miserably. Most egregiously, he adopted a studied and scandalous neutrality during the popular revolution of 2009, a near-miraculous opportunity -- now lost -- for regime change.

For his exertions, Obama earned a) continued lethal Iranian assistance to guerrillas killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, b) a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador by blowing up a Washington restaurant, c) the announcement just this week by a member of parliament of Iranian naval exercises to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, d) undoubted Chinese and Russian access to a captured U.S. drone for the copying and countering of its high-tech secrets.

How did Obama answer that one? On Monday, he asked for the drone back.

Blessed are the cheek-turners. But do these people have no limit?

Makes me almost wish for the days of Jimmy "Mr. Peanut" Carter foreign policy faux pauxs......no, not quite, those 444 days that US Embassy staff had to endure was bad enough, I hope Obama starts to grow a spine.

'Cha, while I credit the final knell of OBL to SoS Clinton; that leaves Barry with ...?

Obama initially came into office with the naive view that our conflicts with other countries were the results of "misunderstandings" brought about primarily by what he saw as the the bellicose and confrontational tone and style of the Bush Administration. If we were just more open, and friendly, and willing to accommodate, than that old meanie George W Bush, the thinking went, we would be responded to in kind...

It was a belief that was, as events have shown, completely wrong-headed. (and to Obama's credit he has largely abandoned it, though not before, as Krauthammer's article points out, some damage was done.)

The fact is that most disputes between nations do not arise from "misunderstandings" ; they arise from fundamental conflicts in strategic objectives, and they are not going to ameliorated by a warm smile and trying to be "Mr. Nice Guy "....

In the case of Putin, his objective is to restore for Russian as much of the power and influence over his neighbors and throughout the world that was lost by the collapse of the Soviet Union as possible. He has made this abundantly clear both by words and deeds. He has hardly been subtle about it; he has engaged in a systematic policy of bullying, threats and intimidation to achieve these objectives.

Remember, this is the guy who called the break-up of the Soviet Union "the worst disaster of the 20th Century" (A truly extraordinary statement coming from the leader of a country that lost 30 million people in WW II, to name but one other contender for that title) and everything that he says and does must be interpreted in light of that expressed view.

When you make unilateral concessions to someone like this, the only thing you will ever get in return are more threats, and demands for further unilateral concessions.

In the case of Iran the regime's objectives are equally clear. These are ideologically and nationalistically driven fanatics, who seek to achieve hegemonic influence over the Mid-East region, to undermine and destabilize the hated West in every way they possibly can, and to acquire nuclear weapons to further these aims. They will pursue these objectives without regard to what approach is taken on the other side; they view patience and concessions as a sign of weakness to be exploited, and compromises as nothing but a way to buy time.

The only way this regime will be deterred from it's course is if it becomes convinced that pursuing it will result in them being driven from power. We have lost a lot of time trying to "reach out" to these guys, rather than earlier pursuing the toughest sanctions policies possible, first and foremost the banning of exporting refined petroleum to Iran, the only sanction that could bite severely enough to truly threaten the regime's existence. (ironically, despite huge oil reserves, Iran has almost no refining capability)

Our delays have now made military action against Iran far more likely than it needed to be.

As I've said before, one would be very hard put to find a single example internationally, with friend or foe, where the Obama Administration has been any more successful in gaining cooperation than the Bush Administration. What this should teach us, is that in the world of Realpolitk, a change in "tone" don't mean squat....

All of that having been said, after having gotten off to a bad start, I do give the Obama Administration credit for having largely abandoned the naive psychobabble approach to foreign policy it came in with. Much of the credit for this has to go to Hillary Clinton, who has proven herself to be one of the most realistic foreign policy voices in this Administration.

on one had he complans that Obamas actions have allwed us to be used as the bogeyman on the other he yells about not giving "the bad guys" the chance.

Krauthammer writes for people as stupid as himself who neither read nor think.

Neither description is accurate in any way. Obama has consistently tightened the noose around Iran's neck and got our allies to join in with him (even though a lot of them are dependant on Iranian oil as their nuclear programme has progressed.

Putin's blustering and threatening has not changed in any way since Bush was in office and there has been no appeasement at all. One might blame Bush's spineless reaction to Russian agression in Ossetia more sensibly.

Pure horseshit. That's why he is on Faux News.

yrs,
rubato

can we send irans first nuke to rubes house to test it?

rubato wrote:Krauthammer writes for people as stupid as himself who neither read nor think.

Neither description is accurate in any way.
yrs,
rubato

Ah, if you say so.

rubato wrote:Krauthammer writes for people as stupid as himself who neither read nor think.

Well, at least he doesn't write for people as stupid as rube...

For that he'd need a box of crayons, and a lot of big pictures....