Part 7 revisited a number of key events that happened in the last several years of the Bush presidency that in fairness represented quite a challenge to the newly elected President Obama. It is easy to take issue with and deride from the sideline some of the selections he made for cabinet picks, the priorities he set and any number of the things I’ve pointed out in this or the Globalist Folly series as warranting criticism.
Obama took office with myriad issues and challenges facing him-just about all of which demanded his immediate attention. With the bulk of the decade spent in conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq-the latter which we broke and now owned-there was no consensus-no plan-no path-and no prospects for withdrawal or disengagement on the horizon in either theater. The Middle East was somewhat of a shambles with the never ending Palestinian-Israel conundrum pretty much top dead center with a peace plan on the table but no progress or momentum in achieving step 1 to stop the violence long enough to begin talks in earnest. Peloozi’s visit to Syria in recognition of Assad’s leadership came at a terrible time when the UN was closing on accountability for the assassination of the Lebanon’s President Hariri, while Israel’s airstrike against the Syrian nuclear construction site later in the year lingered like a pall over leaders forced to take sides, complicating any and all efforts at dialogue. Iran and Syria continued their terrorist activity against American military in Iraq with causalities from improvised explosive devices (IED) increasing. Russia was still engaged in “cleanup” operations in Georgia where their muscle-flex, combined with the lack of any significant US response, sent a note of caution out internationally that with America busy, there might be some opportunities open for mayhem that might not get the expected response from a distracted US.
That would probably have been enough to keep a new president busy. I didn’t mention continued North Korean missile launches and testing for a submarine-based missile capability, the beginning of some unusual Chinese activity in the South China Sea amidst talk of expanding their sphere of influence beyond the traditional 12-mile limit beyond contiguous territory: never a dull moment.
All these issues took a back seat to the initial huge priority of the deepening recession caused by the collapse of the housing market and widespread defaults on home loans and credit card-debt-not seen since the savings and loan crisis from the late 1970s to 1990s. Obama took office as the financial markets were shedding gains that had somewhat quickly recovered from precipitous falls after 9-11, with most major market indices down over 25% heading for over 30%.
Given all that was going on as he took the oath of office, he quickly became a sympathetic figure fighting the good fight on myriad fronts to contain, sustain, and resuscitate-where necessary-the big issues he found waiting in his in-box. Many find much to like in the job he did addressing these issues and finding new ones to take on.
There is no minimizing the challenges he had before him and the thin resume and lack of experience he brought to the job. His selection of Joe Biden as Vice President-a move intended to shore up his relative inexperience in the swamp, as well as all matters of congress and foreign policy, was best described by the well-respected Robert Gates, who observed that “Joe Biden has been wrong about every foreign policy decision of the last forty years:” Biden would be a problematic choice as partner who Obama would later summarize in his infamous “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to F things up.” Obama had some obligatory selections to make, including perennial runner-up HRC as Secretary of State in another problematic move that would come back to haunt him bigly.
In light of the above it was no less than a shock to the system that a priority for the new administration was going to be universal health care, an issue that famously went down in flames under the Clinton administration when HRC was placed in charge of shepherding the initiative through the swamp wickets-and was found wanting.
Had we known that with all the razzamatazz ongoing in the above areas that Obama would prioritize a double-dog top-secret dialogue leading to a normalization of relations with Iran-I’m not sure anyone would believe it. The complex and torturous analysis it would take to get to the point where such a thing might be possible-notwithstanding there was literally only 8% support from the American people for such an effort-while the Iranians were actively killing Americans on the battlefield in Iraq-just boggles the mind. I don’t think anybody would have put that initiative in their top 500 things to focus on, nor on their top 1000 wish list for him to work if designated king for a day.
But he did that!
If you were going to undertake an appeasement effort with a long time enemy-like a Hatfield and McCoy type situation-you would ordinarily expect both sides to offer meaningful gestures, concessions and substantive compromise that would demonstrate evidence of “seriosity” and good faith. Obama came into the presidency with an ambitious plate of “to do’s,” the most edgy and fraught with risk items included those relating to the Middle East, where it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he faced two huge impediments to his ambitions that included the obligatory one of making progress on the Palestinian stalemate, and the more challenging task of undertaking secret negotiations with the Iranians leading to some type of treaty or agreement: one impediment was Israel and the other was the American people-and you could add the Palestinians and Iranians to that list.
The Palestinians were simply out of control leading up to his inauguration, seemingly hell bent on finding a way to ensure that no progress could be made on the US brokered Mitchell plan-step 1 of which was stopping and disavowing the use of violence-terrorism-against the other party. The prospects for progress were bleak as long as Hamas-ruling over Gaza-and Kunya Abu Mazen, aka Mahmoud Abbas-in theory the leader of the Palestinians-seemed to have no control over their suicide bombers.
Obama had a plan for his dialogue with the Iranians: he simply would not tell anybody about them. The Iranians-under the leadership of former Tehran Mayor President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-were going to be a very tough nut to crack and it is somewhat bizarre that Obama would take on an issue that some 88% of Americas and the vast majority of their elected representatives would not have supported under any circumstances. Besides the “death to America” non-stop Anti-American vitriol and rhetoric, Ahmadinejad and those in Iran leadership were die hard antisemitic, holocaust denying Israel and Jewish haters who wanted them obliterated from the face of the earth. Additionally, the Iranians were the leading sponsor of worldwide terror and an active threat to gulf shipping.
