The Continued Application Of Flaccid Power
Today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Our president, head of state of the nation responsible for its fall and that of the Communist governments of Eastern Europe and ultimately the USSR, will not be attending. Apparently Communism’s demise, the culmination of an existential struggle between free peoples of the world and those who lived under the iron fist of peoples’ dictatorships, is ancient history and deemed not worthy of a presidential visit.
President Obama seems to live in some sort of time warp in which 1989 is part of some dusty, crusty bygone era but yet a coup d’etat in Iran in 1953 is still a fresh, bleeding wound. What does it mean that the president travels to Cairo to confess the “sins” of America and apologize for them but yet can’t muster enough energy to mark the anniversary of a triumph no less important than the victory of Fascism seventy years ago?
The people of Germany must be a bit puzzled about Obama’s refusal to accept Chancellor Angela Merkel’s invitation to honor the event. We feel your pain. Candidate Obama needed a huge crowd in Berlin to cement his credentials as a world citizen. Much like the hoodwinked independent (and, if surveys are to believed, a little right of center) voters of this country who elected him, Obama doesn’t need the Germans anymore.
Last month, the president was dealt a black eye when he jetted over to Copenhagen to make his Olympic pitch. Is it really surprising that the IOCC didn’t select an American city when our leader travels the world telling everyone what a bad place America is? Celebrating Communism’s fall is a great opportunity to remind the world what a force for good our country is.
Ruminating about how Obama’s view of America’s place in the world affected his decision not to travel to Berlin is probably a waste of time. The reason why he isn’t going is obvious: Oprah won’t be there.
Perhaps the president is worried about offending the Russians. President Obama sold our Eastern European allies down the river, canceling deployment of a missile defense system in Poland in hopes of getting Russian help with Iran. Help with Iran doesn’t look like its coming anytime soon. The Russians were so grateful for the gesture, for this exercise in soft power, that they simulated a nuclear attack on Poland during war games this week.
Well done, Mr. President.
Last spring, at the summit of the America’s, President Obama’s acceptance of the gift of a book (and a handshake) by Hugo Chavez made the tract, about the US “plundering” of Latin America, a best seller. The president has reached out to Chavez and, by virtue of that handshake, legitimized him. No doubt Obama’s support of Chavezista Manuel Zelaya in the Honduras crisis drove Chavez to praise Obama at the September meeting of the UN. Chavez was one in a long line of dictators, thugs and miscreants to shower the president with warm words that week. Apparently Chavez’s goodwill toward the president doesn’t extend to the country which Obama ( I use the term loosely) leads. Chavez this week threatened war on staunch American ally Colombia.
Well done, Mr. President.
Finally, we have Iran and its malign hand puppet, Syria. Obama has gone out of his way not to offend the Iranians in hopes of striking a deal with the mullahs over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The US is keeping mum on dissident protests (as well as dissident cracked heads and dissident bullet riddled bodies) and lending its (rapidly diminishing) prestige to anti proliferation efforts by directly negotiating with Tehran. Himself believes that the Iranians will be blinded by the awe of his The Oneness and fall quickly into line.
Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. The Iranians took an offer by Russia and France to enrich uranium for Iran’s nuclear program and folded, spindled and mutilated it. First they accepted it, then they didn’t, then one guy in the Iranian government said it was a breakthrough and another used it as toilet paper. The West believes the offer is still being bounced around Tehran’s halls of power. The Iranians, basking in the unique glory that comes with sitting down with the Americans, are laughing at us. If the current administration had consulted with the previous administration, who sent observers to talks between the Europeans and the Iranians, or maybe even the Europeans themselves, it would have discovered that this kind of snookering is exactly what has enabled Iran to work its way toward the Bomb over the last decade.
The Iranians, apparently grateful for the fact that we would deign to sit at the same table as them and talk turkey, continue advanced nuclear weapons design experiments. The kind that enable a nuclear bomb to be put on a warhead and lobbed to, say, Tel Aviv…or Warsaw. They also reciprocated our good will by sending 500 tons of weapons to Syria to be used by their chums Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel.
We all remember the Syrians. They were among the first countries to receive the gentle embrace of soft power. We’re holding out the carrot of diplomatic recognition in hopes of gaining their cooperation in the Middle East peace process.
They seem impressed.
Well done, Mr. President.
