Obama’s war on terror excludes Iran
Israel Hayom | Obama’s war on terror excludes Iran.
( Note: Read the comments to this article. They’re more interesting than the article itself. – JW )
( Fantastic article! I could have written it myself if I believed for sure what Baehr believes. I believe it about 80% at this point. The eternal optimist in me desperately hangs on to the notion that Obama’s not going to surrender to Iran. It probably makes no difference at this point. If Israel needs to act, we will act. Period. – JW )
Richard Baehr
For the first time in five years, the love embrace from the media that helped Barack Obama get nominated, then elected, then re-elected, has loosened a bit.
In the face of the continuing investigations of misbehavior by the IRS, and the Justice Department and the actions (or inaction) by the State Department, CIA, White House and Defense Department during and after the attack in Benghazi, the White House has seemed to be off-stride in its messaging the last few weeks, demonstrating little skill at playing defense amidst the growing web of scandals.
An administration experienced in being in attack mode against its political enemies, whether Mitt Romney, the Tea Party, House Republicans, or Fox News, has seen its second term agenda derailed. Gun control, immigration reform, repeal of the sequester, and a budget deal are now all in the background. It is not surprising then that the president chose to change the script last week, returning to foreign policy, and overseas wars, the issues that first got him noticed as a Senate candidate in Illinois in 2004 and helped him to win the Democratic nomination over Hillary Clinton in 2008.
In his speech to the Naval Academy graduation last week, the president was talking beyond the midshipmen and their families in attendance to a broader audience of people who might respond positively to the messages that he delivered. Obama’s strong statements deploring sexual violence within the armed forces undoubtedly registered with some of the president’s most passionate supporters, particularly single women.
Similarly, calling for the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo in Cuba, and for an end to the war on terror, since “it has gone on too long,” could be expected to register with the anti-war element within the Democratic Party, who preferred Obama to Hillary Clinton in 2008. During that campaign, Obama regularly reminded the Democrats that he opposed the Iraq War and Clinton, as a senator, had voted for it.
In essence, Clinton assumed she was a near certain presidential nominee for her party in 2008. As a result, as early as 2002 with the Iraq War resolution, she had chosen to take a path in the Senate consistent with the need to win a national campaign, rather than a party nominating contest. Showing strength on issues of national defense is important for a Democrat to win a national election, and particularly important for the presumed first woman nominee of a major party. Opposing the Iraq War, as Obama did, endeared him to many of the activists who are involved in the party’s nominating process, and was a major factor in his very narrow win over Clinton.
Obama offered one other gift to his anti-war critics on the left, calling for a stricter standard for the use of military drone strikes.
On the subject of terrorism, Obama argued, as he has before, that al-Qaida had been decimated. There were still extremist groups operating in various places, but they were not part of a generalized worldwide operation run by the likes of an Osama Bin Laden. Given the reduced magnitude of the threat, it was time, Obama maintained, to reconsider the concept of a war on terror. Obama also stated that a nation could not be on a permanent war footing, and the war on terror had gone on long enough. Of course, one side always has the ability to put down its arms, and give up on its war objectives. The Cold War ran for 45 years, about four times the length of our current war on terror, which began on September 11, 2001, and all the presidents during that time prosecuted that war though with different degrees of ardor (Reagan and LBJ more, Carter less).
Closing Guantanamo, greatly reducing the number of drone strikes, ending the war on terror, are all messages that Obama’s suddenly beleaguered administration hope will energize the Democratic party’s left-wing base. But there are others who will also read messages from the president’s address. Most important among them is Iran. Not once in his address did the president mention Iran, or its nuclear program.
Iran is the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism, and has been so for decades. Iranian forces, as well as those of Iran’s Shiite terrorist army in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are heavily involved in the fighting in Syria. Iran has been implicated in terrorist activities not only in the Middle East, where it has armed Hezbollah, Hamas (an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood), and Islamic Jihad. Iranian involvement has been identified in attacks in Argentina, and the United States. The president’s attorney-general was quoted on the attempt to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States in Washington D.C.:
At the time of Mr. Arbabsiar’s arrest, Attorney-General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that the plot had been “directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government and, specifically, senior members of the Quds force,” which is part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Some counter-terrorism experts, such as Steve Emerson, have always maintained that Hezbollah was a far bigger global terrorism threat than al-Qaida, since it was entrenched in Iran and Lebanon, and now Syria, while al-Qaida operated in various places, but generally in the shadows. Hezbollah and Iran were also far more active than al-Qaida, which focused on a few spectacular operations. The U.S. government seemed to agree that there was a surge in activity by Iran and its agents while al-Qaida was diminished .
