Obama's Carter-Like Naivety

On Sunday, Obama showed his Carter-like naivety when he said Iran poses no serious threat to us and suggested we might have common interests with the rouge state that is developing a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the map.

Obama got it very wrong. Yes, Kennedy spoke with Khrushchev during his first year in office, just like Obama promises to do with the leaders of his "tiny" countries. The Kennedy/Khrushchev talks were a disaster. Some say the Soviets, based on the talks with Kennedy, believed they could get away with putting nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba.

It wasn't talking with the Soviet leaders that allowed us to win the cold war. It was our economic and military strength that enabled us to successfully confront and contain the Evil Empire. When Obama claimed Iran poses no serious threat, he must have forgotten about the Marines killed in the 1983 Hezbollah terrorist bombing of the Marine Barracks, in Beirut, Lebanon. Until the September 11 terror attacks, Iran-sponsored Hezbollah was responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist organization.

Yes, Obama got it very wrong. So wrong, that after John McCain called Obama on making light of the threat "tiny" Iran poses to America and Western civilization and distributed the video of Obama’s pronouncement, Obama nuanced his Sunday position faster than Kerry. Obama now admits Iran is a grave threat:

“Iran is a grave threat. It has an illicit nuclear program. It supports terrorism across the region and militias in Iraq. It threatens Israel’s existence. It denies the Holocaust,” he said.”

Obama still doesn't get it.

When Obama says "Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba," Obama fails to mention that at the same time that Kennedy sent a private emissary to the Soviet Union and corresponded with Khrushchev via the teletype, Kennedy had already declared a naval quarantine of Cuba and threatened military force to destroy the missiles.

Obama also gets it wrong when he claims that Iran is the biggest beneficiary of Operation Iraqi Freedom. As Roger L. Simon wrote yesterday:

Well, maybe, maybe not. But let’s leave aside the obvious — that Iran and the US have had numerous contacts over the last few years to no avail — and consider some more basic issues around the Iranian Revolution about which Senator Obama, most of whose time has been consumed by running for President since arriving in the Senate, may not be fully aware. These issues have tremendous ramifications regarding the level of Iran’s threat.

To begin with, the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a conventional state in the sense of France or even the former Soviet Union. Since the revolution on 1979, it has been a theocracy based on Ayatollah Khomeini’s vision of a Shiite world under Allah.

[. . .]

In other words, Iran was not really a country per se, but a stepping stone in the eternal mission of global jihad. As demonstration, Khomeini almost immediately allowed millions to die in his 1980s war with Iraq, one of whose goals was to gain control of the holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf (the resting place of Shia’s Imam Ali) for Allah.

This goal was never truly abandoned as the Islamic Republic of Khomeini evolved into today’s IRI of Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I say evolved, but their belief system has remained essentially intact, with some minor diversions, since 1979.

These extreme tenets of Khomeinist Shia Islam can be argued to be more dangerous to our future and those of the West than Marxism-Leninism, which promoted itself as scientific socialism and therefore was governed to some extent by scientific evaluation. The IRI is governed by their version of faith in Allah. No science or fact can ever contradict the justice of their cause, which is to them God’s will. Their eschatology includes a belief under which global chaos will bring forth the “hidden imam” or Mahdi, the Shia messiah, who will bring peace to Earth, unified, of course, under Allah.

Consider the danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of people who actually believe that. It’s unclear how many do, but Ahmadinejad obviously does, as do many others in their leadership, particularly in the Revolutionary Guard and its Quds Brigade.

Obama's naivety reminds me of the naivety shown by President Carter, who admitted he was shocked that the Soviet Union would invade Afghanistan after Carter negotiated a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with Brezhnev.