Going Over Niagara In A Barrel! Common Sense vs Opprtunism!

Bret Stephens see obsolescence. (See 1 below.)

Taxes going up by way of a VAT on top of what we already have? "POGO was right: The enemy is us (read Congress.)!" Can't cut spending, that would be unpatriotic. (See 2 below.)

Did the Supreme Court put out any 'affirmative' fires with their latest decision? (See 3 and 3a below.)

Using the same logic of 'affirmative action' does the president of the United States have the right to tell Black Americans they cannot live where they want to or on land that once belonged to Native Americans before they were driven off? During the days of segregation it was highly unlikely a white couple would sell thir home to a black couple but this president takes Israelis back to that time and place on the misbegotten belief acheiving an immoral agreement with Palestinians will appease Muslims and get him re-elected.

By Obama's same twisted logic, Israel should now be driving Israeli Palestinians out of Israel. But, perhaps Netanyahu's obdurateness and events on the ground have forced a change in Obama's tactics and strategy?

Of late, Obama reminds me of someone going over Niagara Falls in a Barrel. Hope he figures out what being president is all about in the next several months. He might read some books about HST! But then, common sense is something you are born with and character and adherence to principles is something you should have learned at an early age. Opportunism is no substitute and playing house can be fun but not with a nation's fate.

As Obama's foreign policy initiatives sink our former adherence to human rights is sinking with them.(See 3b and 3c below.)

When you are a tiny nation political 'ganging up' is a fact of life. Even the French, the paragon of world virtue and leadership, get emboldened. Zarkozy becomes Obama's poodle? (See 4 below.)

Dick



Dick

1)Obama's Obsolete Iran Policy: The audacity of hope gives way to the timidity of realism.
By BRET STEPHENS

President Obama's Iran policy is incoherent and obsolete. Maybe David Axelrod should take note.

On Sunday, Mr. Obama's consigliere was asked about Iran by ABC's George Stephanopoulos and NBC's David Gregory. Mr. Gregory asked whether there "should be consequences" for the regime's violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations. "The consequences, I think, will unfold over time in Iran," answered Mr. Axelrod.

Mr. Stephanopoulos quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying that "this time, the Iranian nation's reply will be harsh and more decisive to make the West regret its meddlesome stance." Said Mr. Axelrod, "I'm not going to entertain his bloviations that are politically motivated." As for whether the administration wasn't selling short the demonstrators, Mr. Axelrod could only say that "the president's sense of solicitude with those young people has been very, very clear."

Associated Press Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
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Bottom line from Mr. Axelrod, and presumably Mr. Obama, too: "We are going to continue to work through . . . the multilateral group of nations that are engaging Iran, and they have to make a decision, George, whether they want to further isolate themselves in every way from the community of nations, or whether they are going to embrace that."

Translation: People of Iran -- best of luck!

For a president who came into office literally selling the Audacity of Hope -- not just for Americans but for all mankind -- his Iran policy can so far be summed up as the timidity of "realism." That's realism as a theory of international relations that prescribes a foreign policy based on ostensibly rational calculations of the national interest and assumes that other nations act in similarly rational fashion.

On this reasoning, it remains the American interest to reach a negotiated settlement with Tehran over its nuclear program, whether or not Ahmadinejad was fairly elected. Likewise, it is in Tehran's best interests to settle, assuming the benefits for doing so are sufficiently large.

If this view ever had its moment, it was in the months immediately after Mr. Obama's inauguration. The administration came to town thinking that America's problems with Iran were largely self-inflicted -- a combination of "Axis of Evil" and "regime change" rhetoric, an invasion that gave Iran a reasonable motive for wanting to arm itself with nuclear weapons, and an unwillingness to try to settle differences in face-to-face talks.

In other words, Mr. Obama seems to have thought that a considerable part of America's Iran problem was simply an America problem, to be addressed by various forms of conciliation: Mr. Obama's New Year's greetings to "the Islamic Republic of Iran"; the disavowal of regime change as a U.S. objective; the offer of direct talks without preconditions; withdrawal from Iraq; the insistence, following the election, that the U.S. would neither presume to judge the outcome nor otherwise "meddle" in an internal Iranian affair.

