Style Versus Substance - Obama's Foreign Policy Legacy? Emotion Versus Facts!

 SweetTammys.com Their new Web Page is up and running!
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Even the Germans understand about drawing lines in the sand
(See 1 below.)
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The press, media and Left want to smash Sen. Cruz before he resonates and gets traction with their enslaved voters.

Why Cruz is wrong!

Star Parker will be our President's Day Speaker, Feb 17th. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Appearance versus substance.Will that be the legacy of Obama's foreign policy and will the world be safer because of it?(See 3, 3a and 3b below.)
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There are many inconsistencies when politics is involved but I do believe it is fair to factually say Liberals win by playing the emotion card and Conservatives lose by sticking to the factual card.

Three simple examples:

a)Liberals believe in gun control but say little about the mentally deranged that use weapons.  No one would argue that background checks are inconsistent with the Constitutional right to own guns but yesterday, Obama went after those who own guns again when in fact the latest mass killing was the act of a nut case.

b)  Conservatives are trying to eliminate some of the waste and fraud in the food stamp program (5) which has ballooned to all time highs. Yet, liberals would have you believe conservatives are out to starve people.

Would America be safer if we reduce our fleet to 178 ships while professing to be a world power or would those who are taking advantage of the food program be better off if they were made to work?

c)Liberals tell black voters conservatives are against them yet liberal programs have destroyed the black family, have turned their class into an underclass, have destroyed solid education opportunities and now Obama presides over the highest unemployment rate in the black community in recent history.

Democrats voted for segregation and stood in school doors etc.  not Republicans.
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Dick
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1)DER SPIEGEL

Rumsfeld Interview: 'A Leader Should Be Careful about Drawing Red Lines'

Donald Rumsfeld is no stranger to intervening abroad. In an interview with SPIEGEL, the former US secretary of defense explains why Obama was right to delay military action in Syria and why the president must be wary of Russian President Putin.

SPIEGEL: You recently published a book called "Rumsfeld's Rules," which contains pearls of wisdom you collected during your five decades of public service and passed on to co-workers and employees. One rule says: "The perfect battle is the one that does not have to be fought." So, President Barack Obama did the right thing by calling off a military strike in Syria?

Rumsfeld: Yes, he did do the right thing. When I look at his current predicament -- Russian President Vladimir Putin lecturing President Obama on American exceptionalism and offering his plan for supervision of Syria's chemical weapons -- I think also of another rule, which says: "Never assume the other fellow will not do something you wouldn't do." Mr. Putin is very clever, and President Obama will need to keep that in mind.

SPIEGEL: You mean to say Obama is naive to believe that putting Syrian chemical weapons under United Nations supervision can be a solution?

Rumsfeld: We don't yet know the details or who would do the supervising, but my recollection is that the Soviets or the Russians gave Syria most of their weapons arsenal. And it is not clear to me that Russia itself has fully complied with all their obligations with respect to chemical weapons. Therefore, a question could be: Might it possibly amount to putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop?

SPIEGEL: By accepting Putin's offer, Obama could move away from an unpopular and ill-advised military strike. What is bad about that?

Rumsfeld: I think moving away from his proposed military action could be a good thing. President Obama accepted the Putin proposal because there were no good options left. I suspect the president wishes he had not gotten to this point. I think he might have been better off if he had helped some of the non-radical elements among the Syrian rebels early on, not with US troops, but with weapons, intelligence and humanitarian support. Without doing that, the factions that seem to be prevailing, at least to this date, are the ones that are the best organized, the most disciplined, the toughest, and the best financed -- some of which are radical Islamists, even though the Islamists most likely do not represent a majority in that country.

SPIEGEL: Aside from a military strike, are there any good options left when it comes to Syria?

Rumsfeld: I do not know. I was not able to see President Obama's speech on Syria on Tuesday, but it sounded from the press reports that he was of two minds, and that his speech reflected that.

SPIEGEL: Obama has tried to engage in public debate rather than rush into a war. Was it the right decision to ask Congress for permission?

Rumsfeld: Yes it was. Most US presidents since World War II have led military actions without a declaration of war by Congress, though most, if not all, have properly consulted and sought support from Congress. That is the wise thing to do. The president, however, found himself in a difficult position because he brought his proposal before Congress at a time when support of the House of Representatives seemed unlikely and the majority in our country was opposed to his military proposal, according to the polls.

SPIEGEL: So if we understand correctly, you are saying that it was not smart of the president to ask Congress in the first place?

Rumsfeld: That is not what I said. My point is that it is not a wise move if you lack a vision with sufficient clarity to gain majority support in the country and the Congress. As President of the United States, it is unwise to go to Congress to ask for support for the use of force and to be defeated. I believe such an action by the Congress would have been unprecedented. And if a president can't gain support in the US Congress, we should not be surprised that gaining support from the nations of the world would be just as difficult.

