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Adminihinijadadajad kicked Obama's ass.
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    Dhampy posted on May 18, 2010 4:00:13 PM - Report post
     
    Iran's Nuclear Coup
    Ahmadinejad and Lula expose Obama's hapless diplomacy.

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    What a fiasco. That's the first word that comes to mind watching Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raise his arms yesterday with the leaders of Turkey and Brazil to celebrate a new atomic pact that instantly made irrelevant 16 months of President Obama's "diplomacy." The deal is 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.

    Full credit for this debacle goes to the Obama Administration and its hapless diplomatic strategy. Last October, nine months into its engagement with Tehran, the White House concocted a plan to transfer some of Iran's uranium stock abroad for enrichment. If the West couldn't stop Iran's program, the thinking was that maybe this scheme would delay it. The Iranians played coy, then refused to accept the offer.

    But Mr. Obama doesn't take no for an answer from rogue regimes, and so he kept the offer on the table. As the U.S. finally seemed ready to go to the U.N. Security Council for more sanctions, the Iranians chose yesterday to accept the deal on their own limited terms while enlisting the Brazilians and Turks as enablers and political shields. "Diplomacy emerged victorious today," declared Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, turning Mr. Obama's own most important foreign-policy principle against him.

    Iran agrees to ship its low-enriched uranium to Turkey for reprocessing. WSJ's Jerry Seib joins the News Hub to discuss. Plus, worries about Europe's debt crunch eases; and new research on red meat shows that eating steak is okay.

    The double embarrassment is that the U.S. had encouraged Lula's diplomacy as a step toward winning his support for U.N. sanctions. Brazil is currently one of the nonpermanent, rotating members of the Security Council, and the U.S. has wanted a unanimous U.N. vote. Instead, Lula used the opening to triangulate his own diplomatic solution. In her first game of high-stakes diplomatic poker, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leaving the table dressed only in a barrel.

    So instead of the U.S. and Europe backing Iran into a corner this spring, Mr. Ahmadinejad has backed Mr. Obama into one. America's discomfort is obvious. In its statement yesterday, the White House strained to "acknowledge the efforts" by Turkey and Brazil while noting "Iran's repeated failure to live up to its own commitments." The White House also sought to point out differences between yesterday's pact and the original October agreements on uranium transfers.

    Good luck drawing those distinctions with the Chinese or Russians, who will now be less likely to agree even to weak sanctions. Having played so prominent a role in last October's talks with Iran, the U.S. can't easily disassociate itself from something broadly in line with that framework.

    Under the terms unveiled yesterday, Iran said it would send 1,200 kilograms (2,646 lbs.) of low-enriched uranium to Turkey within a month, and no more than a year later get back 120 kilograms enriched from somewhere else abroad. This makes even less sense than the flawed October deal. In the intervening seven months, Iran has kicked its enrichment activities into higher gear. Its estimated total stock has gone to 2,300 kilograms from 1,500 kilograms last autumn, and its stated enrichment goal has gone to 20% from 3.5%.

    If the West accepts this deal, Iran would be allowed to keep enriching uranium in contravention of previous U.N. resolutions. Removing 1,200 kilograms will leave Iran with still enough low-enriched stock to make a bomb, and once uranium is enriched up to 20% it is technically easier to get to bomb-capable enrichment levels.

    Only last week, diplomats at the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran has increased the number of centrifuges it is using to enrich uranium. According to Western intelligence estimates, Iran continues to acquire key nuclear components, such as trigger mechanisms for bombs. Tehran says it wants to build additional uranium enrichment plants. The CIA recently reported that Iran tripled its stockpile of uranium last year and moved "toward self-sufficiency in the production of nuclear missiles." Yesterday's deal will have no impact on these illicit activities.

    The deal will, however, make it nearly impossible to disrupt Iran's nuclear program short of military action. The U.N. is certainly a dead end. After 16 months of his extended hand and after downplaying support for Iran's democratic opposition, Mr. Obama now faces an Iran much closer to a bomb and less diplomatically isolated than when President Bush left office.

    Israel will have to seriously consider its military options. Such a confrontation is far more likely thanks to the diplomatic double-cross of Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazil's Lula, and especially to a U.S. President whose diplomacy has succeeded mainly in persuading the world's rogues that he lacks the determination to stop their destructive ambitions.
    In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'

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    /--\
    [SG]
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    Lord Vader posted on May 19, 2010 1:08:12 AM - Report post
     
    it was in the news yesterday..that the US has worked out a deal with both Russia and China with regards to sanctions against Iran and will be introducing a joint draft before the Security Coucil. that should be some relief to Obama.


    [Edited by saurabhfzd, 5/19/2010 1:09:05 AM]
    "Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't"

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    INACTIVE
    TitanicFan posted on May 22, 2010 6:22:24 PM - Report post
     
    I love Barak Obama.
     
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    Realusionist posted on May 23, 2010 5:13:40 AM - Report post
     
    It's actually won't last long Dhampy, believe me! There is no such thing as harmony in current state of power in Iran. Some are praising this treaty as a final victory but some saying Iran has stepped down from direct red lines which few months ago the Supreme Leader has stated. Thus this won't be much of a farce show.
    Of course for countries who yearn for playing big rolls in global measures would be a golden opportunity no matter what.
    "I'm not even sure if we are a family...". Holding an axe by the knob as she was standing at the arch of the doorway, she said.
    "Still I can dream, can't I?". He quibbled.
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    joeychaldo posted on May 23, 2010 7:15:20 AM - Report post
     
    Every empire has an end we started getting involved in world affairs in 1898. Up and coming powers, Brazil, India, Turkey, China and other have a say in today's world. What can i say we got too greedy and it got to be this way.
    Play Your Way To The Next Level
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    waq999 posted on May 23, 2010 7:40:57 AM - Report post
     
    what a name!
    Child of Besonator and xxjjrockerxx
    Grandchild of potato_chips
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    Realusionist posted on May 24, 2010 1:06:30 AM - Report post
     
    quote:
    originally posted by waq999

    what a name!

    Actually it's Ahmadi Nejad

    "I'm not even sure if we are a family...". Holding an axe by the knob as she was standing at the arch of the doorway, she said.
    "Still I can dream, can't I?". He quibbled.
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    EVIL GENIUS
    Whiskeysoaked posted on May 24, 2010 1:12:53 AM - Report post
     
    quote:
    originally posted by Realusionist

    quote:
    originally posted by waq999

    what a name!

    Actually it's Ahmadi Nejad

    But we call him idiot!

    I listen not to sympathy
    Whilst ruler of this land
    Withdraw your feeble aches and moans
    Or suffer smite from this my hand.
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