What did all this achieve? Iran's nuclear programs are accelerating. It is testing ballistic missiles of increasing range and sophistication. Its support for terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah is unabated. Ahmadinejad stole an election in broad daylight. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei blessed the result. British Embassy staff are under siege. A campaign of mass arrests and intimidation is underway and a young woman named Neda Soltan was shot in the heart simply for choosing none of the above.

Oh, and Iran still accuses the U.S. of "meddling."

Now Mr. Obama is promising more of the same, plus the equivalent of a group hug for the demonstrators. Is this supposed to be "realism"?

A more common sense form of realism would reach different conclusions. One is that the "bloviations" of Ahmadinejad are not just politically motivated, but are also expressions of contempt for Mr. Obama. That contempt springs from a keen nose for weakness, honed by the habits of dictatorship and based on an estimate -- so far unrefuted -- of Mr. Obama's mettle.

Second, as long as Tehran can murder its own people, scoff at a U.S. president and flout U.N. resolutions without consequence, it will continue to do so.

Third is that the Achilles Heel of the Iranian regime isn't its "isolation." (What kind of isolation is it when Ahmadinejad's "election" was instantly ratified by Russian President Dimitry Medvedev?) Nor is it its vulnerability to a gasoline embargo, vulnerable though it is. Its real weakness is its own domestic unpopularity, which has at last found expression in a massive opposition movement.

The fourth is that Iran's nuclear programs have now reached the stage where they can only be stopped through military strikes -- probably Israeli -- or an internal political decision to abandon them. The prospect of another Mideast war can't exactly please the administration. So how about trying to achieve the same result by leveraging point No. 3?

Maybe ordinary Iranians welcome Mr. Obama's solicitude. What they need is Mr. Obama's spine. If that means "democracy promotion" and tough talk about "regime change," well, it wouldn't be the first time this president has made his predecessor's policy his own.


2)We'll Need to Raise Taxes Soon: Expect Congress to seriously consider a value-added tax.
By ROGER C. ALTMAN

Only five months after Inauguration Day, the focus of Washington's economic and domestic policy is already shifting. This reflects the emergence of much larger budget deficits than anyone expected. Indeed, federal deficits may average a stunning $1 trillion annually over the next 10 years. This worsened outlook is stirring unease on Main Street and beginning to reorder priorities for President Barack Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership. By 2010, reducing the deficit will become their primary focus.

Why has the deficit outlook changed? Two main reasons: The burst of spending in recent years and the growing likelihood of a weak economic recovery. The latter would mean considerably lower federal revenues, the compiling of more interest on our growing debt, and thus higher deficits. Yes, the President's Council of Economic Advisors is still forecasting a traditional cyclical recovery -- i.e., real growth of 3.2% next year and 4% in 2011. But the latest data suggests that we're on a much slower path. Probably along the lines of the most recent Goldman Sachs and International Monetary Fund forecasts, whose growth rates average about 2% for 2010-2011.

A speedy recovery is highly unlikely given the financial condition of American households, whose spending represents 70% of GDP. Household net worth has fallen more than 20% since its mid-2007 peak. This drop began just when household debt reached 130% of income, a modern record. This lethal combination has forced households to lower their spending to reduce their debt. So far, however, they have just begun to pay it down. This implies subdued spending and weak national growth for some time.

In a March 27 forecast, Goldman Sachs estimated average annual deficits of $940 billion through 2019. If this proves true, deficits would remain above 4% of GDP through the next decade and the national debt would reach a whopping 83% of GDP, a level not seen since World War II. The public is restive over this threat: In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Americans were asked which economic issue facing the country concerned them most. Respondents chose deficit reduction over health care by a ratio of 2 to 1.

Mr. Obama and his economic advisers understand this deficit outlook and undoubtedly view it as unsustainable. They also understand that increasing deficit concerns complicate their efforts toward universal health-insurance legislation, which is clearly a top priority of this administration. According to the Congressional Budget Office, which released its latest forecast June 16, such legislation would mandate more than $1 trillion of new federal spending over 10 years. Winning support for that much new spending -- in the face of record deficits -- will be a challenge.

This explains why the president is stressing the importance of a deficit-neutral bill. In other words, that any new spending be fully offset by a combination of Medicare and Medicaid cuts and new tax revenues. Key Senate leaders have echoed this requirement. Fully financed legislation probably will emerge after a lengthy struggle.

The poor budget outlook may impel the administration to follow up health-care legislation with an effort to fix Social Security. The shortfall in Social Security's trust funds -- which adds to the long-term deficit -- is much smaller than the companion problem in Medicare funding. Public anxiety over deficits may make this fix possible now even though it has been elusive for years. If this could be done, confidence in Washington's capacity to address its debt challenge would rise.

But even with a Social Security fix the medium-term deficit outlook will be poor. Sometime soon, perhaps in 2010, Main Street and financial markets will exert irresistible pressure to reduce the deficit.

The problem is the deficit's sheer size, which goes way beyond potential savings from cuts in discretionary spending or defense. It's entirely possible that Medicare and Social Security will already have been addressed, and thus taken off the table. In short we'll have to raise taxes.

Today, the U.S. ranks next to last among the 28 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations in total federal revenue as a share of GDP. Our federal revenues represent 18% of national output, down from 20% just 10 years ago. That makes the mismatch between our spending and our revenue very large, producing the huge deficits we face.

We all know the recent and bitter history of tax struggles in Washington, let alone Mr. Obama's pledge to exempt those earning less than $250,000 from higher income taxes. This suggests that, possibly next year, Congress will seriously consider a value-added tax (VAT). A bipartisan deficit reduction commission, structured like the one on Social Security headed by Alan Greenspan in 1982, may be necessary to create sufficient support for a VAT or other new taxes.

This challenge may be the toughest one Mr. Obama faces in his first term. Fortunately, the new president is enormously gifted. That's important, because it is no longer a matter of whether tax revenues must increase, but how.

Mr. Altman, founder and chairman of Evercore Partners, was deputy secretary of the Treasury in the first Clinton administration.


3)Firefighter Justice: The Supremes, Sotomayor, and racial jurisprudence

The Supreme Court closed an otherwise unremarkable term on a high note yesterday, rejecting the notion that one kind of racial bias can be remedied by another. On the last day of opinions before the Court is potentially joined by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Justices overturned one of her most closely scrutinized cases on workplace discrimination. The effect was to take an important step away from the practice of divvying up jobs by race.

Writing for a 5-4 majority in Ricci v. deStefano, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that the city of New Haven violated civil-rights law when it threw out firefighter promotional exams because more whites than blacks or Hispanics had passed the tests. New Haven claimed it had to junk the tests because certifying the results would lead to an avalanche of lawsuits by black candidates who hadn't passed. In other words, the city claimed it had to intentionally discriminate against white candidates out of fear that the tests unintentionally had a "disparate impact" against minorities.

Associated Press Frank Ricci
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But the Court found no evidence that the tests were flawed or that better alternatives for promotion existed. On the contrary, employment tests are an important tool against the very kind of racial discrimination that civil-rights laws were designed to prevent. "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Kennedy wrote. The Supremes created this "disparate impact" reverse discrimination incentive with its 1971 Griggs decision, since codified into law, but at least five Justices are still able to object to this kind of blatant racial injustice.

In the opening of her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes that "the white firefighters who scored high on New Haven's promotional exams understandably attract this Court's sympathy." To which Justice Samuel Alito replied in a majority concurring opinion that "'Sympathy' is not what petitioners have a right to demand. What they have a right to demand is evenhanded enforcement of the law -- of Title VII's [of the 1964 Civil Rights Act] prohibition against discrimination based on race. And that is what, until today's decision, has been denied them."

Justice Alito underscores how little attention the firefighters' claim was given by lower courts. In 2006 a federal district court dismissed the case before it went to trial. A three judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that included Judge Sotomayor then upheld the lower court's judgment in a one-paragraph statement, and later a terse opinion parroting the district court.

The dismissive treatment of the firefighters' claim drew the censure of fellow Second Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes. A former mentor of Ms. Sotomayor, Mr. Cabranes said the court had "failed to grapple with issues of exceptional importance."

On this question of the Second Circuit's mishandling, the Justices agreed unanimously yesterday. In footnote 10 of her dissent, Justice Ginsburg wrote that while she disagreed with the decision to reverse the lower court ruling, there were questions about how it was decided. Based on the lower court's mistaken focus on intent, she wrote, "ordinarily a remand for fresh consideration would be in order."

Judge Sotomayor's handling of the case deserves to be thoroughly aired during her confirmation hearings, insofar as it reinforces concerns that she is prone to race-conscious jurisprudence. The issue originally came to the fore over the judge's remarks that a "wise Latina" would come to a better conclusion than a white male judge who would lack the proper empathy for certain kinds of defendants.

Ms. Sotomayor's supporters have been at pains to argue that she has ended up on both sides of racial discrimination complaints while on the Second Circuit. But those examining her record can reasonably ask if the disregard she exhibited for a Title VII claim by white firefighters falls into the category of neutrality or its own kind of bias.

Because the Court's ruling was narrowly made on statutory grounds, it dodged the larger claim brought by the firefighters that New Haven violated their constitutional right to equal protection. Yet as Justice Antonin Scalia notes in his concurrence, the disparate impact standards "place a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes." Someone should ask Judge Sotomayor if that's her idea of equal protection under the law.

3a) On Race, The Slog Goes On
By George Will

Although New Haven's firefighters deservedly won in the Supreme Court, it is deeply depressing that they won narrowly -- 5-4. The egregious behavior by that city's government, in a context of racial rabble-rousing, did not seem legally suspect to even one of the court's four liberals, whose harmony seemed to reflect result-oriented rather than law-driven reasoning.

The undisputed facts are that in 2003 the city gave promotion exams to 118 firemen, 27 of them black. The tests were prepared by a firm specializing in employment exams and were validated, as federal law requires, by independent experts. When none of the African-Americans did well enough to qualify for the available promotions, a black minister allied with the seven-term mayor warned of a dire "political ramification" if the city promoted from the list of persons (including one Hispanic) that the exams identified as qualified. The city decided that no one would be promoted, calling this a race-neutral outcome because no group was disadvantaged more than any other.

The city's idea of equal treatment -- denying promotions equally to those deemed and those not deemed qualified -- was particularly galling to Frank Ricci, who had prepared for the exams by quitting his second job, buying the more than $1,000 worth of books the city recommended, paying to have them read onto audiotapes -- he is dyslexic -- and taking practice tests and interviews. His efforts earned him the sixth-highest score.

He and others denied promotions for which their exam scores made them eligible sued, charging violations of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws and of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The city argued that if it had made promotions based on the test results, it would have been vulnerable under the 1964 act to being sued for adopting a practice that had a "disparate impact" on minorities. On Monday, the court's conservatives (Anthony Kennedy writing for the majority, joined by John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) held:

The rights of Ricci et al. under the 1964 act were violated. The city's fear of a disparate impact litigation was not unfounded, but that did not justify the race-based response to the exam results because New Haven did not have "a strong basis in evidence" to believe it would be held liable. There is such evidence only if the exams "were not job related and consistent with business necessity, or if there existed an equally valid, less discriminatory alternative" that would have served the city's needs but that it refused to adopt.

"All the evidence demonstrates that the city rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white." The city's criticisms of the exam "are blatantly contradicted by the record." And "the city turned a blind eye to evidence supporting the exams' validity" (emphases added).

