Who Could Have Seen The Iranian Upheaval Coming? -- The Fruits of Victory In Iraq!

While Obama sits stubbornly wedded to his promise to negotiate with the dictators of the world -- despite the human rights violations of those same dictators -- the intelligencia and Washington pundits are amazed that the upheaval is occurring. No one could have seen this coming. Better yet there are those who are besides themselves trying to credit Obama.

But who, nearly 6 years ago could have actually predicted this happening following a US victory in Iraq? And in nearly the exact manner in which it happened -- The Iranian regime losing it's credibility by rigging the Iranian elections denying the people of Iran the right to the democracy they demand.

"In Iran the demand for democracy is strong and broad … The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy."

George W. Bush discussing the impact of a free Iraq on the Middle East, November 6, 2003. Nearly 6 years ago.


Ronald Reagan fought the cold war for eight years. The year he left office the Soviet Union began to crumble and fell. His successor was there willing to follow through and capitalize on that victory (albeit cautiously at first).


George W. Bush fought the Axis of Evil for seven years. The year he left office one of the remaining two members of that Axis stood on the brink -- will Obama stubbornly cling to his, "one world of rainbows and lollipops as long as we extend an open hand," philosophy or will he grab the hard fought victory that has been presented to him? (Credit where credit is due, Obama's election did shift the focus off of Bush allowing Iranians to look inward).

More:

Full text of the speech is here but here is another quote:

"Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution. "

Even Obama's White House is claiming his speech lead to uprising -- link to Hot Air!

Update, June 25, 2009:
Robert Kaplan at the Washington Post finally notices that this was part of the goal for Iraq, but fails to mention Bush at all on the entire page -- entire column, not once.

As if the entire thing was not part of the plan but was just an after effect ... WTF people there was a plan and it was articulated!

More Bush (thanks commenter Juliesa at Hot Air):

To the people of Iran: You are rich in culture and talent. You have a right to live under a government that listens to your wishes, respects your talents, and allows you to build better lives for your families. Unfortunately, your government denies you these opportunities, and threatens the peace and stability of your neighbors. So we call on the regime in Tehran to heed your will, and to make itself accountable to you. The day will come when the people of Iran have a government that embraces liberty and justice, and Iran joins the community of free nations. And when that good day comes, you will have no better friend than the United States of America.

George W. Bush Discusses the Importance of Freedom in the Middle East January 13, 2008.
DKK

If Obama Meets With Iranian Leaders Would It Cause A Singularity?

Libya's Gaddafi is warning Iran that they are arrogant and that it can only end badly for them.

Strange that even he gets it but Obama still plans on sitting down with them!

I am concerned about the physics of such a meeting -- is it possible that the combining of the arrogance of, "The One," and the Iranians could rip apart time and space itself?

Another reason to vote for McCain -- you could be saving the very fabric of the universe itself!
DKK

While Obama Shuns Preconditions Prior To Meeting With Iran, They Make It Clear That Their Preconditions Be Met Before Meeting

Recent interviews I've held with three authoritative Iranians suggest that Tehran will have preconditions of its own. Before coming to the table, these Iranians say, the United States would first have to end its "hostile policies" toward their country. The most important step pushed by all three is one already promised by Obama: setting a timetable for the complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq. Other moves, however—like ending economic sanctions—would conflict with Obama's campaign pledges and be even more controversial in Washington.

DKK
Newsweek

So Barack, How's That Diplomacy Supposed To Work -- Obama A Study In Failure

Iran signaled today that it will no longer cooperate with U.N. experts probing for signs of clandestine nuclear weapons work, confirming the investigation is at a dead end a year after it began.

The announcement from the Iranian Vice President, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, compounded skepticism about denting Tehran's nuclear defiance, just five days after Tehran stonewalled demands from six world powers that it halt activities capable of producing the fissile core of warheads.