Why then, was Iran not mentioned by the president? If the goal of the speech was to tell the president’s supporters on the Left that the terror threat had diminished, and our measures to fight terrorists needed, accordingly, to be adjusted, why confuse them with a mixed message calling for more vigilance for the bigger threat that was still out there from Iran?
In the last few weeks, there have been new books and articles in major publications arguing for more diplomacy to achieve a grand bargain with Iran, and arguing against even the consideration of military action to prevent Iran from completing its nuclear program.
A president who has repeated many times, that our policy toward an Iranian nuclear program is prevention, not containment or deterrence (mutual assured destruction), has been noticeably silent on Iran for months.
The new secretary of state is spinning his wheels trying to get negotiations going between Bib Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, dangling billions in new economic assistance to the P.A. as a bribe. Every secretary of state, including some less impressed with themselves than Kerry, comes into office believing they hold the magic elixir to finally bring to bear fruitful discussions between Israel and the Palestinians, that will lead to a two state solution, and an end to the conflict. All the prior failures seem not to have educated the latest to arrive at Foggy Bottom. Kerry, too, has hardly said a word about Iran or its nuclear program on his initial set of visits in Israel.
It is hard not to think that the pivot on administration policy announced in Annapolis, also includes an unspoken shift on Iran-namely to stand aside, or at best, continue with the pretense of engaging in diplomacy. Israel of course, is an independent nation, and will make its own decisions. If however, Israel is certain that the oft stated promise from the administration that “all options are on the table” is all bluff at this point, it could either accelerate Israeli action, or curtail it, if Israel judges the ability to strike on its own, as high risk with low probability of success.
The president’s political troubles have led to his shifting to the Left on terrorism. The odds on American military action against Iran have also shifted-toward zero.
WarSclerotic 
June 2, 2013 at 2:37 PM
I noted in my previous comments that beset with scandals, this incompetent President naturally moved back to his default positions. It is true, he never intended to attack Iran and risk being called a “war criminal” by the left. This brings up another point not discussed. American politicians do not have the will to fight an all out war. The military would certainly fight a all out war if need be. But most American politicians are so terrified of being called a “war criminal” or hearing demands for war criminal trials by the left wing that America has lost the ability to fight any war.
In discussing the President’s speech in Annapolis there has been very little written of the importance of the heckling by Media Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, which is a very left wing, anti-war organization. It would be a very safe bet to say that this was a staged event. When Code Pink heckles and disturbs an event they do not stop until dragged out of the room. That’s a major part of their media show.
Clearly, this is President aligned with Code Pink and has no interest in intervening in any future war. Putin, very aware of this, is having a ball forcing Obama back into a corner because he sees a real possibility of an American political collapse.
June 3, 2013 at 3:00 AM
How can politicans labeled as war crimminals when we are still at “war” with radical Islam extremists? Seems like Obama is modern day Neville Chamberlain (minus the ongoing scandals). Americans needs to wake up sooner rather than later and pressure Congress to do something right.
June 2, 2013 at 3:19 PM
Israel has simply waited too long! If it launches an attack on Iran now, 10,000’s of rockets will come its way from all directions most likely many loaded with gas. Israel would then be forced to react in kind ( read atomics) and who knows from there. Most likely senario now is that Israel comes under siege and try’s every possible counted measure to hold off the Babarians.
June 2, 2013 at 3:33 PM
Lighten up, GL. None of us has a clue what technological advances the IDF has developed to deal with this EXACT scenario.
I’m nervous, but at the same time pretty confident that our leaders and army will not drop the ball.
June 2, 2013 at 3:42 PM
I’ve been following events for years and I’m truly frustrated by the lack of Western will against this evolving situation.
But, I’m not sitting in middle of it as you are, sorry about my insensitivity to those in harms way.
June 2, 2013 at 4:32 PM
GL…
Understand something. Israel is not the West. We are unto ourselves. We will fight for ourselves regardless of the West.
Nobody supported us in ’67. We did what we had to.
Nobody supported our attack on Saddam’s reactor. We did what we had to.
Nobody supported our attack on Syria’s reactor. We did what we had to.
We will do what we have to now, and the West will benefit from our actions once AGAIN.
One day, maybe we won’t “have to” do anything.
That day is not yet upon us.
June 2, 2013 at 4:34 PM
Godspeed JW…
June 2, 2013 at 4:35 PM
GL…
Brother in arms….
June 2, 2013 at 4:36 PM
Amen to that!
