Meanwhile, Gary Shilling sees deflation as our cup of gruel! (See 1a below.) Ah, but now for the rebuttal! (See 1b below.)
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Acorns continue to drop from the trees like the dangerous nuts they are. They are now behind the protests of other disgruntled Obamaites who are walking around like zombies. (See 2 below.)
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I sexually harass women all the time - I call them honey, shug, give them kisses on their cheeks, open the car door, let them go first in the elevator, tell them on occasion they look lovely and send them raunchy jokes via e mail and they send me raunchier ones back. If I married all these 'molested'women I offended to keep them from being anonymous accusers, I would have to marry them, change my religion and become a Mormon.
Then I could run for president and be attacked for that!
On the other hand were I an employer, I likely would not be employing anyone because of the economic uncertainty, government rules and regulations and tax disincentives.
However, even if I were hiring, I would make sure they were not illegal, did not love children, nor attended a place of worship, were at least under under 5 feet tall, did not vote for Democrats, and disliked unions. If they were women, god forbid, I would make sure they did not use lipstick, had bad teeth and were flat chested. Then there would be no reason to harass them.
What a pathetic nation progressives and PC'ism has made us become. (See 3 below)
This from an actual employer in one of the southern states. (See 3a below.)
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A loser president loses Iraq. (See 4 below)
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Have a great weekend and go out and harass someone.
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Dick
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1) August was an important month for the United States…
By Jeff Clark
We hit an all-time record number of people on food stamps… 45.8 million. If, like Nancy Pelosi, you believe this type of government support is bullish for our economy, things are beautiful…
On July 1, Pelosi proclaimed in a weekly press briefing that the best way to stimulate the economy was to extend unemployment benefits – beyond the two-year limit. "It injects demand into the economy… It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name." – July 9, 2010, Digest
If you live in the real world, you realize how dire the situation is. Nearly one in seven people in America is on food stamps. Unemployment – at least the numbers the government reports – is above 9%. The federal government is broke. Our states and municipalities are broke. And the number of people relying on the government for survival is increasing every day. What happens when inflation renders food stamps and unemployment benefits useless? We'll see people starving and riots in the streets. Luckily, the government has the solution…
On Wednesday, the Treasury released its schedule for bond sales for the first and second quarters of the fiscal year – October 2011-December 2011 and January 2012-March 2012, respectively. And no surprise, it's larger than last year… much larger. The Treasury expects to issue $305 billion in the first quarter and $541 billion in the second quarter – a total of $846 billion of new debt in six months. That's up from $628 billion in the same period last year… a 35% increase.
On the topic, the Federal Reserve announced our economy is strengthening and consumers are spending more. As such, it's maintaining the current economic policy. The Fed will keep short-term rates near zero until mid-2013. And it will continue purchasing long-term Treasurys on the market to push down long-term rates (a move that's bad for mortgage REITs, like Annaly, which make the spread between short- and long-term rates).
The Fed acknowledged our economy still faces "significant downside risks" (including the ongoing debt issuance we mentioned above and the European crisis). And how will our central bank handle these risks? By leaving the possibility of further quantitative easing (QE) open. Erase the debt with still more debt…
I don't think anyone doubts the Fed will resume QE at some point. It's the government's only option (to inflate debts away rather than pay). No wonder gold is up nearly 2% over the last few days.
Not many people caught it… But this week, one of Big Government's top mouthpieces made an ass out of himself on national television… while simultaneously revealing his – and those who support his beliefs – ignorance of achievement and "real world" economics.
The mouthpiece was Jared Bernstein, former chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. The venue was Lawrence Kudlow's nationally televised Kudlow Report on CNBC. Bernstein took part in a panel discussion on the show, along with Cypress Semiconductor founder and CEO T.J. Rodgers and Art Laffer, inventor of the "Laffer Curve" – an economic concept that demonstrates the tremendous economic power of letting individuals and businesses enjoy the fruits of their labor.
The discussion centered on the idea of a "flat tax" in America… a concept that would be better labeled an "equal tax."
The idea behind a flat tax is that everyone would pay the same rate of taxation, regardless of income (extremely low incomes would be exempt, however). Under a flat tax, everyone makes what they make and pays a simple, "flat" rate of 10%… 15%… or 20%. We've proposed a 20% rate. The church has traditionally asked members to tithe 10% of their income. If God can survive on 10% of your income, certainly the government should be able to make do with twice that amount.
