Iranian President coming to U.S. to Gloat and Preen

This article is from the Heritage Foundation:

The Ahmadinejad Victory Tour




Yesterday, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had submitted an application for a visa to attend the United Nations nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty conference in New York next month. Since Crowley also confirmed that Ahmadinejad is likely to be awarded the visa, the Iranian President can now look forward to witnessing first hand the failure of President Barack Obama's Iran policy.



At first the White House believed that President Barack Obama's sheer power of personality and persuasion would be enough to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear program. So the President gave a conciliatory speech in Cairo, sent a direct message to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and opened up direct talks with the Iranian regime. The results have been crystal clear: the Iranian regime has only accelerated its nuclear program, accelerated its ballistic missile program, and further crushed internal dissent, all while the Obama administration remained silent as the Green Revolution was brutally crushed.



Now the Obama administration is seeking "crippling" sanctions on Iran through the U.N. Security Council. This is another Obama fantasy that plays right into Iran's "cheat, retreat, and delay" nuclear strategy. Whatever goodwill the Obama administration hoped to get from Russia by caving into their New START demands has not paid off. With help from Turkey, China and now Egypt, Iran's rope-a-dope U.N. diplomacy will render any U.N. sanctions regime completely toothless.



All these Ahmadinejad victories over President Obama would not be so alarming if the Obama administration were not actively undermining our nation's ability to deter and defend against Iranian nuclear attack. First there was President Obama's decision to cancel missile defense installations in Eastern Europe. The Obama administration claimed that their alternative system, called the Phased Adaptive Approach, could defend U.S. allies by 2020. But a recent Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report warns Iran may be able to reach the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by 2015. This means President Obama has created a new "window of vulnerability" for our enemies to exploit.



And then there is President Obama's New START agreement which limits U.S. conventional, nuclear and missile defense options. Former director of the Missile Defense Agency, Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, noted in The Washington Times this week: "Strangely, New START may actually rest on what Russia permits the United States to do to defend Americans and our allies from such a missile attack. This equation is both bizarre and unsafe."



"Bizarre and unsafe" is a generous assessment of the Obama administration's efforts to protect America from Iran's nuclear ambitions so far. The Obama administration must change course. The United States should impose and enforce the strongest possible sanctions, even if doing so requires action outside of the U.N. framework, and step up public diplomacy efforts to discredit the regime’s legitimacy and offer support to opposition groups, such as the Green Movement. Most importantly the Obama administration must make the commitment to create and sustain a layered missile defense system, designed to counter every range of Iranian missiles in all stages of flight, including those that threaten the territory of the United States and its allies. This would include scrapping New START, returning missile defense installations to Eastern Europe and fully funding missile defense. For more, see 33 Minutes.