SPIEGEL: But a democratically elected president cannot simply govern against the will of his own people. And the American public has made it unmistakably clear that they are tired of wars.

Rumsfeld: That is true. Every country should be tired of going to war. War is a terrible thing, but that is the reason why a leader should be careful about drawing red lines. If I had been in Congress, as much as I would be inclined naturally to be supportive of a president, any president, I would have voted no, had the issue come to a vote.

SPIEGEL: Even if you were to look at the pictures and videos from Syria apparently showing men, women and even children dying as a result of the use of chemical weapons?

Rumsfeld: Of course it is terrible that hundreds of Syrians have died, including hundreds of children, reportedly as a result of the use of chemical weapons. But it is also terrible that more than 100,000 Syrians have died as a result of the use of other weapons -- rockets, guns, bombs and artillery.

SPIEGEL: As Obama said in his speech, it is part of "America's exceptionalism" that the oldest democracy in the world does not just sit on the sidelines and watch when a dictator gasses children.

Rumsfeld: I would suggest that it is an equal responsibility for other nations, such as Germany, France or England and others with capabilities.

SPIEGEL: Why did Obama have such big problems gaining the support of other countries for a military strike?

Rumsfeld: I believe the reason he has had difficulty gaining support both in the US and from other countries is because he has not explained what he hopes to do, what the mission would be and what he hopes to accomplish. To gain support in our Congress and from other nations requires clarity, an acceptable mission and an explicit outcome.

SPIEGEL: You cannot be serious. George W. Bush, who you served as Secretary of Defense, may have been clear about what he wanted, but most Americans now see the wars he started as being misguided. That would seem to be the real reason that the willingness in the US and the rest of the world to go to war is so low.

Rumsfeld: Such sentiments among Americans are hardly a new phenomenon. After World War I, for example, there was widespread war weariness and opposition to the US getting involved in World War II. Americans were reluctant and didn't want to go to war again in Europe. Similarly, there was no appetite for the Korean War in the United States, or the Vietnam War.

SPIEGEL: From the American perspective, World War II was a noble engagement that paid off in the long run. The same can hardly be said of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld: To be sure, the outcomes in Afghanistan and Iraq are uncertain. But, if you look closely, schools are open, they have a free press, have drafted a constitution and have had free elections. Afghanistan was torn after years of occupation by the Soviets, a long civil war and the vicious reign of the Taliban. Today, the people there at least have a chance for a better life. So too in Iraq, with the Butcher of Baghdad gone, a man who used chemical weapons against his own people, as well as his neighbors.

SPIEGEL: That sounds almost cynical given the thousands of people who lost their lives and billions of dollars those wars cost. And we still cannot be sure that these countries have a better future. But the US is now leaving them to their own devices.

Rumsfeld: Call it what you will, but my view is that we aren't a country that can go into another nation and do nation building. That's up to the people in those countries. There are people in the United States who think we do have the ability to nation build. I personally do not. We can help, to be sure, but they will need to do it in their own way.

SPIEGEL: If you go into a country like Iraq and change a regime to democratize the region, is it not your duty to assist in the rebuilding of the nation?

Rumsfeld: We can certainly help, but the purpose of the war in Iraq was regime change, not nation building. I worried about the word "democracy." Elections don't make a democracy. Adolf Hitler was initially elected. More recently, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was democratically elected. Neither resulted in democracies.

SPIEGEL: You seem to have a selective memory. The biggest problem was not which word was used, but that the Iraq war was started under false premises. And this is clearly the reason why Obama is having trouble gaining support for a military strike in Syria at the moment.

Rumsfeld: You can state and restate your opinions, but our current president cannot blame the Bush administration for every unfavorable situation that exists. Every president when he is elected has to live with the pluses and minuses his predecessor leaves, which includes benefits as well as burdens.

SPIEGEL: And what exactly are the advantages that Obama has as a successor to George W. Bush?

Rumsfeld: Your question suggests there are none. I would suggest he has had the advantage of the structures put in place to deal with terrorism in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. These are the capabilities President Obama is using today to fight terrorists, almost without change. Is he disadvantaged because of expenses and experiences that occurred before he was elected? Sure, as I've said, every president inherits both the benefits and the burdens left by their predecessors. A president can't go back in time. The question is how he manages going forward.

SPIEGEL: If it is so important to take responsibility, why don't you accept that Obama is limited in what he can do in Syria due to what the Bush Administration did in Iraq? He cannot convince Americans and international partners about the necessity to strike militarily in Syria because America's credibility was massively damaged when it went to war in Iraq under a false premise, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld: The intelligence existed. It was looked at by President George W. Bush. He found it persuasive. Secretary of State Colin Powell looked at the intelligence and found it persuasive, as he indicated in his speech to the world at the UN -- so, too, did Senators Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, as well as Senator Jay Rockefeller, all members of the other political party. Other nations, including the British government, looked at the same intelligence and came to a similar conclusion. Secretary Colin Powell, for example, was highly experienced dealing with intelligence. He did not lie. He told the world what he believed was true.

