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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (38207)	11/4/2009 12:06:30 PM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

The President Snubs Iran's Democrats Nuclear negotiations aren't worth this price. NOVEMBER 3, 2009, 10:14 P.M. ET. By AKBAR ATRI AND MARIAM MEMARSADEGHI Today marks the 30th anniversary of the taking of American hostages by radical Islamists during Iran's 1979 Revolution. Every year, the theocracy celebrates the occasion with orchestrated demonstrations against the United States, complete with the requisite burning of the American flag and chants of "Death to America." But this year, the regime's anti-Americanism is being boldly confronted. Democratic organizers are subverting the day's tightly controlled activities with their own planned rallies featuring a day-long message of apology and friendship to the U.S. The brave Iranian women and men fighting for an open society are intent on showing the West that they are ashamed of the regime's violence and the pain the American people experienced 30 years ago. One of us, Akbar, served in the leadership of Tahkim Vahdat, the very organization that took Americans hostage three decades ago. During the late 1990s when Akbar was involved, activists in favor of a liberal society that embraces modernity struggled to become the leading voices of the student movement. Despite incessant state surveillance, intimidation and imprisonment, we managed to turn Tahkim Vahdat inside out—from a tool of regime control into a leading voice for democratic opposition. We see today's movement as the fruit of seeds we planted over a decade ago. Yet courageous and dignified overtures to the U.S. by Green Movement activists have been snubbed by the Obama administration. The administration has avoided discussion about the prospects for liberalization in a country that exports radical Islamist ideology throughout the Middle East and beyond. In regressive realpolitik fashion, it has grown increasingly reticent about the Iranian people's struggle for human rights, apparently viewing it as irrelevant to U.S security interests. Rather than bolstering the opposition at a time when the Iranian regime is at its weakest, America is pursuing a policy of appeasement. In response to President Obama's eagerness to strike a deal with the Iranian regime, Green Movement activists are offering a compelling alternative. Their slogan? "America! Obama! From us an apology, from you support!" Many Iran experts have warned that displays of Western solidarity could taint Iran's democrats. Nonsense. Iranian cyberspace is brimming with anger at what the Green Movement sees as betrayal by the West. From legendary filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's representative in Europe, to Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, Iranian democrats are expressing disappointment at what they see as the trading of their democratic aspirations for dubious progress toward the goal of preventing a nuclear Iran. "Engagement," it turns out, is about nuclear weapons alone—no matter how many innocent Iranians are being beaten, tortured, raped and killed for expressing their hope for change. The Islamic Republic is none too pleased with America's new insistence on talking. President Ahmadinejad boasts on state media about his breakthrough achievement—getting respect and deference from the U.S.—while he proceeds to reject already watered-down nuclear proposals. Can the Obama administration achieve anything with Ahmadinejad's cabal on the nuclear front that could possibly justify its betrayal of the Iranian people and American values? We think not. And we believe the administration still has time to change course and not lose the faith of a people longing to join the Free World. In practical terms, regaining the trust of young Iranian democrats will require: publicly pressing the Iranian regime to respect human rights; integrating discussion of the regime's treatment of its opposition in all formal negotiations; reviving U.S. government funding to support the Internet, free media, people-to-people exchanges, and training on civic engagement; and leveraging the popular Voice of America and Radio Farda broadcasts to directly express American solidarity with the Iranian people. Doing otherwise risks further alienating the democrats, while giving the Iranian regime time to obfuscate and further build its nuclear capacity. Surely this is not the sort of engagement that Mr. Obama would want to be his legacy. Mr. Atri served in the leadership of the student movement Tahkim Vahdat from 1997 to 2005. Ms. Memarsadeghi is an adviser to democracy and human-rights promotion programs in the Middle East. online.wsj.com

To: jlallen who wrote (38207)	11/5/2009 7:31:44 PM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Respond to of 71588