Besides demanding a suspension of uranium enrichment — a process that can create both fuel for nuclear reactors and payloads for atomic bombs — the six powers have been pressing Tehran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency's probe.

In the past I have referred to Bush as a chess player, could this move have been designed to prove to Europe and Obama learners/supporters the fallacy of their positions?
DKK
NY Sun

Just How Reasonable Are They After All?

Pajamas Media has posted a column by an Iranian who infiltrated Iran's Revolutionary Guard for the CIA. He writes that "the men who ordered the destruction of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie and the bombings of the Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia are pursuing the nuclear program in Iran and with one goal in mind: to obtain The Bomb." He adds: "And they want to destroy you."

DKK
Powerline -- The spy who came in from the cold

The Power Of The Markets

Meanwhile, the head of Total, Christophe de Margerie, told the Financial Times the company's planned development of the huge South Pars gas field in southern Iran would not go ahead.

"Today we would be taking too much political risk to invest in Iran because people will say: 'Total will do anything for money'," he said.

Total was the last major Western energy group to have seriously considered investing in the country's huge gas reserves.

Analysts say the move will be a big blow to the Iranian energy industry. It means Iran is now unlikely to significantly increase its gas exports until late into the next decade, they add.

DKK
BBC -- US Warns Iran On Missile Threat

Daily Trek -- Breaking News July 9. 2008

Two breaking news stories this morning:

Iran launches 9 medium and long range missiles.

US Consulate in Turkey attacked by terrorists.


DKK

Iran Moves To Safeguard $75 Billion From Sanctions

Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.

Western powers are warning the Islamic Republic of more punitive measures if it rejects an incentives offer and presses on with sensitive nuclear work, but the world's fourth-largest oil exporter is showing no sign of backing down.

"Part of Iran's assets in European banks have been converted to gold and shares and another part has been transferred to Asian banks," Mohsen Talaie, deputy foreign minister in charge of economic affairs, was quoted as saying.

DKK

Reuters

Columbia Professor, Obama Friend -- Ahmadinejahad Was Right, Gays Are Western Nations Fault!

Columbia University professor Joseph Massad numbers one more mark against the West. This professor hails from the same department that hosted Edward Said and now hosts, in the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies chair, Barack Obama friend and fierce critic of Israel Rashid Khalidi.

Jamie Sneider of the Weekly Standard captures the madness:

...Massad belongs on a psychiatrist's couch, not behind a podium. In Desiring Arabs, Massad asserts that the West "produces homosexuals as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist." But for colonialism, Massad contends, there would be no gay people in the Middle East for the tyrannical governments of Egypt and Iran to persecute. Although Massad says he opposes hanging gay people, he shifts the blame from the hooded executioners to the United States.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Columbia last fall and made a similar claim ("In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country."), students laughed and booed. They recently, however, elected to award Massad the Lionel Trilling Book Award for making the nearly identical claim.

DKK
American Thinker Blog -- Columbia University MidEast Studies professor blames West for gays in Muslim lands

McCain Gives Obama A History Lesson

The Iranians have spent years working toward a nuclear program. And the idea that they now seek nuclear weapons because we refuse to engage in presidential-level talks is a serious misreading of history. In reality, a series of administrations have tried to talk to Iran, and none tried harder than the Clinton administration. In 1998, the secretary of state made a public overture to the Iranians, laid out a roadmap to normal relations, and for two years tried to engage. The Clinton administration even lifted some sanctions, and Secretary Albright apologized for American actions going back to the 1950s. But even under President Khatami – a man by all accounts less radical than the current president – Iran rejected these overtures.

Even so, we hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before. Yet it’s hard to see what such a summit with President Ahmadinejad would actually gain, except an earful of anti-Semitic rants, and a worldwide audience for a man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another. Such a spectacle would harm Iranian moderates and dissidents, as the radicals and hardliners strengthen their position and suddenly acquire the appearance of respectability.

(...)