Worst and most alarming of all was as mentioned in a previous article, the Iranians were a primary source of improvised explosive devices (IED) in Iraq, continually updating the sophistication, technology and the tactics, techniques and procedures of employment. The Iranian Quds Force under the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-led by well-known General Qasem Soleimani, would account for some 17% of all American military deaths totaling some 603 killed and thousands maimed and wounded, in addition to Iraq civilians and children. It was a good day when this rat basswich killer of American service members who had often made the rounds of the Hor’s d’oeuvres and cocktail crowd in Paris with impunity was blown to smithereens in Iraq-of all places-.
Looking back on everything that was going on at the time-particularly in light of some of the scandals-not scandals I’ve outlined, Obama’s insistence on pursuing a secret engagement with Iran as a top priority was selfish, motivated by vanity or foolishness or in deference to the man in the glass he admired so much.
I can’t imagine being the parent, husband, wife or uncle to an American service member who was torn apart or killed by an Iranian made IED only to find out that our government-President Obama-and his State Department representatives were meeting with the Iranians and bending over backwards like Gumby to get them to agree with a deal that would make Obama look good.
And I just want to point out that when Trump was doing negotiations with the Taliban-one of the first conditions was-no targeting Americans-we went nearly 2 years without an American service member death in Afghanistan-and he was pilloried throughout by the LSMBTG-democrats and the left, but I repeat myself-for his efforts.
It is unfathomable that an American President would undergo negotiations with the definition of an enemy of our government and not insist as condition one that they stop supporting activity that was killing Americans as a condition of the negotiations: or am I the crazy one here?
United States Central Command, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates-hundreds of us and eventually thousands spent years working to get left of the bang on the IED problem-and yet we were negotiating in secret with those rat basswiches.
Okay-let’s move on-I covered in somewhat nauseating detail the lead up to why Obama inherited somewhat of an-if not dysfunctional National Security Council (NSC,) then most certainly a turbulent and turmoil ridden portfolio of problems and challenges to work, with perhaps the greatest challenge or distraction the rampant domestic economic challenges that he inherited that all looked like they needed the classic democrat panacea for such problems-the ATM solution: have the federal reserve in effect print money and get it into social giveaways and programs, pronto.
Obama just about doubled his NSC staff to work these myriad and complex issues, a technique I related in an earlier piece to misguided efforts by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) with 1500 people at standup that provided somewhat of a mini-IC. Obama’s NSC similarly looked like an effort to reprise a mini-state department and other government functions where action officers would have expanded roles where they drove interactions toward specific outcomes, rather than participating with executing elements to influence positions by providing Obama administration positions.
When you look through the timeline of the secret Iran dialogue, it clearly started much earlier on than anybody was aware of, with the initial efforts starting via Obama commentary and his visits throughout the world, well described as an “apology tour” by many (covered lightly earlier in this series.)
This was not exactly new ground for the US government, with negotiations both secret and open occurring throughout the Carter and Reagan administrations. What was different here was the idea of negotiating a nuclear treaty that was not going to be called a treaty less congressional requirements be invoked.
If you work through the calculous of what one could do to entice a mortal enemy to come to the table to negotiate something they have no interest in discussing with you, it is fairly easy to resolve-particularly in hindsight-the elements or steps that might be required or feasible to facilitate such a dialogue.
Number one is money-no matter how much talk and good faith is pledged, promised or discussed, money talks and BS walks. At some point in the dialogue there has to be a discussion about money, and it has to be significant enough to get somebody’s attention-including an amount to wet the proverbial beak. Let’s say you were going to dangle the prospect of releasing Iranian funds long held hostage by the US government as somewhat of a penalty for the sacking of our embassy, taking of hostages, etc., from 1979. Those dollars would now be in the billions-some have been released already, but that might be a longer term good will gesture or token of seriosity, but nearer term there is a goodly amount that was sitting in the Pentagon when the crisis went down that has long been disputed and a sticking point between Iran and the US-a tidy 400 million dollars.
Carter wouldn’t budge on it, nor Reagan, but lo and behold, there was a hostage crisis, thousand points of light and viola, money was transferred to Iran via the Swiss, and the hostages were released the same day the plane and money set down in Iran. This article has good detail on the chronology of events that led up to this “exchange.”
We’ve jumped somewhat way ahead in the movie with this exchange, but it once again had the attributes of an Obama-drama, where our government-and that takes a bit of the edge off of it, but it was Obama who looked into the camera and stated categorically “we don’t pay ransoms for hostages”-a lie the government told us for several weeks to take the sting off the initial shock that it could be true that we exchanged ransom money for hostages, only to later avow that yes-it was true-but what were the alternatives, humma, humma….
This incident begged the question: what would-and wouldn’t-the Obama administration do to keep the Iranian deal on track?
22 April 2022
LSMBTG: Lamestream media echo chamber (LMEC-L) social media (SM) big tech tyrants (BT) and government (G)
Follow AFNN:
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA