Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said: “Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.” So why did President Obama choose last night’s address to further disintegrate what morale is left in the fight in Iraq? Choosing the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York was on first blush a wise decision. These are the young men and women who will put their lives on the line, or may have already, to defend the President’s decisions. This is not the “enemy camp” as MSNBC’s Chris Matthews described …
Iran’s dictatorship claimed yesterday that it was provoked to announce the expansion of its nuclear program by a resolution passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week that censured Iran for failing to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions on the nuclear issue. Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, who also supervises Iran’s nuclear program, said that Iran’s decision to build ten more uranium enrichment plants was in retaliation for the IAEA resolution demanding a halt in Iranian enrichment activities. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned that the …
Today Iranian Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki publicly rejected the U.N.-backed proposal to send about 70 percent of Iran’s known supplies of enriched uranium out of the country. Mottaki suggested that instead Iran would exchange its low-enriched uranium for an equivalent amount of slightly higher enriched uranium, but only on its own territory. This clearly would be unacceptable since it would put Iran closer, rather than slightly farther away from, acquiring sufficient quantities of enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon, if the uranium were to be further enriched. French Foreign …
Last week Heritage scholar James Carafano wrote: It is not hard to craft comparisons between Jimmy Carter and the current occupant of the Oval Office. Both entered office with high expectations; both vowed to change the tone in Washington and remake the world. Carter had a terrible sophomore slump. America’s enemies took stock of his foreign policy in his first year in office. The next year they exploited the weaknesses they found. His presidency never recovered. Obama may also be setting himself up for the fall. This week, the Associated …
The Guardian reports today that the International Atomic Energy Agency has asked Iran to explain evidence that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, but Tehran continues to stonewall requests for relevant information and drag its feet at the sputtering talks over its illicit nuclear weapons program. According to a dossier prepared by the IAEA, Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of a “two-point implosion” device that could enable Iran to eventually install small nuclear warheads on its ballistic missiles. One European official said that “It …
This week marks the one year anniversary of the president’s election to commander chief, but it seems more like an occasion for concern than for slapping high-fives. It is not hard to craft comparisons between Carter and the current occupant of the Oval Office. Both entered office with high expectations; both vowed to change the tone in Washington and remake the world. Carter had a terrible sophomore slump. America’s enemies took stock of his foreign policy in his first year in office. The next year they exploited the weaknesses they found. …
Iran’s theocratic dictatorship once again has thrown up an obstacle to diplomatic resolution of the nuclear stalemate. The New York Times today reported that Iran has rejected the U.S-conceived, U.N.-backed plan for temporarily easing tensions over Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program. After initially reaching an “agreement in principle” to export roughly 70 percent of its known supplies of low-enriched uranium, Tehran once again has backed away from the P5&1 proposal and instead has presented a counter-proposal (details yet to be revealed) that is sure to fall short of what is …
Despite the Obama Administration’s optimistic rhetoric about sealing a nuclear deal with Iran, Tehran again has thrown a monkey wrench into the nuclear negotiations by failing to meet today’s deadline to accept a United Nations-backed proposal for enriching uranium outside Iran. Instead of giving a yes/no answer, Iranian officials instead offered a counterproposal. The details of the counterproposal have not been released, but they are sure to further muddy the diplomatic waters and obscure the prime focus of the negotiations: to stop Iran’s uranium enrichment activities. Iran’s diplomatic charade is …
The tentative nuclear deal that the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) reportedly has reached with Iran has been widely hailed as a success for the Obama Administration’s engagement policy. For example, today a Washington Post article described the deal as “providing a major boost for the Obama administration as it seeks to engage the Islamic republic.” But a closer look at the negotiations gives strong reasons for concern. First of all, the focus on helping Iran to refuel its research reactor in Tehran …
Yesterday Iran, France, the US, and Russia held the first day of nuclear talks. The issue concerns what to with Iran’s stockpile enriched uranium, material that can reprocessed to fuel nuclear power plants or refined into nuclear weapons. The US wants Iran to ship the material abroad. The chief UN representative at the talks said they got off to a “good start.” According most reports, however, nothing substantive got done. In fact, the New York Times reported Iran negotiators started out threatening they first wanted new supplies of nuclear fuel. …