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined in dissent by John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer, rejected the majority's conclusions root and branch. She cited a federal report from the early 1970s about discrimination in hiring firefighters, disputed even the "business necessity" of the exams' 60/40 written/oral ratio and defended the integrity of New Haven's decision-making -- rejecting Alito's concurrence, which dwelt on the rancid racial politics of the Rev. Boise Kimber. Alito concluded that "no reasonable jury" could find that the city possessed a "substantial basis in evidence to find the tests inadequate."

Scalia, concurring separately, said Monday's ruling "merely postpones the evil day" on which the court must decide "whether, or to what extent," existing disparate-impact law conflicts with the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the law. Conceding that "the question is not an easy one," Scalia said: The federal government is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, so surely "it is also prohibited from enacting laws mandating that third parties" -- e.g., a city government -- "discriminate on the basis of race." Scalia added:

"Would a private employer not be guilty of unlawful discrimination if he refrained from establishing a racial hiring quota but intentionally designed his hiring practices to achieve the same end? Surely he would. Intentional discrimination is still occurring, just one step up the chain."

The nation shall slog on, litigating through a fog of euphemisms and blurry categories (e.g., "race-conscious" actions that somehow are not racial discrimination because they "remedy" discrimination that no one has intended). This is the predictable price of failing to simply insist that government cannot take cognizance of race.


3b)Obama thaw on Israeli settlement construction follows Iran setback, Saudi brush-off

The Obama administration signalled a new mood of compromise on settlement construction just ahead of the key talks in New York between Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak and prime minister's adviser Yitzhak Molcho and US envoy George Mitchell Tuesday, June 30.

While the Israeli delegation was still airborne, the US state department spokesman Ian Kelly said: "We've been working with all the parties to try and come up with... an environment conducive to the resumption of negotiations. I'm not going to prejudge what happens tomorrow."

Asked by reporters if that meant the US administration was ready to compromise and accept a suspension of settlement activity instead of a total halt, Kelly said that some level of flexibility was part of the negotiation process.

"Working our way to our resolution, I'm not going to say we're not going to compromise. Let's just see what happens."

At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "I don't want to get ahead of some very important meetings tomorrow between Ehud Barak and George Mitchell, except to say that we're optimistic about making progress."

Political analysts attribute this large crack in US president Barack Obama's unswerving push for a total halt on settlement activity on the West Bank to four new developments:

1. The prospect of direct US-Iranian dialogue on the nuclear issue has vanished into the blue yonder as relations go from bad to worse in the aftermath of Iran's disputed presidential election. A tough US stance against Israel as a bargaining chip with Iran is no longer relevant.

2. Saudi Arabia has made it clear that even if the Netanyahu government surrenders to the US demand for a total halt in settlement activity, Arab concessions will not be forthcoming. There will be no visas for Israeli tourists or permission for Israeli airliners heading east to transit Saudi skies.

The Obama administration had factored Arab reciprocity into its campaign to halt Israel's settlement activity. When it was denied, the White House saw no point in continuing to lean on Israel.

3. More and more former Bush administration officials are challenging the administration's insistent denial of Bush administration understandings with Israel on settlement expansion to accommodate natural growth. These officials emphasize that the understandings exist both orally and in writing.

4. Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, backed by government and popular majority, stuck to his guns and resisted Barack Obama's demand to halt settlement activity of any kind.

Monday, June 29, the Washington Post offered three reasons for the White House's decision to ease up on its "absolutist" position:

"First, it has allowed Palestinian and Arab leaders to withhold the steps they were asked for… Second, the administration's objective… is unobtainable… No Israeli government has ever agreed to an unconditional freeze and no coalition could be assembled… to impose one. Finally, the extraction of a freeze from Netanyahu is, as a practical matter unnecessary… both the Palestinian Authority and Arab governments have gone along with previous US-Israeli deals by which construction was to be limited to inside the periphery of settlements near Israel - since everyone knows those areas will be annexed to Israel in a final settlement…"

In view of the US administration's newfound flexibility on the settlement issue, Israeli government circles see the tables turned and the American squeeze deflected to coercing the Palestinian Authority to return to the negotiating table.

