A Lesson for Obama

 "Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable, and we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening,'' Obama told reporters in Chicago today.

"I want to be very careful that we are sending the right signals,'' the president-elect said. "Obviously how we approach and deal with a country like Iran is not something we should simply do in a knee-jerk fashion.'' 

What happened to that?  Obama's approach to Iran was supposed to be firm, but one of reason and diplomacy - a far softer approach than I care for in regards to Iran - but he didn't do that.  Instead drawing a line and saying "We will not let you have nuclear weapons, but lets talk this over", his administration pursued a policy of appeasement.

Appeasement typically breeds more bad behavior, while taking a harder line typically makes our enemies (or even allies) think twice.  When America invaded Iraq over WMDs in 2003 it carried the extra benefit of  Libya fully exposing their own WMD program and disarming.  Obama's actions with Iran have also carried consequences, consequences which should of been obvious to the supposed leader of the free world:

Jordan is set on becoming the Middle East's newest nuclear power, Jordanian King Abdullah told the Wall Street Journal in an interview over the weekend.

In the interview, King Abdullah accused Israel of pressuring countries like South Korea and France not to provide nuclear technology to Jordan. He said Israel's "underhanded" actions had helped bring Jordanian-Israeli relations to their lowest point since the 1994 peace agreement.

Jordan has been, more or less, a US ally - a Sunni regime that has learned what happens when you welcome Islamists into your country.  But the fact that they're our ally is the very reason they can openly pursue a nuclear program.  If we won't stop a nation we consider our enemies from attaining nuclear weapons, why would we stop a nation we consider friends from pursuing nuclear power?  King Abdullah even promises that the nation will abide by the non-proliferation treaty, but how long will that last if Iran gets nuclear weapons or Jordan ever feels like it needs deterrence?

In fact deterrence is the major issue with Iran having nuclear weapons.  The anti-Iranian nations of the region will almost certainly make the argument that they need nuclear weapons to protect themselves, and will pursue nuclear agendas or be forced to fall under the Iranian sphere of influence.  None of this is a good thing.

This chain reaction isn't contained to the mid-east.

Take Venezuela, who has backed Iran from the very start.  Venezuela falls into that same fanatically anti-American category as Iran, though with an insane clown for a leader rather than tyrannical fundamentalists.   A stand against Iran would likely have the result of putting nuclear power out of Venezuela's hands, or at the very least make the Russians think twice about using Venezuela as a convenient tool.  America's response to Iran means that any threat or condemnation will be viewed as toothless, and ultimately Chavez has nothing to gain from working with America anyways (his entire platform is based off the tried and failed marxist rhetoric) so diplomacy is just as much out the window with them as it is with Iran.

Or Myanmar who will almost certainly be armed by either China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, or Russia should America prove unwilling (or unable) to stop Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.

And then there's Brazil, a rising power that has had a history with seeking nuclear weapons and has taken an increasingly anti-American stance in recent years.

Each nation that attains nuclear weapons sets disturbs the delicate balance in place.  If Venezuela gets nuclear power, for example, they'll almost certainly share it with their marxist/socialist allies (Cuba, Nicaragua), and Colombia may very well require nuclear weapons to hold the Venezuelans in check.  A nuclear Myanmar could spark trouble in Indonesia, Thailand, and even Australia in the long run.

Obviously the more people armed with nuclear weapons, the worse off everyone is.

Obama needs to fully understand the consequences for failure here, and I don't think he does.  By failing to deal with Iran he has emboldened our enemies, and potentially crippled America's ability to keep her enemies in check.  Nothing about his stance on Iran is intelligent - in fact its quite stupid - and it reinforces the international view that Obama is weak.  If he wants to make non-proliferation and disarmament a primary policy (no matter how silly the latter is), then he should start getting serious with Iran, and by serious I mean doing something other than passing toothless resolutions.  He also needs to wake up and realize that some of these regimes aren't going to want to talk unless the swords is against their throat.

The Naivete of Obama

“Today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” - President Obama, April 5th, 2010

For one moment lets make Obama's dream a reality. Lets imagine a world in which every nation has set aside its nuclear weapons or terminated its nuclear weapon programs. Now imagine yourself the leader of a relatively small nation with a great deal of potential. Imagine that with one weapon you could bring the strongest nations in the world to their knees, and there would be nothing they could do in retaliation. In a single act you could catapult your people to superpower status, and bring about a dominance that could potentially last for a hundred or more years. Would you do it?

Even if you wouldn't you have to admit that there are billions of people who eagerly would, and that's what makes Obama's quote so childish and so incredibly dangerous. Nuclear weapons can't be undone. They happened, and they're a reality that we have to live with. A good analogy would be the story of Pandora and her box. Once the box was opened and its contents were unleashed into this world they couldn't be put back in.

Regardless, Obama is pursuing his dream of a world without nuclear weapons, and it will likely come at the expense of America. His ends are downright insane as is, but the means to that end aren't much better. Charles Krauthammer explains it brilliantly (as always):

The Obama administration has just issued a new one that "includes significant changes to the U.S. nuclear posture," said Defense Secretary Bob Gates. First among these involves the U.S. response to being attacked with biological or chemical weapons.

Under the old doctrine, supported by every president of both parties for decades, any aggressor ran the risk of a cataclysmic U.S. nuclear response that would leave the attacking nation a cinder and a memory.

...

Under President Obama's new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is "in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)," explained Gates, then "the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it."

Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker is up-to-date with its latest IAEA inspections, well, it gets immunity from nuclear retaliation. (Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs and other conventional munitions.)

However, if the lawyers tell the president that the attacking state is NPT noncompliant, we are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come.

...what?

Look: Nuclear weapons are scary things. No one wants to see the world end in a nuclear holocaust, but no matter how hard we wish it so we can't wish them away. They're here. They're a reality. The best we can do is continue to use them as a means to prevent wars that would otherwise cost tens of millions of lives, if not more. Deterrence worked against the Soviets, and it works now. This is exactly the kinda ideological, naive view that liberals like to preach about.

My exit question: If we really want to see the threat of nuclear weapons reduced in the long term, wouldn't it make more sense to continue development of missile defense technology?