Obama Advisors: Nuclear Iran Wouldn't Be The End Of The World

Good grief - if this article here at the Los Angeles Times doesn't encapsulate the dove-like nature of the Obama administration, I don't know what does. It appears that the feeling among Obama's security advisors is that it's going to be impossible to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons but hold on everyone, hold the phone....these same advisors are saying that the Iranians will be responsible with those nukes! Whew! What a relief, huh? We've all been worried about the crazy lunatic mullahs in Iran have access to nuclear weapons and now, the omnipotent advisors of President Obama are here to assure us it just won't be that bad! Here's some of the details:

If diplomacy fails, another Obama advisor wrote in the same report, the alternative "is a strategy of containment and punishment." That was the conclusion of Ashton B. Carter, Obama's reported choice as an undersecretary of Defense, who also warned: "The challenge of containing Iranian ambitions and hubris would be as large as containing its nuclear arsenal."Most (and maybe all) of Obama's advisors see the costs of attacking Iran as outweighing the benefits. If Iran gets closer to acquiring nuclear weapons, they've warned, military action won't look any more appetizing than it did under George W. Bush.

And there is some optimism among administration officials that a nuclear Iran would practice restraint. Gary Samore, Obama's top advisor on nuclear proliferation, and Bruce Riedel, who is running Obama's review of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, wrote last year that a nuclear-capable Iran, while undesirable, would not be the end of the world. For example, they argued, it seems unlikely that Tehran would give nuclear weapons to terrorists."If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is likely to behave like other nuclear weapons states, trying to intimidate its foes, but not recklessly using its weapons," Samore and Riedel wrote in a report for the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations. "As such, Iran will be subject to the same deterrence system that other nuclear weapons states have accommodated themselves to since 1945."

So there you have it folks...a strategy of "containment" for those nasty nukes with mullahs at the end of the big red button - the same mullahs who have vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Oh, and you gotta feel a great sense of peace by this statement:

Obama might declare that a nuclear attack on Israel would be treated as an attack on the U.S. homeland.

Enouraging, huh? I mean, I'm sure it is comforting to the Israeli people to hear that if 1.5 million of their people are murdered by an Iranian nuclear attack, the mighty United States under President Obama will consider that bad and might just make Iran pay for it.

These are the people that Obama has surrounded himself with - they have thrown in the towel already - they have resigned the world to having to deal with an Iran with nuclear missiles pointed in four directions. Imagine the OPEC talks in 2011 when Iran wants production of oil severely reduced so oil can return to $180 a barrel and Saudi Arabia declines ....well, the mullahs might just reposition some of those missiles to face Riyadh. How about the new Iraqi government? Who is Iraq gonna follow - the U.S. who gave them their new chance at a new beginning or a neighbor with nuclear weapons?

This excuse by these advisors that Iran will be diligent with their nukes is suicidal - these are the Iranians who held American hostages in Tehran for 2 years, these are the Iranians who fund Hezbollah and Hamas, these are the Iranians who kidnapped British marines and sailors and these are the Iranians who have called the West, "the Great Satan." Thirty days into this U.S. Presidency and the Obama administration has already done three things: 1. They have decided to put the Iraqi victory in jeopardy 2. They have signalled that they don't have the stomach for a war in Afghanistan 3. They have given up on stopping Iranian nuclear weapons.

How's that for getting off to a good start in protecting the American people?

Obama's Iran strategy

President Obama is working against time to untangle 30 years of enmity and prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb, but even his own advisors know the chance of success is slim.So they also have been working on Plan B: What do we do if Iran gets the bomb? Today, the Obama administration is debating its Iran policy behind closed doors. Last year, however, four of its key appointees wrote about the issue as private citizens, and their writings suggest they are already planning for how to handle a nuclear Iran.Dennis Ross, the former Middle East peace negotiator who is expected to be named as Obama's top Iran advisor, argued for giving diplomacy a chance to work but suggested that containment might have to be the future course of U.S. policy."Maybe, even if we engage the Iranians, we will find that however we do so and whatever we try, the engagement simply does not work," Ross wrote in a September report published by the Center for a New American Security, a think tank that has supplied several appointees to the new administration. "We will need to hedge bets and set the stage for alternative policies either designed to prevent Iran from going nuclear or to blunt the impact if they do."If diplomacy fails, another Obama advisor wrote in the same report, the alternative "is a strategy of containment and punishment." That was the conclusion of Ashton B. Carter, Obama's reported choice as an undersecretary of Defense, who also warned: "The challenge of containing Iranian ambitions and hubris would be as large as containing its nuclear arsenal."

So what should we expect? The contacts with Iran might start with secret talks in Europe between special envoys on both sides, but they're unlikely to begin before Iran's presidential election in June. To pave the way, Obama and his aides have toned down their rhetoric on Iran and talk mostly of outstretched hands and mutual respect. (They are learning to live without the phrase "carrots and sticks," which Iranians say should be used only when talking about donkeys.) Negotiations won't be easy, and they won't be fast. It's not even clear whether the faction-ridden Tehran government will be able to agree on a coherent negotiating position.