SPIEGEL: Because they were not told what seems obvious in retrospect: The information on weapons of mass destruction was perhaps not fabricated, but it was cherry-picked.

Rumsfeld: I can understand when people nowadays say it turned out this information was not correct. But at the time, the president, Secretary Powell, Republicans and Democrats in Congress and experts in many countries all found it persuasive. I don't believe Colin Powell cherry-picked the intelligence as you allege.

SPIEGEL: Do you understand why the Europeans are so outraged over NSA spying?

Rumsfeld: My impression is there are a lot of people, Republicans and Democrats in the US, as well as people overseas, who are concerned about the NSA programs. Should people be concerned about their privacy? You bet.

SPIEGEL: Are you?

Rumsfeld: Of course. Nobody wants to think that everything they do or say is under surveillance.

SPIEGEL: Do you believe that those programs are necessary for national security?

Rumsfeld: I've been out of government since 2006. I don't know anything about the details of the programs or their value.

SPIEGEL: If Obama really fails on Syria, is his presidency basically over? You yourself recently said he was the weakest president in your "adult lifetime."

Rumsfeld: No. He has three more years as president. His presidency is not just about Syria. The president has to provide leadership to gain support. It's not too late. He will need to lead. It is worth reminding us all that being president is a tough job for anybody, and particularly so in the information age. Prior US presidents had more time to think things through. Things happen much faster today. There's such a glut of information. Anything a president says or does is picked up on the Internet or the 24/7 news media and criticized almost instantly. Someone told me the other day that at his press conference at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, the President said "uh" 121 times. Clearly, he was trying to think through what he wanted to say. It is best if leaders have the time to do that before a press conference begins. Leaders persuade through their words and as such their words need to be measured and well chosen. It is a tough job.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Secretary, thank you for this interview.

Interview conducted by Marc Hujer and Gregor Peter Schmitz

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2)

Ted Cruz Isn't Abnormal; Washington Is

By Star Parker
According to a new Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans say they have little to no confidence that they can rely on mass media to report the news "fully, accurately and fairly."

Forty-six percent say the media is too liberal and just 13 percent think it's too conservative.

Justification for this public sentiment is evident as the budget and debt-ceiling issues heat up and the press can hardly restrain its disdain for Tea Party Republicans and the idea that our nation may really be in crisis.

New York Times columnist David Brooks does a regular political commentary feature along with Mark Shields on the "PBS NewsHour." It's hard to believe that this feature is supposed to be balanced, with Brooks the alleged conservative and Shields the liberal. But for PBS, like The New York Times where Brooks writes his column, anyone not on the far left is a conservative.

In a recent "NewsHour" segment about the budget debate, Brooks talked about "the rise of Ted Cruzism."

According to Brooks, the Republican freshman senator from Texas is not a "normal" senator who sees himself in Congress to form alliances and pass legislation. Rather, per Brooks, Cruz is more a "media protest person."

The same thing is happening in the House, says Brooks. House Republicans are "not normal. ... They just want to obstruct."

My organization, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, held an event in Washington two weeks ago titled "Reversing the Urban Plight."

About 100 black pastors and community leaders from around the country listened as black conservatives such as Dr. Ben Carson, economist Walter Williams, Louisiana State Sen. Elbert Guillory and CURE chairman and Family Research Council senior fellow Ken Blackwell talked about how freedom and conservative principles hold the key to resolving our urban crises.

At dinner, Cruz dropped by.

In stark contrast to what the PBS viewing audience heard from Brooks, this audience heard remarks from Cruz that everyone in the room found refreshingly normal.

Cruz had a crisp, clear message about getting America back on track and about what it will take to save our low-income urban communities.

He talked about the importance of school choice and personal retirement accounts for low-income Americans.

Only in Washington is it considered abnormal and obstructionist for a member of Congress to ring the alarm about the loss of freedom in America, to take a stand to restore it, and suggest that Americans, particularly low-income Americans, should be able to decide what kind of school they send their child to and to keep and save more of their hard-earned income.

In Cruz, the black pastors heard someone who wants to liberate, not obstruct. They understood that the obstructionists, whose agenda is holding onto and expanding their own power, come from the political class in Washington.

While the median American family income dropped 6.6 percent from 2000 to 2012, median family income in Washington, D.C., grew 23.3 percent -- by far the highest in the nation, new Census Bureau data show.

Let's recall that the tea party movement got going when it was clear in 2009 that America's new president saw more government rather than less as the answer to America's crisis.