Voters reject Obama's double talk Examiner Editorial November 5, 2009 Election Day 2009 was a very good time to be a moderately conservative Republican promising to restrain government spending and to get needed things done without making bigger government the solution of first choice. It was not a good day to be a Democrat linked with Washington's biggest problem -- politicians who promise one thing, but then do something else entirely. After less than a year in office, President Obama is well on his way to becoming emblematic of Washington double talk. On the 2008 campaign trail, he promised a "net federal spending cut" and "a tax cut for 95 percent of America's working families." But once inaugurated in 2009, Obama joined the Democratic majority in Congress in detonating a thermonuclear explosion of federal borrowing, spending, taxing, subsidizing, regulating, wasting and guaranteeing. He remains personally popular, but public support for his policies, most notably health care reform, is near or below 50 percent and steadily trending downward. Tuesday's election results should make clear to Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress that they seriously misinterpreted what voters were saying in 2006 and 2008. In 2006, angry voters turned out a Republican majority that for more than a decade had promised one thing but delivered something else. Then in 2008, voters took Obama at his word that he was a centrist and they closed the book on racism in American history by making him the nation's first black president. Nowhere in 2008's returns was there a voter mandate for pork-barrel spending of unprecedented magnitude, abrupt nationalization of the banking and auto industries, or turning doctors and nurses into government employees and patients into wards of the state. The question now is whether Obama and the Democrats will recognize just how far they've overreached and step back from their extreme agenda. Republicans could just as easily misinterpret the 2009 election results. The leading shifts within the electorate that produced Bob McDonnell's win in Virginia and Chris Christie's victory in New Jersey were among independents and voters who worry most about the economy. The dramatic shift of independents to the GOP reiterates that America remains a centrist nation with a distinct tilt to the right. Similarly, voters most worried about the economy decisively backed McDonnell and Christie, who both promised lower taxes, less spending, and more encouragement of economic freedom and growth. But Republicans will go far amiss if they conclude simply saying no to Obama and the Democrats is their ticket back to power. Voters want leaders they can trust because they do what they promise. Everything else is secondary. washingtonexaminer.com

To: jlallen who wrote (38207)	11/12/2009 7:24:39 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Beyond Appeasement by Herbert London 11/12/2009 When Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich in 1936 he noted that based on his appeasement stance with Hitler “peace was at hand.” Alas, Chamberlain was duped and, as might have been expected, history has not treated him kindly. But, however false the concessions made by Hitler, Chamberlain believed he had obtained a concession – restraint on Nazi imperial ambitions. In 2009 America’s own Chamberlain, President Obama, has adopted a stance beyond appeasement; he engages in preemptive conciliation without any expectation of a quid pro quo. President Obama doesn’t wait to be double-crossed; he is concession man who gives before he is asked and remarkably puts American interests at risk in order to enhance his international standing. Without securing any benefit from the withdrawal of missile sites and radars in Poland and the Czech Republic, President Obama blithely gave up what had been negotiated and settled with our allies. This move was heralded by the Russians, as might be expected. But Russian leaders immediately noted that they will not use this gesture to put pressure on Iran’s ambition to obtain nuclear weapons. After all, a Russian spokesman noted, “Why should we make a concession when you’ve decided to correct a mistake.” On September 23 President Obama addressed the United Nations and in the midst of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, he embraced the Palestinian position for a two state solution based on the ’67 borders, a divided Jerusalem, a cessation of new settlements in the West Bank and a “contiguous” Palestinian state. This was said without the slightest concession from the Palestinian side. There wasn’t any demand that the state of Israel must be recognized. There wasn’t the slightest recognition of defensible borders. There wasn’t a hint that Palestinian violence would be arrested. And most significantly, there did not seem to be the slightest recognition of geographic realities: A contiguous Palestinian state of Gaza and the West Bank means Israel would have to be divided in half. Israel, America’s only real ally in the Middle East, was being dismembered in front of the General Assembly amid thunderous applause from the ranks of tyrannical states. It was as if Ahmadinejad wrote Obama’s speech. President Obama also suggested that he stands for the oppressed people of the world -- a truly noble sentiment. Yet in the next breath he alluded to the electoral victory of Ahmadinejad in Iran. In that nation the oppressed were on the streets, beaten by the Revolutionary Guard, harassed in the homes, murdered by government thugs and raped in prison. Yet these oppressed people were ignored by our president. Here again an emotional concession was made without the slightest reciprocal gesture from the Iranian leadership. And why should they or any of our enemies concede anything when President Obama does their bidding? General Khadafy thinks Obama should be president for life. The only problem with this idea from Khadafy’s perspective is that the president will soon run out of things to concede. This plunge into the U.N. quagmire has made the president and, to an unprecedented degree, the nation look weak and ineffectual. It appears as if the United States is in decline and cannot marshal the fortitude to defend its own interests. When Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad, Khadafy applaud the action of an American president, something must be wrong. What is wrong, of course, is that concession man in his pursuit of a transnational agenda no longer represents the will of the American people. He is, in his own eyes, president of the world, a world in which national sovereignty is subordinated to global concerns. From global warming to the zero option on nuclear weapons, President Obama is employing these policy instruments to foster his global goals. Where this will end is anyone’s guess. But on one point I am sure: Should Obama’s policies be pursued, the world of the future will see an America in decline and instability rampant on the world stage. Welcome to the Second Dark Age. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. London is president of the Hudson Institute, John M. Olin Professor of Humanities at New York University, publisher of American Outlook, and author of the recently published Decade of Denial. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- humanevents.com