Egypt has set July 7 as the deadline for the warring Palestinian factions - Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah and the Islamist Hamas which rules Gaza - to get their act together and achieve a united national front ahead of peace talks with Israel.

Netanyahu, after accepting the two-state principle, pulling Israeli troops out of four Palestinian towns, thinning out West Bank roadblocks and making his point to Washington on the settlement freeze, is ready to invite the opposition Kadima party and its leader, Tzipi Livni, to join a national unity government under his rule.

Foreign minister Avigdor Liebermann and his nationalist Israeli Beitenu party might present an obstacle. Therefore, some political circles in Jerusalem assign the anonymous leak to the media Monday, June 29, which cited French president Nicolas Sarkozy as bluntly advising Netanyahu when they met at the Elysee last week to get rid of Avigdor Lieberman and replace him with Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, as a prod for Lieberman to step aside.

3c) Ideologue-in-Chief
By Caroline B. Glick


While Obama's supporters champion his "realist" policies as a welcome departure from the "cowboy diplomacy" of the Bush years, the fact of the matter is that in country after country, Obama's supposedly pragmatic and non-ideological policy has either already failed — as it has in North Korea — or is in the process of failing

For a brief moment it seemed US President Barack Obama was moved by the recent events in Iran. On Friday, he issued his harshest statement yet on the mullocracy's barbaric clampdown against its brave citizens who dared to demand freedom in the aftermath of June 12's stolen presidential elections.

Speaking of the protesters Obama said, "Their bravery in the face of brutality is a testament to their enduring pursuit of justice. The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous. In spite of the government's efforts to keep the world from bearing witness to that violence, we see it and we condemn it."

While some noted the oddity of Obama's attribution of the protesters' struggle to the "pursuit of justice," rather than the pursuit of freedom - which is what they are actually fighting for — most Iran watchers in Washington and beyond were satisfied with his statement.

Alas, it was a false alarm. On Sunday Obama dispatched his surrogates — presidential adviser David Axelrod and UN Ambassador Susan Rice — to the morning talk shows to make clear that he has not allowed mere events to influence his policies.

After paying lip service to the Iranian dissidents, Rice and Axelrod quickly cut to the chase. The Obama administration does not care about the Iranian people or their struggle with the theocratic totalitarians who repress them. Whether Iran is an Islamic revolutionary state dedicated to the overthrow of the world order or a liberal democracy dedicated to strengthening it, is none of the administration's business.

Obama's emissaries wouldn't even admit that after stealing the election and killing hundreds of its own citizens, the regime is illegitimate. As Rice put it, "Legitimacy obviously is in the eyes of the people. And obviously the government's legitimacy has been called into question by the protests in the streets. But that's not the critical issue in terms of our dealings with Iran."

No, whether an America-hating regime is legitimate or not is completely insignificant to the White House. All the Obama administration wants to do is go back to its plan to appease the mullahs into reaching an agreement about their nuclear aspirations. And for some yet-to-be-explained reason, Obama and his associates believe they can make this regime — which as recently as Friday called for the mass murder of its own citizens, and as recently as Saturday blamed the US for the Iranian people's decision to rise up against the mullahs — reach such an agreement.

IN STAKING out a seemingly hard-nosed, unsentimental position on Iran, Obama and his advisers would have us believe that unlike their predecessors, they are foreign policy "realists." Unlike Jimmy Carter, who supported the America-hating mullahs against the America-supporting shah 30 years ago in the name of his moralistic post-Vietnam War aversion to American exceptionalism, Obama supports the America-hating mullahs against the America-supporting freedom protesters because all he cares about are "real" American interests.

So too, unlike George W. Bush, who openly supported Iran's pro-American democratic dissidents against the mullahs due to his belief that the advance of freedom in Iran and throughout the world promoted US national interests, Obama supports the anti-American mullahs who butcher these dissidents in the streets and abduct and imprison them by the thousands due to his "hard-nosed" belief that doing so will pave the way for a meeting of the minds with their oppressors.