June 2, 2013 at 3:20 PM
Yes, good article.
but I strongly disagree on two points:
1. The odds did not shift but they were always near zero.
2. The reasons for his statements were not just opportunistic but his statements reflect his world view.
June 2, 2013 at 3:24 PM
Unfortunately, the above senario evoles nuclear proliferation around the Middle East. Bad news all they way around.
June 2, 2013 at 5:10 PM
I agree for a good part whit this article , see other comments from me on this blog.
MR Wouk for what it is worth.
You are not alone, for years a lot of people are fighting for Israel on blog , site,s etc and i have the feeling, something is changing slowly they truth is coming out.
Personally :
If i was 20 ore so i was now in Israel and trained, now i,am to old to be useful
יְהִי אוֹר. (yehi ‘or) (Let there be light )
June 2, 2013 at 5:24 PM
Joop…
You may be to old to fight in the IDF.
Umm… So am I…. ?
Joop, you’re not to old to be useful. Do what you can do. Be creative. Start your own site, etc.
What’s important for Israel and for your heart is to do what you CAN DO.
I know, it’s a goddamned cliche. But it’s how I get through the day and I wanted to share it with you.
June 2, 2013 at 5:47 PM
I,am deeply moved, i,am doing this for years, and i have a track record of more than 40,000 commends trough the years.
This under different nick names, i started under my real name , but under the influence of the multicultural forces i had to start using nick names.
That is all i can do, and doing and keep doing
L’Chaim
June 2, 2013 at 6:08 PM
Joop…
Please send a private msg to me with your email.
I very much understand the multicultural/nick bit through close friends. Perhaps their knowledge would be of assistance to you.
Cheers!
June 2, 2013 at 5:31 PM
JW,
Perhaps it’s worth remembering the difference between the ’67 and ’73 wars. In one case Israel preempted an attack that would’ve come soon anyway, in the other case they waited until the enemy struck first.
Israel’s leaders don’t have a crystal ball – they could well miscalculate again.
The difference here is that waiting too long would prove more costly than it did in 73.
June 2, 2013 at 5:52 PM
They have learned , there is for sure plan b and c and d
Let me enplane it so :
If I was in this situation my right hand would not trust my left hand , so let never know the left hand what the right hand is doing or the other way around.
June 2, 2013 at 6:04 PM
Agreed. I’m counting on Bibi et al to have learned from the mistakes of ’73.
June 2, 2013 at 7:51 PM
There is a big debate on the highest Israeli levels of military and political leadership regarding the ”first strike”. Some are suggesting that a limited first strike wont provoke a too hard Iranian reaction and want to keep a massive second strike option as a response for an eventually larger conflict which can develop after the first strike.
The second opinion is for a massive, decisive first strike, including the Israeli long range Jericho missiles, combined with large flotilla of drones and cyber attacks designed to cripple the Iranian infrastructures. In this scenario, not only the nuclear facilities are on the ”black list”, but the military bases and the missiles silos will also be hit as the primary targets. The Israeli ground forces, backed up by armored divisions, will blitz through south Lebanon up to the Bekaa Valley, in an attempt to neutralize the Hezbollah threat and after a short aerial decapitating campaign. This second scenario can also be implemented after a ”soft” first strike, if the Iranians will react with all they have at hand, Hezbollah included.
June 2, 2013 at 8:10 PM
Got a gut feeling that once Israel makes a first strike the Iranian response will be a fight until one side utterly surrenders, or a political revolution in Iran. Knowing the history of the Iran-Iraq war makes doubt that the Iranian reaction will be temporary or not “too hard”. This is obvious and I am sure the Israeli government has no illusions.
June 2, 2013 at 8:46 PM
The mullahs won’t be able to mobilize the population for a full scale war as they did then unless there are massive civilian casualties or an Israeli invasion. There were lots of idealists willing to die for the revolution then. This is no longer true.
June 2, 2013 at 8:56 PM
Luis….
As always, the first question one must ask and answer before beginning a military campaign is, “What’s the objective?”
In the case of Iran I can posit two possible objectives:
1. Stop Iran from developing atomic weapons.
2. Stop the spread of radical Islam by “cutting off the head of the snake.”
Depending upon one’s choice of objectives, the soft versus the hard options become more clear cut.
Personally, I favor the second objective. The head of this snake needs to be cut off just as it did from the fascist axis in WWII.
If I were President of the US, I would go to congress and ask for a declaration of war demanding “unconditional surrender” just like we did for the Nazis and the Japanese Empire.
Radical Islam is equally as vile and destructive an ideology as fascism was. It needs to be wiped off the face of the earth the same way that fascism was.
