Obama on the other hand leads a different country. Our industrial base has migrated overseas, 30 million people are out of work or on short hours, the budget deficit is $1.4 trillion. I don’t believe a combination of Abe Lincoln, George Washington, and Jesus Christ could get us out of this fix.

[Long, awkward pause]

Okay, maybe that’s not a good example. Let me try again….

Jack Kennedy had a fairly shaky start in his first year (Remember the Bay of Pigs?) and yet he turned out to be pretty good at the job. A year from now will find us at the half way point of Obama’s first (I hope) term. Let’s see what happens between now and then.

NOTE TO THE LIBERALS: To abandon all faith in this president now would not only be foolish, it would be a half-step away from insanity. Chill!

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan

We should keep Iraq in mind. I am very interested in what will happen there after U.S. forces depart. I see a revival of both the Sunni resistance and Mahdi Army in 2012. If necessary, Iran will intervene to help the Shia, and I don’t see the Obama administration reintroducing U.S. troops in an election year (unlikely that the Iraqi government would ask for them, anyway). If the Iraqi house of cards collapses, isolationism in some form will sweep through the U.S. body politic. Given that the fiscal challenges the U.S. faces may be insurmountable short of declaring national bankruptcy, it’s hard to picture the U.S. starting another major war in the Gulf.

In USA, “Obama” is in office but “Israel lobby” is in power.

Nothing will change unless American people realize that Israel lobby is compromising their security and well-being for the sake of Israel.

Rafsanjani is on the ropes. He was the US’ chief ally during Reagan’s Iran-Contra Affair. He was trying to reassert his influence by getting Moussavi elected. But he lost. Earlier he had lost control of the oil ministry.

US nostalgia for the good old Reagan-Rafsanjani days could account for their reaction to the election more than any phony concern about the fate of the protesters. After all, getting the right person elected is more important than a little thing like election fraud (we know this from the US reaction to Hamas and to Karzai) or killing of a few protesters (US silence on Honduras).

The protests can be viewed as a reaction by the once powerful Rafsanjani faction. A lot of young people sucked in by the rhetoric of change (we know how that works!)

In any case, change is in the air. The pillars of the Iranian political elite, Rafsanjani and Khamenei, are aging and will not be around that long. Ahmadinejad and the IRGC seem to have effectively entrenched themselves around the levers of power. Any changes will almost certainly not be fought along the US conjured narrative of a democracy/theocracy fault line. Rather changes will be sorted out along uniquely Iranian fault lines unimaginable to Richard Haass, who seems singularly uninformed about the internal Iranian political situation.

Or 2) The objective is an eventual war with Iran 2-3 years from now, on terms more favorable for the US. In the meantime, the US plans to evacuate Iraq entirely and eventually, somehow, some way, by whatever means, pacify and withdraw from Afghanistan. I see recent overtures towards the Taliban in that light.

This is not to say that such a plan is certain to work. And it assumes Iran will not be fully nuclear by then. But my guess is that it may be tried. At the least, they could more credibly threaten to attack Iran if they were less vulnerable to painful retaliation.

The alternative is to accept Iran as a serious economic, political and now nuclear power with the ability to veto US/Israeli policies. As Arnold says, it is too painful to bear. But that means they will takes serious risks and accept substantial costs in order not to bear it.

Today Obama’s Middle East policy is essentially a slightly more Israel-centric version of the policy of George W. Bush late in his term.

Iran is by now likely already orienting its forces towards the goals of US failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, based on the attacks on Balochistan and Kurdistan and the murder of the physicist in Tehran.

One reason I do not think the US is gearing up for war with Iran is because there is failure and then there is failure. There is the US voters deciding that violence levels against US troops and targets like that in the summer of 2006 is untolerable and demanding an exit, and then there is lots of anti-US groups getting Iranian-made surface to air missiles, industrial explosives and organizational assistance and causing levels of US casualties almost reminiscent of Vietnam. I think a US or Israeli direct attack on Iran could cause the latter, and I do not see any appetite for taking that chance on the part of the US.

Unfortunately, it looks like Obama’s mind is made up, and until violence levels reach those of 2006, we will not see any adjustments.

Iran is going to end up enriching uranium anyway. And it is not going to bow to pressure to adopt the Shah’s, Mubarak’s or the Saudi acceptance of Israel. It would have been far smarter to bite the bullet, tell Israel that there is nothing the US can do to prevent that, and come up with a way to live with a nuclear capable Iran.