The 2010 health care reform commonly called "Obamacare," which passed without a single Republican vote, has only gotten more unpopular. A USA Today/Pew Research Center poll this week shows 53 percent of Americans disapprove of the new law and 42 percent approve. Forty one percent strongly disapprove and 26 percent strongly approve.

It's Washington that is abnormal, not Ted Cruz and tea party Republicans.

Only a left-wing press can conclude that the abnormal obstructionists are those taking a stand for freedom in a country that is supposed to be free.

Star Parker  

Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can do About It.
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2a)

Countdown to GOP Self-Destruction

On immigration reform and ObamaCare, the 'party of no' confirms its reputation—and courts long-term devastation.

By MICHAEL MEDVED

With most Americans undeniably dissatisfied with the direction of their government, why would some congressional conservatives insist on identifying Republicans as unyielding defenders of a broken status quo? Their implacable obsession with uprooting ObamaCare and their die-hard resistance to immigration reform all but guarantee near-term legislative defeats and long-term devastation to future party prospects.

First, ObamaCare. Under relentless pressure from a handful of Republican senators led by Texas' Ted Cruz, the House on Friday passed a bill that would defund ObamaCare but keep money flowing for other government operations through Dec. 15.

But all observers—including Mr. Cruz himself—acknowledge that the Senate will overhaul the House's measure to restore the health-care funding. When the bill is then kicked back to the House, the public will face a government shutdown as the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. At that point, the GOP will confront a painful but inevitable choice: surrendering to the president and his allies, either before or after a wildly unpopular government shutdown.

Rather than confronting these incontestable realities, too many conservatives choose to embrace the role of sure losers. To use a military analogy, there is no glory in charging recklessly up a hill when you know your forces will be mowed down by enemy fire before reaching the top. Glory comes in making the enemy lose. The GOP shouldn't pursue noble defeat while standing on principle. You build momentum for a movement by achieving legislative victories, not by racking up high-profile losses.

This doesn't mean that conservatives should abandon all efforts to reduce the pernicious impact of the Affordable Care Act. But ObamaCare critics must adopt achievable goals rather than raising false hopes among the base by focusing on grand schemes to repeal or totally defund the program.

An emphasis on fixing ObamaCare, or delaying its more obnoxious aspects, would resonate far more effectively with an increasingly cynical public. That approach would also address complaints from many quarters that Republicans talk almost exclusively about what they don't want, without putting forward their own proposals for repair.

Such a negative-only attitude describes much of the GOP opposition to comprehensive immigration reform. Earlier this year, Republicans denounced a flawed Senate compromise, but failed to come forward with their own credible plan to improve a dysfunctional immigration system that has become a national embarrassment.

It simply isn't enough to continue demanding more money for border fences and drones along the Rio Grande. Everyone knows that the Democratic-controlled Senate would never allow immigration reform that only addresses border security. And no matter how effectively such a fence might help block future migrants, it does nothing to address the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.

Since overwhelming majorities in both parties reject the impractical concept of mass deportations, there's only one way to make serious reductions in the unconscionable number of unauthorized aliens. They need to be given a path to change their status from illegal to legal, albeit a slow path to make up for their past rule-breaking. Republicans who oppose such common-sense reform confirm the GOP's image as the "party of no," always ready to oppose reform but unwilling to present constructive alternatives.

If immigration reform passes Congress and winds up on the president's desk, it's easy to imagine most Americans celebrating the fresh starts given to millions of unauthorized immigrants and the extension of the rule of law to a significant segment of the workforce. But if immigration reform dies, then what, exactly, would restrictionists celebrate? That, once again, attempts to rationalize a dysfunctional immigration system have failed?

On ObamaCare and immigration reform, too many Republicans have cast themselves as classic villains in a heart-tugging melodrama of Democratic design. Liberal Democrats play the do-gooders trying to give something to the American people, while conservative Republicans look like misers determined to take it away. Conservatives rightly deplore many details in these sweeping legislative packages. But like many politicians, the public hasn't read the legislation either and instead focuses on the contrast between liberal "reformers" and conservatives who would rather leave things broken.

The GOP's only hope comes from bold conservative governors, like Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Ohio's John Kasich, Kansas' Sam Brownback and, yes, New Jersey's Chris Christie, who are making a discernible impact on the lives of their citizens. The 30 Republican governors—especially in the 24 states where they control both houses of their legislatures—don't have the luxury of sacrificing themselves on the national stage for the purity of their principles. They have no choice but to face up to the grubby, imperfect business of governance. If only those in Congress would follow their lead.

In 1955, William F. Buckley Jr. memorably defined conservatism as a willingness to "stand athwart history yelling Stop." At the current juncture, with the road ahead perilous and uncertain, it still makes sense to slow onrushing traffic. But yelling "Stop" isn't enough. The GOP must supplement that warning by offering clear directions for a better route to American revival.