Rather than sitting down unconditionally with the Iranian president or supreme leader in the hope that we can talk sense into them, we must create the real-world pressures that will peacefully but decisively change the path they are on.

John McCain discussing the history of Iran that Obama seems to have forgotten.
DKK
Hot Air --McCain on Iran: Obama still doesn’t know the history Update: Full speech added

Bottom Line -- Iran And Negotiations

Barack Obama keeps comparing negotiating with Iran to negotiating with the Soviet Union but this is absolutely NOT an accurate comparison.

During the majority of the Cold War our goal was not regime change, at least until Reagan came along and said that it ends, "we win, they loose!" However that is our policy toward Iran.

Iran committed an act of war against the United States when they overran our embassy and held Americans hostage for 444 days (thank you Jimmy Carter). Iran has been a belligerent in the region and in the world ever since.

Our policy toward Iran for years was known as Dual Containment. It was an attempt to keep their influence and revolutionary ideas inside Iran. Iran has long been considered a rogue nation by the U.S. but not by many in Europe, that was until 2005 when it was discovered that Iran had lied to the UN and the world for nearly 2 decades about their nuclear program. At that point many in the world realized we were correct and that something had to be done.

The solution was to isolate Iran until they cooperated. This isolation is an attempt to have the population or some reasonable elements of the government say to themselves, "we have become the pariah's of the world, the whole world is against us, while nuclear power sound good, this Ahmadinejad is making life harder with no end in sight and for no good reason, we are isolated."

Barack Obama would end that all in one meeting!

In one meeting Obama would bolster Ahmadinejad at home. He would be able to tell his people that his plan was working and they were no longer isolated.

In one meeting Obama would undermine the work the United Nations has done, together as one, (you know, that diplomacy thing the left is always screaming about) to pressure the Iranian government.

In one meeting Obama would reinforce Iranian belief that killing U.S. servicemen in Iraq was an effective tool.

In one meeting Obama would tell every nation in the world that we would not stand up to anything they wanted to do -- we didn't have the will to oppose anyone for very long.

In one meeting Obama would let the world know that blackmail was the way to get direct Presidential attention.

In one meeting Obama would tell every one of our allies that have backed us up on Iran that they were fools and they should never make that mistake again.

In one meeting Obama could do more harm to U.S. Foreign Policy then anyone since Jimmy Carter.

If Obama honestly believes regime change or getting Iran to cooperate with World demands and their treaty obligations by halting their nuclear ambitions then he needs tell us that because that is exactly what would happen.
DKK

Obama Capitulates -- Agrees Bush Foreign Policy Is Correct

Today in a stunning turn of events Barack Obama gave the nod to President Bush's foreign policy and agreed, almost completely, with his stance on Iran.

“Let’s not confuse precondition with preparation,” said Gibbs of any talks with Iran. “Obviously these meetings would be full of preparation. But we’re not going to sit down and engage Iran, unless or until they give up their nuclear weapons program.[”]
Obama Communications Director Robert Gibbs

It has been pointed out repeatedly that Obama's original position (yep, there is video AND text from his own website both at Hot Air) Captain Ed points out at Hot Air:

Without preconditions. That means without Iran guaranteeing anything, let alone the big prize of their nuclear program. Gibbs’ statement makes absolutely no sense in context of Bush’s remarks or Obama’s previous statements. If Iran gave up its nuclear weapons program today, Bush would open diplomatic contacts with Iran and might even consider a summit. He’s made that very clear over the last few years, holding out WTO sponsorship and normalized relations in exchange for just that concession.If Obama now says he won’t meet with Iran until they surrender their nuclear-weapons program, how exactly does that differ from Bush? And how does that fit with his previous statements about having talks “without preconditions”?

He concluded with:

If Gibbs wants to eliminate the confusion on these points, then he needs to start with Barack Obama, who apparently has no clue what preconditions mean. Maybe he should have learned that before running for President.

DKK