Of course, Bernstein – the advocate of "bigger and more complicated government is better" – is against the idea that everyone should be treated equally. He mouths the same "big government is good, successful people are bad" line that has become a daily ritual for President OBAMA!. According to these types, the "rich" only achieve wealth by screwing the little guy… So of course, anyone who makes a lot of money should be taxed to smithereens.
Cypress' Rodgers must not have the luxury of living Bernstein and OBAMA!'s taxpayer- and lobbyist-funded lifestyle. Rodgers supports the idea of a flat tax. He'd rather pay a flat rate than spend resources and time playing games with the IRS.
As a Silicon Valley man, Rodgers pointed out that bureaucrats can't create prosperity and lasting jobs… only hardworking innovators like Steve Jobs can create lasting wealth and employment. It's best for the government to reduce taxes and spending, get out of the "creating jobs" business, and let folks like Steve Jobs do their thing.
Bernstein acknowledged that Steve Jobs had created tremendous wealth and employment opportunities. But he then threatened that under a lower, equal-tax environment, government revenue would be reduced so much, government-sponsored schooling wouldn't be able to provide the next wave of success.
Cypress' CEO responded with the simple fact: "By the way, Steve Jobs dropped out of school."
We're sure this story won't make it into the mainstream press. It's too simple. It's too common sense. But the exchange was a clear demonstration of how people like Bernstein and OBAMA! are utterly clueless about success. They think a society can legislate, tax, and spend its way to success. It cannot. And hold your hate mail: We're all for education… But we know more spending on our current school system is not the answer to our problems.
Unfortunately, the government is full of people like Bernstein. They have no clue that people like Steve Jobs are the result of less and simpler government… not more, and more complicated government. But their idiocy does provide good entertainment from time to time.
1a)Shilling: 5 of 7 Deflation Signs Already Here
By Julie Crawshaw
Economist Gary Shilling says there are seven signs of deflation, and five — financial assets, tangible assets, commodity prices, wages, and currencies — are already here.
The remaining two deflationary signs — deflation by government and the goods and services deflation that the Federal Reserve fears can't be far behind, given all the other areas where prices are already falling, says Shilling.
“Financial assets are sinking again under the weight of an increasingly recession-prone U.S. economy, a likely hard landing in China, and Europe's sovereign-debt crisis,” Shilling writes in The Christian Science Monitor. “That crisis and ratings downgrades are forcing down the value of sovereign debt and bank shares.”
The 20-city house price index from S&P/Case-Shiller is down an average 4.2 percent from a year ago and 32 percent from its April 2006 peak, Shilling notes, and Moody's/REAL Commercial Property Price Index has dropped 43 percent from its October 2007 peak.
“The hard landing I foresee for China will erode, probably destroy, the basis for the global commodity bubble – namely, the conviction that China will continue to buy all the industrial and agricultural commodities in sight,” says Shilling.
Shilling points out that the unemployment rate, including those who have given up looking for work, is 16.2 percent, compared with the headline 9.1 percent. “Real median household income was down 7.1 percent between 1999 and 2010; it fell 2.3 percent in the last year alone,” he says.
And as for currency? “This form of deflation has arrived as the world rushes to the U.S. dollar,” says Shilling.
"As global deleveraging persists, all these prices will be marked down as the world struggles to find a new equilibrium," he says.
Reuters reports that Inflation is expected to more than halve over the next year as a spike in prices for goods like oil and grains unwinds.
Unemployment, meanwhile, will likely hold at nearly double its pre-recession level well into next year, keeping incomes under pressure.
1b)Where is the Deflation?
By David Skarica
I am a pretty simple person. Even in my views toward markets and the like, I want things to be pretty simple and straightforward. I see inflation as prices go up and deflation as prices go down. I hate all of the contrived arguments people use to make their arguments work.
For example, in the past five years we have seen gasoline, insurance, education and food prices all go up. Sounds like inflation to me.
About the only thing down is housing prices and that is more of an asset than an input cost. In addition, most people bought at the top or had to default or can’t get access to credit now that the market turned down so they are not even benefitting from lower prices in housing.
Deflationists tell us there is deflation because there is a contraction in credit. Yes and one day, hell will freeze over or pigs will fly.
Sorry, but that contraction in credit argument does not hold water. Right now we are seeing inflation and huge amounts.