Mr. Medved hosts a daily, nationally syndicated radio show and is the author, most recently, of "The 5 Big Lies About American Business" (Crown Forum, 2009)

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3)From Damascus To Tehran

Iran's mullahs see a U.S. President eager for a nuclear deal.

The ruling clerics in Tehran haven't survived in power for 34 years without cunning. Fresh from their ally Bashar Assad's diplomatic victory in Damascus, they now see an opening to liberate themselves from Western pressure too. They're hoping an eager President Obama will ease sanctions in return for another promise of WMD disarmament.

That's the prudent way to read Iran's recent interest in Mr. Obama's entreaties after five years of rude dismissals. No doubt the mullahs are feeling international economic pressure, especially from financial sanctions through the world banking system. But they have shown for years that they don't mind imposing pain on their own people.

New President Hassan Rouhani sounds less strident notes than his predecessor, but the regime has rolled out other presidents who turned out either to have no power or to be false fronts to beguile the West. The real power, as ever, resides with the clerics and especially Ayatollah Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Mr. Rouhani was their nuclear envoy in the mid-2000s when Iran accelerated its nuclear-weapons program. It's doubtful they've had a come-to-Allah moment on nukes.

)The likely reason they've finally decided to answer Mr. Obama's overtures is because they see an America in retreat and eager for a nuclear deal. In Syria, they saw Mr. Obama leap at Russia's diplomatic offer rather than follow through on his threat of a U.S. military strike if Assad used chemical weapons. Assad is now safe from Western intervention and he can dissemble and delay on disarming his chemical stockpiles.

The mullahs can also see how eager Mr. Obama is for a second-term deal with Iran that validates his campaign claim that "the tide of war is receding." The President has never taken no for an answer from Tehran. Despite being rebuffed for five years, he sent another entreaty after Mr. Rouhani's election in June.

Mr. Obama's letter invited Mr. Rouhani to "cooperate with the international community, keep your commitments and remove ambiguities" about the atomic program in exchange for sanctions relief, according to a senior Iranian official quoted in Thursday's New York Times. The letter hasn't been released, but Mr. Rouhani called it "positive and constructive" in an interview with NBC Wednesday.

The mullahs also learned from the Syrian fiasco that Mr. Obama wasn't able to sway Americans to support even what John Kerry called an "unbelievable small" military strike. They can see as well that even many Republican leaders now want the U.S. to withdraw from world leadership. As in the 1920s and 1970s, most American elites are eager for a diplomatic deal of just about any kind rather than run the risk of a military strike.

The White House is already signaling its first concession by suggesting that Mr. Obama might meet Mr. Rouhani in New York at this week's U.N. General Assembly. That would be the first such presidential meeting since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and it would give the dictatorship new international prestige at zero cost. Iran continues to support U.S. enemies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan, and it continues to crush its political opposition at home.

Iran's diplomatic goals are obvious: Break its international isolation and lift the sanctions in exchange for a promise not to build a nuclear weapon even as it retains its ability to build one at a moment's notice. The Rouhani aide said last week that Tehran was particularly eager to lift the ban on Iranian money transfers through the Swift interbank system, and it will press for that as an initial concession before it dismantles a single nuclear centrifuge.

The danger for world order is that Iran is already close to a nuclear breakout capacity when it will be able to finish a device in a matter of weeks, without technically testing or possessing a bomb. The mullahs could also easily pull the North Korean trick of dismantling one facility while secretly running another one. They have systematically lied about their nuclear program for years.

All of which bodes ill for any genuine nuclear breakthrough. If true global security is Mr. Obama's goal, then at a bare minimum any deal would have to halt Iran's enrichment of uranium, remove the already enriched uranium from the country, close all nuclear sites and provide for robust monitoring anytime and anywhere.

Anything less would be a mirage. Anything less would force Israel in particular to recalculate the risks of a pre-emptive attack compared to the risks of future nuclear destruction. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran's other Middle East rivals will also be looking closely at the fine print of any deal. A negotiation that dismantles Iran's nuclear program would be a great step forward, but a deal that promises peace while letting Iran stay poised on the edge of becoming a nuclear power would endanger the world

3a)Russia's Anti-American Foreign Policy

Putin needs high oil prices and a distraction from his domestic troubles

By 

DAVID SATTER

Despite optimism in the United States that the Russian peace initiative may offer a way out of the Syrian crisis, the pattern of Russian foreign policy shows that Russia can envisage nothing better for itself than the role of world-wide antagonist of the U.S.