Yet, Obama's policy is anything but realistic. By refusing to support the dissidents, he is not demonstrating that he is a realist. He is showing that he is immune to reality. He is so committed to appeasing the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Khamenei that he is incapable of responding to actual events, or even of taking them into account for anything other than fleeting media appearances meant to neutralize his critics.

Rice and Axelrod demonstrated the administration's determination to eschew reality when they proclaimed that Ahmadinejad's "reelection" is immaterial. As they see it, appeasement isn't dead since it is Khamenei — whom they deferentially refer to as "the supreme leader" — who sets Iran's foreign policy.

While Khamenei is inarguably the decision maker on foreign policy, his behavior since June 12has shown that he is no moderate. Indeed, as his post-election Friday "sermon" 10 days ago demonstrated, he is a paranoid, delusional America-bashing tyrant. In that speech he called Americans "morons" and accused them of being the worst human-rights violators in the world, in part because of the Clinton administration's raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993.

Perhaps what is most significant about Obama's decision to side with anti-American tyrants against pro-American democrats in Iran is that it is utterly consistent with his policies throughout the world. From Latin America to Asia to the Middle East and beyond, after six months of the Obama administration it is clear that in its pursuit of good ties with America's adversaries at the expense of America's allies, it will not allow actual events to influence its "hard-nosed" judgments.

TAKE THE ADMINISTRATION'S response to the Honduran military coup on Sunday. While the term "military coup" has a lousy ring to it, the Honduran military ejected president Manuel Zelaya from office after he ignored a Supreme Court ruling backed by the Honduran Congress which barred him from holding a referendum this week that would have empowered him to endanger democracy.

Taking a page out of his mentor Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's playbook, Zelaya acted in contempt of his country's democratic institutions to move forward with his plan to empower himself to serve another term in office. To push forward with his illegal goal, Zelaya fired the army's chief of staff. And so, in an apparent bid to prevent Honduras from going the way of Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua and becoming yet another anti-American Venezuelan satellite, the military — backed by Congress and the Supreme Court — ejected Zelaya from office.

And how did Obama respond? By seemingly siding with Zelaya against the democratic forces in Honduras who are fighting him. Obama said in a written statement: "I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of president Mel Zelaya."

His apparent decision to side with an anti-American would-be dictator is unfortunately par for the course. As South and Central America come increasingly under the control of far-left America-hating dictators, as in Iran, Obama and his team have abandoned democratic dissidents in the hope of currying favor with anti-American thugs. As Mary Anastasia O'Grady has documented in The Wall Street Journal, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have refused to say a word about democracy promotion in Latin America.

Rather than speak of liberties and freedoms, Clinton and Obama have waxed poetic about social justice and diminishing the gaps between rich and poor. In a recent interview with the El Salvadoran media, Clinton said, "Some might say President Obama is left-of-center. And of course that means we are going to work well with countries that share our commitment to improving and enhancing the human potential."

But not, apparently, enhancing human freedoms.

FROM IRAN to Venezuela to Cuba, from Myanmar to North Korea to China, from Sudan to Afghanistan to Iraq to Russia to Syria to Saudi Arabia, the Obama administration has systematically taken human rights and democracy promotion off America's agenda. In their place, it has advocated "improving America's image," multilateralism and a moral relativism that either sees no distinction between dictators and their victims or deems the distinctions immaterial to the advancement of US interests.

While Obama's supporters champion his "realist" policies as a welcome departure from the "cowboy diplomacy" of the Bush years, the fact of the matter is that in country after country, Obama's supposedly pragmatic and nonideological policy has either already failed — as it has in North Korea — or is in the process of failing. The only place where Obama may soon be able to point to a success is in his policy of coercing Israel to adopt his anti-Semitic demand to bar Jews from building homes in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. According to media reports, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has authorized Defense Minister Ehud Barak to offer to freeze all settlement construction for three months during his visit to Washington this week.