In the early 1990s, the federal government decided to change the way they reported inflation. Basically, to make a long story short they decided that food and energy would have less of an impact. This caused the inflation rate to drop. Which helped the government's budget, as most outlays are linked to inflation.
John Williams of shadowstats.com tracks what the inflation would be if the old method was used. It shows us that inflation would be running near the double digit levels of the 1970s.
We must remember every time there is a financial crisis or downturn the government fights it by printing more money! This is inflationary by nature.
Whenever you hear the word deflation being used, please remember that most of the costs in your life are going up. We are going through highly inflationary times, even if there is a contraction in consumer credit.
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2)ACORN Officials Scramble, Firing Workers and Shredding Documents, After
Exposed as Players Behind Occupy Wall Street Protests
By Jana Winter
Officials with the revamped ACORN office in New York -- operating as New
York Communities for Change -- have fired staff, shredded reams of documents
and told workers to blame disgruntled ex-employees for leaking information
in an effort to explain away a FoxNews.com report last week on the group's
involvement in Occupy Wall Street protests, according to sources.
NYCC also is installing surveillance cameras and recording devices at its
Brooklyn offices, removing or packing away supplies bearing the name ACORN
and handing out photos of Fox News staff with a stern warning not to talk to
the media, the sources said.
"They're doing serious damage control right now," said an NYCC source.
NYCC Executive Director Jon Kest has been calling a series of emergency
meetings to discuss last week's report-and taking extreme measures to
identify the sources in their office and to prevent further damage, a source
within NYCC told FoxNews.com.
Two staffers were fired after NYCC officials suspected them as the source of
the leaks, a source told FoxNews.com. "One was fired the day the story came
out, the other was fired on Friday. (NYCC senior staff) told everyone that
they were fired because they talked to you," a source said.
NYCC spokesman Scott Levenson denied that anyone was fired for talking to
the press.
FoxNews identified NYCC as a key organizing force behind the Occupy Wall Street protests. Sources within the group also told FoxNews.com NYCC was hiring people to carry signs and join the protests.
NYCC -- a nonprofit organization run almost entirely by former ACORN
officials and employees --did not reply for comment prior to the publication
of the initial article, but later posted a statement on its website
dismissing the article and denying that it pays protesters.
A source said that immediately following publication of the FoxNews.com
report staff were called into the Brooklyn office for meetings headed by
NYCC's organizing director, Jonathan Westin. Westin handed out copies of the
article and went through it line-by-line, the source said.
Staffers were also given copies of photos of Senior Fox News Correspondent
Eric Shawn and three other Fox News staff members, including this reporter.
"They reminded us that we can get fired, sued, arrested for talking to the
press," the source said. "Then they went through the article point-by-point
and said that the allegation that we pay people to protest isn't true."
"'That's the story that we're sticking to,'" Westin said, according to the
source.
The source said staffers at the meeting contested Westin's denial:
"It was pretty funny. Jonathan told staff they don't pay for protesters, but
the people in the meeting who work there objected and said, 'Wait, you pay
us to go to the protests every day?' Then Jonathan said 'No, but that's your
job,' and staffers were like, 'Yeah, our job is to protest,' and Westin
said, 'No your job is to fight for economic and social justice. We just send
you to protest.'
"Staff said, 'Yes, you pay us to carry signs.' Then Jonathan says, 'That's
your job.' It went on like that back and forth for a while."
During the meetings, NYCC Deputy Director Greg Basta provided Westin with
the copied photos of Fox News reporters to hand out to staff members, the
source said. Basta told staffers they might be asked about the article when
out in communities working on campaigns or when calling people by phone, the
source said.
"They told us if people bring up the article, we're supposed to say the
source and all the stuff in there came from a disgruntled ex-employee who's
not working with us anymore."
NYCC is also monitoring its staff's behavior, cracking down on phone use and
socialization. Officials have ordered all papers -- even scraps -- to be
shredded every night, the source said.
"And all the supplies-everything around the office that said 'ACORN' -- is
now all in storage until this blows over," the source said. "People
literally have to cover up the cameras on the back of their cellphones in
the office."
"Now there's no texting in the office, no phone calls in the office. They
tell us to take our phone calls out into the waiting room where there's an
intercom, and then they turn on the intercom to hear our conversations.
They're installing new cameras and speakers around the building so they can
hear everything.
"It's almost like working at Fort Knox."