The difference in values between the U.S. and Russia—and the subordination of Russian foreign policy to the personal interests of the members of a corrupt regime—should have been obvious to the Obama administration from the beginning. But it did nothing to forestall the policy of "reset." At the 2009 Moscow Summit, Mr. Obama praised the "extraordinary work" that Vladimir Putin, who was then officially the prime minister, had done for Russia. Mr. Obama described Mr. Putin as "sincere, just and deeply interested in the welfare of the Russian people."

The praise was never reciprocated, in part because Russian leaders fear and distrust their own population, and they understand that Western advocacy of the rule of law and human rights is a potential threat to their rule. In recent years, U.S. officials have often said that it is difficult to solve the world's problems without Russia. Unfortunately, it is often even harder to solve them with it.

The U.S. needs three things from Russia: understanding in defense matters, assistance in the war on terror, and help in curbing the ambitions of rogue states. In each case, the record of the Putin regime is one of relentless obstruction.

One source of conflict has been Russian objections to U.S. plans to construct an antimissile shield in Europe to protect U.S. allies against an attack from Iran. Russia has treated the shield as a threat to its nuclear deterrent, despite the opinion of Russia's own experts that the missiles pose no threat to the Russian ICBM force and are intended for a completely different purpose.

In 2009, Mr. Obama canceled plans for antimissile installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, in part to improve U.S.-Russian relations. But the U.S. is now preparing to station interceptors in Romania. In response, Russia is demanding legal guarantees that the missiles will not be used against Russia and is threatening to target U.S. missile-defense sites if there is no agreement.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the Russian position as "crazy." "You can't in any rational way think that NATO constitutes a threat against Russia," he told the AP in February 2012. "It's a complete waste of money to deploy offensive weapons and capabilities against NATO territory."

Russia has also undermined U.S. efforts to combat terror. Two striking recent examples are the cases of the Boston Marathon bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and the NSA leaker, Edward Snowden.

Tsarnaev spent six months in the Dagestan region of Russia in 2012 before the attack on April 15. Two of his contacts, Mahmud Nigal, a suspected link with the Islamist underground, and William Plotnikov, a Russian-Canadian Islamic radical, were killed by Russian forces while he was there. Yet the Russians insist that Tsarnaev was not under surveillance in Dagestan and never questioned. If this is true, it is in complete contradiction to all known Russian practice. Tsarnaev left Russia freely through Moscow's Sheremetevo Airport and the Federal Security Service never warned the U.S. about his contacts in Dagestan.

Russia also showed little concern for efforts to protect U.S. civilians in its decision to shelter Edward Snowden. In light of the quantity and quality of what Mr. Snowden stole, an adequate damage assessment depends on getting him back to the U.S. Until that happens, the efforts of the NSA and other agencies to defend the U.S. against terror are going to be crippled.

Aware of this, Mr. Putin seems to be mainly concerned with subjecting the U.S. to ridicule. The Russian media have published articles about Mr. Snowden's "new life," "proposals of marriage" and a future career defending human rights. At the same time, although Mr. Putin said that a condition of Mr. Snowden's asylum was that he "stop harming our American partners," the leaks of NSA information have continued.

Russian obstruction of the U.S. has had its gravest consequences, however, in interstate relations. Russia has defended Iran against Western economic sanctions, arguing that they are "a violation of international law." Moscow also has been unswerving in its support for Bashar Assad in Syria, from voting to block three U.N. Security Council resolutions on sanctions against Syria to insisting that the chemical-weapons attack on Aug. 21 that killed more than 1,400 Syrians was carried out by the rebels.

The U.S. will now try to enforce a U.S.-Russian agreement on the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons under conditions in which Russia and Syria can use delay, obfuscation and disinformation to string out the process indefinitely. Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition, which has endured chemical-weapons attacks without seeing a serious response from the civilized world, is likely to continue to radicalize.

Russian anti-Americanism is likely to intensify. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia has no universal ideology capable of inspiring loyalties that transcend national boundaries. Anti-Americanism is a kind of substitute. It allows Russia to carve out a prominent role for itself in world affairs that it could never have if it were concerned only with acting positively.

At the same time, and probably more important, anti-Americanism can be used to distract Russians from the corruption of the Putin regime and the pillaging of the country. Mr. Putin and his associates stand at the apex of a corrupt system and, according to some estimates, control 15% of the national wealth. During protest demonstrations last year over the falsification of elections, Mr. Putin was openly referred to as a "thief," a serious development in a society where the charge is widely believed but usually not made publicly.

At the same time, the regime is threatened by a deteriorating economy. In the second quarter of this year, growth fell to 1.2%. During the 2000s, the rate was 7.2%. Because of its immense corruption, Russia is critically dependent on high oil prices, and these are supported by Middle East instability.

