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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (76486)	1/7/2010 12:51:45 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Dead Deadline IBD Editorials Posted 01/06/2010 07:19 PM ET Iran: Words are as important in the art of diplomacy as materials are in the building of a house. Our chief diplomatic voice has now told Tehran that America's words have no structural integrity. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday claimed, with regard to the growing nuclear weapons threat in Iran, that "we've avoided using the term 'deadline' ourselves. That's not a term that we have used because we want to keep the door to dialogue open." Does she really believe people don't remember the president repeatedly saying the end of 2009 was when time would expire for the mullahs defying the world on their atomic bomb ambitions? To give just one instance, after a May meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the president said "the important thing is to make sure there is a clear timetable, at which point we say these talks don't seem to be making any clear progress." President Obama added back then that "if that hasn't taken place, I think the international community will see that it's ... Iran itself that is isolating themselves." Place such statements next to what the secretary of state said and it is clear that she has just undermined the president, her former political adversary, while at the same time undercutting the credibility of the U.S. itself — all in one verbal swoop. Imagine how that looks to Tehran, to al-Qaida, to our other adversaries in the world. And it wasn't the only disconcerting remark she made Monday. The secretary said that "our goal is to pressure the Iranian Government, particularly the Revolutionary Guard elements, without contributing to the suffering of the ordinary Iraqis who deserve better than what they currently are receiving." But "ordinary Iranians" deserve better than what they're currently getting from the U.S., and they know it. "Obama, where are you?" is chanted by Iranians risking their lives attending anti-government street demonstrations. And indeed that is the question. The so-called "pressure" we are exerting on Tehran is negligible at best. After three rounds of tepid U.N. sanctions, we discover that Iran has been busy building its own underground railroad to house nuclear facilities. It's possibly patterned after its ally China's own newly revealed "underground great wall" stretching thousands of miles in the northern Hebei region to protect Beijing's strategic nuclear missiles. On Tuesday the communist Chinese regime, which will chair the U.N. Security Council this month, made plain it will veto a fourth round of sanctions against Iran. "Patience" is called for, it said. Both the White House and Foggy Bottom often become self-enclosed bubbles insulated from reality. But the president and the secretary of state should take note of what is happening outside, thanks to their vacillations: The Iranian government is laughing and scoffing at America for our diplomatic naivete and impotence. The Iranian people, yearning for freedom, see us as too cowardly or corrupt to help them — even with moral support. The American people see an administration that obviously doesn't mean what it tells its enemies. That might mean a real deadline — namely the 2010 and 2012 U.S. elections. investors.com