But we’re not speaking about the US, we’re discussing “little” Israel.
Is Israel capable of “cutting of the head of the snake?”
Perhaps.
But is it capable of doing so without becoming the snake itself… i.e. using nuclear weapons and causing massive loss of innocent lives?
World opinion be damned! It’s our own opinion of ourselves that matters.
Therein lies the rub.
For that reason I believe Israel will opt for your first, limited option.
The consequence of this is that we are exposing ourselves to massive retaliation if the Mullahs decide to ignore our second strike threat.
If they are truly as apocalypticly irrational as they seem to be, this could well be the price we will pay for maintaining our sense of self respect.
But, if we’re not a “light unto the nations,” what are we doing fighting here in the first place?
I’m glad I’m not the one making the decision….
God be with the one who does.
June 3, 2013 at 1:28 AM
Mr Wouk how can i send you a private msg.
June 2, 2013 at 11:01 PM
i could buy the second Louis,it would have to move golan too a very nice pincer movement could be a real prospect perhaps something even more dareing,its doable definitely fast and swift
June 4, 2013 at 5:44 PM
Why take risks ? A massive first strike has many advantages : the most dangerous front is no longer a threat, all Israeli forces can be mobilized on the Hezbollah-Syrian front, Hezbollah and Syria may so scared that they will not react at all, other countries may be scared for decades.
On the other hand, if the first strike is too light, Iran may successfully launch many missiles in coordination with Hezbollah and Syria and succeed in seriously crippling the Israeli power infrastructure, the Israeli airbases, the Israeli economy,…other countries, pushed by their populations, may also join the war against Israel. Israel could : lose the war, become weak, go bankrupt,…several catastrophic outcomes are possible.
What has changed since 1973 : nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons, many accurate ballistic missiles, almost infinite amounts of mid-range missiles are possessed or about to be possessed by the enemies of Israel. It is not the right time to play weak first and strongly after the enemies’ reaction, for media, psychological, strategic reasons. The right strategy today is not to believe Israel is so superior it can calculate very precisely how to gently escalate things if and when the enemies escalate, perfectly proportionally. This “perfect as if we were God” strategy is far too dangerous.
The greatest general in Israeli history, Ariel Sharon, wrote in his autobiography that the greatest military danger for Israel was self-complacency and a complex of superiority that lead to a dangerous undervaluation of the reality of the present dangers. Every time the situation is new, it must be evaluated without taking into account how easy some previous victories have been, but instead concentrate on how difficult some have been, and on the one factor that almost no country on this planet faces : this country is too small to lose, and after what the Nazis did, the Jews of Israel have absolutely no right to lose, especially not by committing stupid mistakes. Imagine what will happen if Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah missiles are launched on the same day and end up having a very high strike rate even though Israeli military planners have rated such an event as probabilistically low ! It is like what happened in Fukushima : probabilities calculated by Japanese scientists said that such an event was probabilistically very unlikely, but probabilities are calculated for many dangerous events in many countries and are all rated very unlikely, but if you aggregate all these events’ probabilities in a global database, mathematicians will tell you very scientifically and very wisely that some of these very unlikely events are bound to happen in some of those countries. Israel’s crippling or destruction can be the next unlikely event if Israel is as relaxed about its security as the Japanese engineers were about their nuclear plants’ securities. Japan is THE land of earthquakes. Israel is THE most hated country in this part of the World. Japanese played, they lost. Now their country is radioactive and they do not know how to control Fukushima, where nuclear reactions keep on taking place. If Israeli generals play lightly with Israel’s future, they can end up sorry losers like the Japanese planners. Nobody would forgive them.
June 2, 2013 at 8:03 PM
Israel will be vilified one way or the other. If they’re going to do it, then finish it!
June 2, 2013 at 10:42 PM
The one and only God – the God of Israel has made an eternal covenant with Israel . HE sticks to it and this is why the nation of Israel HAS a future ! But those who hate Israel will terribly fail and fall : Its written that ”He who curses Israel will be cursed” !
Sleep well, beloved nation of Israel, for ”HE who watches over Israel never slumbers nor sleeps !”
June 2, 2013 at 11:52 PM
Has anyone seen this?’
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4952020/iran-president-mahmoud-ahmadinejad-helicopter-crash.html
June 3, 2013 at 2:50 AM
Hey Joseph… It looks like another Arab spring is starting this time in Turkey. Been reading about the protests on the BBC. If I was Iran this is the type of thing I would be trying to start in Turkey right now. It makes perfect tactical sense to have Turkey worrying about internal problems. Any thoughts?