Under such circumstances, the U.S. is not only a helpful distraction but a convenient scapegoat. Mr. Putin is losing support in Moscow, but his defense of the Assad regime evokes nostalgia for the Soviet empire and strengthens his support among the conservative and provincial part of the population. As Mr. Putin's political position weakens further, his antagonism toward the U.S. will almost certainly increase.

In the wake of the Russian initiative over Syria, the U.S. is now much more reliant on Russia than it should ever have permitted itself to be. In our fixation with "deliverables," we forgot that what really matters in relations between states are intangibles, such as good faith. That's something Mr. Putin has not shown toward America in the past, and U.S. policy makers would be unwise to rely on it in the future.

Mr. Satter is affiliated with the Hudson Institute, Johns Hopkins University and the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. He is the author, most recently, of "It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past" (Yale, 2011).

3b)Obama would rather negotiate fecklessly than contend responsibly

By Caroline B. Glick

Did US President Barack Obama score a great victory for the United States by concluding a deal with Russia on Syria's chemical weapons or has he caused irreparable harm to the US's reputation and international position? By what standard can we judge his actions when the results will only be known next year?

To summarize where things now stand, last Saturday US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov concluded an agreement regarding Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. The agreement requires Syria to provide full details on the size and locations of all of its chemical weapons by this Saturday. It requires international inspectors to go to Syria beginning in November, and to destroy or remove Syria's chemical weapons from the country by June 2014.

Obama and Kerry have trumpeted the agreement as a great accomplishment. They say it could never have been concluded had the US not threatened to carry out "unbelievably small" punitive military strikes against the Syrian regime in response to its use of Sarin gas to massacre 1,400 civilians in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21.

And then there is the perception of an "Iran dividend" from the US-Russian deal. Just two days after last Saturday's agreement, speculation mounted about a possible breakthrough in the six party negotiations with Iran regarding its illicit nuclear weapons program.

According to Der Spiegel, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani may consider closing down Iran's illicit uranium enrichment facility at Fordo under IAEA supervision in exchange for the removal or weakening of economic sanctions against Iran's oil exports and its central bank.

The White House has not ruled out the possibility that Obama and Rouhani may meet at the UN General Assembly meeting later this month. These moves could pave the way for a reinstatement of full diplomatic relations between the US and Iran. Those relations were cut off after the regime-supported takeover of the US embassy in Teheran in 1979.

Obama's supporters in the US media and Congress have hailed these developments as foreign policy victories for the United States. Thanks to Obama's brilliant maneuvering, Syria has agreed to disarm from its chemical weapons without the US having had to fire a shot. The Iranians' increased willingness to be forthcoming on their nuclear program is similarly a consequence of Obama's tough and smart diplomacy regarding Syria, and his clever utilization of Russia as a long arm of US foreign policy.

For their part, critics have lined up to condemn Obama's decision to cut a deal with Russia regarding Syria.

They warn that his actions in that regard have destroyed the credibility of his threat to use force to prevent Iran from developing or deploying nuclear weapons.

To determine which side is right in this debate, we need to look no further than North Korea.

In April 1992 the IAEA concluded that North Korea was hiding information on its nuclear program from the UN and declared it in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it signed in 1985. In March 1993 North Korea announced its intention to vacate its signature from the NPT. Later that year, it later offered to begin negotiations related to its illicit nuclear program with the US.

Those negotiations began in early 1994, after the US canceled planned joint military exercises with South Korea as a goodwill gesture to the North. The talks led to the Agreed-Framework Agreement concluded later that year under which North Korea agreed to shutter its nuclear installation at Yongbyon where it was suspected of developing plutonium based nuclear weapons. In exchange the US and its allies agreed to build light water nuclear reactors in North Korea, and to provide North Korea with oil for energy production until the reactors were up and running.

In November 2002 the North Koreans acknowledged that they were engaging in illicit uranium enrichment activities. In January 2003 Pyongyang announced it was withdrawing from the NPT.

In February 2005 it announced it possessed a nuclear arsenal. And on October 9, 2006, North Korea launched its first test of a nuclear bomb.

The US suspended its talks with North Korea in 2003. It responded to the nuclear test by renewing those negotiations just weeks after it took place. And in February 2007 the US and North Korea reached an agreement under which Pyongyang agreed to close down Yongbyon in exchange for a resumption of shipments of free oil.

In September 2007, against the strenuous opposition of then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who was the architect of the US's renewed push to cut a deal with North Korea, Israel destroyed a North Korean built nuclear reactor almost identical to the Yongbyon nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert. Had it become operational, Syria would likely have developed a nuclear arsenal by now.

In June 2008, the North Koreans demolished Yongbyon's cooling tower.

Amidst fears that North Korea had reopened the reactor in the fall of 2008, the US removed North Korea from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Six months later, in April 2009, Pyongyang resumed its reprocessing of spent fuel rods for the production of plutonium. And the next month it conducted another nuclear test.