NYCC officials declined repeated requests to respond to specific questions
about the organization's response to last week's story. The group on
Wednesday instead sent this statement, attributed to NYCC board member Jean
Sassine:
"New York Communities for Change participates in protests, direct action,
social activism and campaigns that promote social and economic justice. We
see FOX as the enemy to those efforts. For the record, this is consistent
with Fox attacks on Van Jones
, Shirley Sherrod
and all those who stand for social justice. Once again, FOX entertainment
poses as FOX News. Once again, FOX makes a series of false, unsubstantiated
claims and accusations which have no basis in fact. Once again, through a
series of sources FOX structures a story which is nothing but a series of
lies."
drop, 100% inflation.
See the Evidence. Click Here to Watch the Aftershock Survival Summit Now.
Westin did respond to some questions a day earlier, when approached by
FoxNews.com at an NYCC event in Manhattan.
When asked if a staff member was fired because people thought he'd talked to
the press, Westin said, "I have no idea." When asked about handing out
photos of Fox News employees, he said, "I have been? No, I don't think I
have been. That wasn't me."
Westin did acknowledge NYCC staff have met to discuss last week's report.
"People talked about it," he said. "People are interested."
He also deflected a question about the allegation that staffers were being
told to blame the report on disgruntled staffers, telling this reporter to
contact him later via email.
Responding to reports of pushback from staffers who said they were being
paid to go to the protests, and reports NYCC had recently hired people as
canvassers or organizers and then sent them to the protests, Westin replied
repeatedly "We don't pay people to protest."
Westin later did not reply to two emails asking for follow-up.
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3)'Look at What We Do'
The CFPB's first major regulatory guide exposes its political agenda.
Elizabeth Warren has left the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to run for Senate, but her interim replacement, Raj Date, is a worthy political successor. Testifying before Congress Wednesday, Mr. Date said the bureau's rule-makings will be "sensible, fact-based, pragmatic and effective" and enjoined members concerned about regulatory overreach to "look at what we do."
As luck would have it, the bureau released its first major regulatory guide, the "Supervision and Examination Manual—Version 1.0," on Oct. 13. The national press gave short shrift to the event, perhaps because the document is 802 pages long and replete with the usual regulatory jargon. But even as a draft, the manual is a useful guide to the bureau's thinking and its inherently political nature.
The bureau promises to regulate the nation's largest financial institutions with a "focus on consumers" and a "data-driven" and "consistent" approach. Some groups will get more attention than others, however—namely, "students, Older Americans, Service members, and the underserved." Underserved would seem to be a highly subjective standard.
Most bankers want clarity on the expanded regulatory powers granted under the 2010 Dodd-Frank law—in particular, how the bureau will define an "abusive" act. To date, banks have been subject to a longstanding body of law that included "unfair" or "deceptive" acts. The "abusive" standard is a Dodd-Frank creation. Mr. Date dodged the issue Wednesday, emphasizing that the bureau will rely on "evidence-based" analysis.
But what evidence? According to the manual, every exam "must include a review of compliance management, any potential unfair, deceptive or abusive practices, and regulatory compliance matters presenting risks to consumers" and, for lenders, "a review for discrimination." What kind of discrimination? The manual instructs the examiners to look for, among other things, business practices that have a "disparate impact" on minorities—a kind of statistical analysis the Supreme Court has declared invalid under several federal antidiscrimination statues.
The manual also encourages its auditors to consider complaints lodged not only with the bureau, but with such political actors as state attorneys general and "on-line consumer complaint boards such as www.ripoffreport.com or www.complaints.com." Directing a federal agency to consider complaints lodged on a private, consumer-advocacy website is unprecedented. The tort bar must be delighted at all the business about to be kicked its way.
Mr. Date was reporting Wednesday to Congress on the progress the bureau has made in its first 100 days. Judging from what we know so far, the bureau has vast powers, no serious Congressional checks and an already-politicized agenda. No wonder banks are hunkering done for what may soon hit them.
3a)All My Valued Employees,
There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job.
What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.
Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc.
Please vote for who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story.
This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You saw my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life. However, what you don't see is the back story.
I started this company 12 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living space was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.
My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.
Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's.
My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business --- with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.
So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9 am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5 pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, ****, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour.
Every day this business is attached to me like a 1 day old baby.
You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden -- the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... You never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made. Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail out all the people who didn't.
The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.
Yes, business ownership has its benefits but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:
I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government
mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.
The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check?
Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.
The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy. Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs
the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions
and better salaries. But you can forget it now.
When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the mud of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine.
Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep. So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more. Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire.
You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.
While tax cuts to 95% of America sounds great on paper, don't forget the back story: If there is no job, there is no income to tax. A tax cut on zero dollars is zero. So, when you make decision to vote, ask yourself, who understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn't?
Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of saving your job. While the media wants to tell you "It's the economy Stupid" I'm telling you it isn't.
If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the Constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me in the South Caribbean sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about.
Signed, Your boss,
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4)Who Lost Iraq? He Who Was Handed Victory
By Charles Krauthammer
Barack Obama was a principled opponent of the Iraq War from its beginning. But when he became president in January 2009, he was handed a war that was won.
The surge had succeeded. Al-Qaida in Iraq had been routed, driven to humiliating defeat by an Anbar Awakening of Sunnis fighting side by side with the infidel Americans.
Even more remarkably, the Shiite militias had been taken down, with American backing, by the forces of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They crushed the Sadr militias from Basra to Sadr City.
Al-Qaida decimated. A Shiite prime minister taking a decisively nationalist line. Iraqi Sunnis ready to integrate into a new national government. U.S. casualties at their lowest ebb in the entire war. Elections approaching. Obama was left with but a single task:
Negotiate a new status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) to reinforce these gains and create a strategic partnership with the Arab world's only democracy. He blew it. Negotiations, such as they were, finally collapsed last month. There is no agreement, no partnership. As of Dec. 31, the American military presence in Iraq will be liquidated.
And it's not as if that deadline sneaked up on Obama. He had three years to prepare for it. Everyone involved, Iraqi and American, knew that the 2008 SOFA calling for full U.S. withdrawal was meant to be renegotiated. And all major parties but one (the Sadr faction) had an interest in some residual stabilizing U.S. force, like the postwar deployments in Japan, Germany and Korea.
Three years, two abject failures. The first was the administration's inability, at the height of American post-surge power, to broker a centrist nationalist coalition governed by the major blocs — one predominantly Shiite (Maliki's), one predominantly Sunni (Ayad Allawi's), one Kurdish — that among them won a large majority (69%) of seats in the 2010 election.
Vice President Joe Biden was given the job. He failed utterly. The government ended up effectively being run by a narrow sectarian coalition where the balance of power is held by the relatively small (12%) Iranian-client Sadr faction.
The second failure was the SOFA itself. The military recommended nearly 20,000 troops, considerably fewer than our 28,500 in Korea, 40,000 in Japan and 54,000 in Germany. The president rejected those proposals, choosing instead a level of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.
A deployment so risibly small would have to expend all its energies simply protecting itself — the fate of our tragic, mission-less 1982 Lebanon deployment — with no real capability to train the Iraqis, build their U.S.-equipped air force, mediate ethnic disputes (as we have successfully done, for example, between local Arabs and Kurds), operate surveillance and special-ops bases, and establish the kind of close military-to-military relations that undergird our strongest alliances.
The Obama proposal was an unmistakable signal of unseriousness. It became clear that he simply wanted out, leaving any Iraqi foolish enough to maintain a pro-American orientation exposed to Iranian influence, now unopposed and potentially lethal. Message received.
Just this past week, Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurds — for two decades the staunchest of U.S. allies — visited Tehran to bend a knee to both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It didn't have to be this way. Our friends did not have to be left out in the cold to seek Iranian protection. Three years and a won war had given Obama the opportunity to establish a lasting strategic alliance with the Arab world's second most important power.
He failed, though he hardly tried very hard. The excuse is Iraqi refusal to grant legal immunity to U.S. forces. But the Bush administration encountered the same problem, and overcame it. Obama had little desire to. Indeed, he portrays the evacuation as a success, the fulfillment of a campaign promise.
But surely the obligation to defend the security and the interests of the nation supersede personal vindication. Obama opposed the war, but when he became commander in chief the terrible price had already been paid in blood and treasure. His obligation was to make something of that sacrifice, to secure the strategic gains that sacrifice had already achieved.
He did not, failing at precisely what this administration so flatters itself for doing so well: diplomacy. After years of allegedly clumsy brutish force, Obama was to usher in an era of not hard power, not soft power, but smart power.
Which turns out in Iraq to be … no power. Years from now we will be asking not "Who lost Iraq?" — that already is clear — but "Why?"
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