Of course, in the event that Obama has achieved his immediate goal of forcing Netanyahu to his knees, its accomplishment will hinder rather than advance his wider goal of achieving peace between Israel and its neighbors. Watching Obama strong-arm the US's closest ally in the region, the Palestinians and the neighboring Arab states have become convinced that there is no reason to make peace with the Jews. After all, Obama is demonstrating that he will deliver Israel without their having to so much as wink in the direction of peaceful coexistence.

So if Obama's foreign policy has already failed or is in the process of failing throughout the world, why is he refusing to reassess it? Why, with blood running through the streets of Iran, is he still interested in appeasing the mullahs? Why, with Venezuela threatening to invade Honduras for Zelaya, is he siding with Zelaya against Honduran democrats? Why, with the Palestinians refusing to accept the Jewish people's right to self-determination, is he seeking to expel some 500,000 Jews from their homes in the interest of appeasing the Palestinians? Why, with North Korea threatening to attack the US with ballistic missiles, is he refusing to order the *USS John McCain* to interdict the suspected North Korean missile ship it has been trailing for the past two weeks? Why, when the Sudanese government continues to sponsor the murder of Darfuris, is the administration claiming that the genocide in Darfur has ended? The only reasonable answer to all of these questions is that far from being nonideological, Obama's foreign policy is the most ideologically driven since Carter's tenure in office. If when Obama came into office there was a question about whether he was a foreign policy pragmatist or an ideologue, his behavior in his first six months in office has dispelled all doubt. Obama is moved by a radical, anti-American ideology that motivates him to dismiss the importance of democracy and side with anti-American dictators against US allies.

For his efforts, although he is causing the US to fail to secure its aims as he himself has defined them in arena after arena, he is successfully securing the support of the most radical, extreme leftist factions in American politics.

Like Carter before him, Obama may succeed for a time in evading public scrutiny for his foreign-policy failures because the public will be too concerned with his domestic failures to notice them. But in the end, his slavish devotion to his radical ideological agenda will ensure that his failures reach a critical mass.

And then they will sink him.

JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.


4) Sarkozy slammed for Lieberman 'remark


Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's spokesman, Nir Hefetz, would not confirm or deny the report that French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Netanyahu to "get rid of" Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in their meeting in Paris last week. But he told Army Radio Tuesday that "the prime minister doesn't feel he needs advice on his government from outside sources" and "holds Foreign Minister Lieberman in great esteem."

Lieberman's spokesman Tzahi Moshe said the comments, "if true," represented "intolerable" meddling in Israel's internal affairs.

Lieberman has ordered his subordinates not to publicly respond further to the remarks to prevent diplomatic tensions, one senior Israeli official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity since the contents were part of private conversations.

Israel Beiteinu No. 2 Uzi Landau came to the defense of his party leader on Tuesday morning, blasting the comments attributed to Sarkozy.

"It's difficult for me to believe that a leader of a friendly country can make such remarks, but were I the prime minister, and such comments were made in my presence, I would bang on the table and protest," he told Army Radio. "That's how a prime minister should conduct himself to preserve his country's honor."

Sarkozy's office wouldn't immediately comment on his discussions with Netanyahu. It is not unusual for the French leader to discuss countries' internal political matters with foreign government leaders.

Another close associate of Lieberman on Monday night blasted the comments reportedly made by Sarkozy.

"If the words attributed to the French president are correct, then the intervention of the president of a respected, democratic state in the affairs of another democratic state is grave and unacceptable," he said. "We expect that - regardless of political affiliation - all political bodies in Israel condemn this callous intervention of a foreign state in our internal affairs."

The Prime Minister's Office denied the Channel 2 report, according to which Sarkozy had told Netanyahu, "You need to get rid of this man...You need to remove him from this position."

Sarkozy had apparently taken issue with some of Lieberman's fringe political stances, the television channel reported, and he said that opposition leader Tzipi Livni was a far better choice for the position of foreign minister. In response, Netanyahu was quoted as telling the French leader that Lieberman "sounds really different" in private conversations.

The French president, undeterred, reportedly retorted that even Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder and president of France's National Front party, is a nice person in private conversations.