In 2010, North Korean scientists at Yongbyon told Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory that the plutonium reactor had been shuttered.

Later in 2010, the North Koreans began open enrichment of uranium at Yongbyon.

Enrichment activities have doubled in scale since 2010. US experts now assess that with 4,000 centrifuges operating, North Korea produces enough enriched uranium to build three uranium based nuclear bombs every year. On February 12, 2013 North Korea conducted a third nuclear test. Experts were unclear whether the tested bomb a plutoniumbased or uranium-based nuclear weapon.

On September 11, the media reported that the latest satellite imagery indicates the North Koreans have resumed their plutonium production activities at Yongbyon.

Although the media claim that this represents an abrogation of the 2007 deal, it is unclear why that deal was considered in place given that North Korea began its reprocessing activities in April 2009 and tested another nuclear weapon the next month.

Although it issued a strong statement condemning the reopening of the plutonium operation at Yongbyon, the Obama administration remains committed to the sixparty talks with North Korea.

When viewed as a model for general US-non-proliferation policy, rather than one specific to North Korea, the North Korean model involves a rogue state using the Chinese and Russians to block effective UN Security Council action against its illicit development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Faced with a dead end at the UN, the US is forced to decide between acting on its own to compel a cessation of the illicit behavior, or to try to cut a deal with the regime, either through bilateral or multilateral negotiations.

Not wishing to enter into an unwanted confrontation or suffer domestic and international condemnations of American unilateralism, the US opts for diplomacy. The decision is controversial in Washington. And to justify their decision, the champions of negotiating deals with rogue proliferators stake their personal reputations on the success of that policy.

In the case of Rice, her decision to open negotiations with North Korea following its nuclear test was staunchly opposed by vice president Dick Cheney. And once the policy was exposed as a failure first by the intelligence reports proving that North Korea was proliferating its nuclear technologies and know-how to Syria, and then with its early suspension of its agreement to the 2007 agreement, rather than acknowledge her mistake, she doubled down. And as a consequence, under the nose of the US, and with Washington pledged to a framework deal to which North Korea stood in continuous breach, North Korea carried out two more nuclear tests, massively expanded its uranium enrichment activities, and reinstated its plutonium production activities.

Just as importantly, once the US accepted the notion of talks with North Korea, it necessarily accepted the regime's legitimacy. And as a consequence, both the Clinton and Bush administrations abandoned any thought of toppling the regime. Once Washington ensnared itself in negotiations that strengthened its enemy at America's expense, it became the effective guarantor of the regime's survival. After all, if the regime is credible enough to be trusted to keep its word, then it is legitimate no matter how many innocents it has enslaved and slaughtered.

With the US's experience with North Korea clearly in mind, it is possible to assess US actions with regards to Syria and Iran. The first thing that becomes clear is that the Obama administration is implementing the North Korean model in its dealings with Syria and Iran.

With regards to Syria, there is no conceivable way to peacefully enforce the US Russian agreement on the ground. Technically it is almost impossible to safely dispose of chemical weapons under the best of circumstances.

Given that Syria is in the midst of a brutal civil war, the notion that it is possible for UN inspectors to remove or destroy the regime's chemical weapons is patently absurd.

Moreover, since the agreement itself requires non-compliance complaints to be discussed first at the UN Security Council, and it is clear that Russia is willing to do anything to protect the Syrian regime, no action will be taken to punish non-compliance.

Finally, like his predecessors with regard to Pyongyang, Obama has effectively accepted the continued legitimacy of the regime of Bashar Assad, despite the fact that he is an acknowledged war criminal.

As was the case with Pyongyang and its nuclear brinkmanship and weapons tests, Assad won his legitimacy and removed the US threat to remove him from power by using weapons of mass destruction.

As for Iran, Rouhani's talk of closing Fordo needs to be viewed against the precedents set at Yongbyon by the North Koreans. In other words, even if the installation is shuttered, there is every reason to believe that the shutdown will be temporary. On the other hand, just as North Korea remains off the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism despite the fact that since its removal it carried out two more nuclear tests, it is hard to imagine that sanctions on Iran's oil exports and central bank removed in exchange for an Iranian pledge to close Fordo, would be restored after Fordo is reopened.

Like North Korea, Iran will negotiate until it is ready to vacate its signature on the NPT and test its first nuclear weapon.

The critics are correct. And the danger posed by Obama's decision to seek a false compromise rather than accept an unwanted confrontation following Syria's use of chemical weapons will only be removed when the US recognizes the folly of seeking to wish away the dangers of weapons of mass destruction through negotiations. Those talks lead only to the diminishment of US power and the endangerment of US national security as more US enemies develop and deploy weapons of mass destruction with the sure knowledge that the US would rather negotiate fecklessly than contend responsibly with the dangers they pose.

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