Storm Fronts

If you think that Barack Obama can't still pull Iraqi defeat from the jaws of George W. Bush's surge victory, says Charles Krauthammer, think again:

Iran has always been the biggest threat to liberated Iraq. They subverted the elected Iraqi government throughout the Bush years, they supported the Shiite and, yes, Sunni insurgencies with weapons and proxie armies (the "Sadr army"). The surge squashed the latter gambit, but the former remains, and if The One truly is intent on making a "comprehensive" declaration of victory, complete with "Mission Accomplished" banner, followed by a complete pullout leaving the Iraqis twisting in the military AND political winds, guess who's waiting to move in and fill that void, along with their new Turkish satellite?

With Iraq in the bag, the mullahgarchy will effectively control contiguous territory from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean and the Bosporus, the shores of southeastern Europe. And, with the Iranian-backed Islamist pressure mounting on autocratic Egypt, they could soon dominate the Sinai and the Suez Canal along with it, to say nothing of having Israel encircled in even greater depth than they do already.

***But Red Barry doesn't sweat any of that; after all, we've got him, and he can sweet talk any enemy into bosom friendship:

President Obama put the issue of negotiating with Iranfirmly back on the table Wednesday in an unusual White House session with journalists. His message was that even as U.N. sanctions squeeze Tehran, he is leaving open a “pathway” for a peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue.

“It is very important to put before the Iranians a clear set of steps that we would consider sufficient to show that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons,” Obama said, adding: “They should know what they can say ‘yes’ to.” As in the past, he left open the possibility that the United States would accept a deal that allows Iran to maintain its civilian nuclear program, so long as Iran provides “confidence-building measures” to verify that it is not building a bomb.

The renewed opening to Iran also included a proposal for talks on Afghanistan. Obama said he favored a “separate track” for discussion of this issue, in which the two sides have a “mutual interest” in fighting the Taliban. He urged that, as part of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s push for “reintegration” with the Taliban, Iran should be included in regional talks about stability. “Iran should be a part of that and could be a constructive partner,” he said.

Insane. The man is utterly, completely insane. Also delusional and crazy and nutzoid. Iran is pursuing the very same strategy in Afghanistan - arming and otherwise using the Taliban as a proxy army - that they did in Iraq. And now he's back to trying to put over the theocratic fascists that want to kill us all as "partners in peace" and handing them Karzai's head on a platter as an extra bonus.

And, by the way, they're never going to give up their nukes:

As Iran and world powers prepare for new nuclear talks, letters by Tehran’s envoys to top international officials and shared with The Associated Press suggest major progress is unlikely, with Tehran combative and unlikely to offer any concessions.

Two letters, both written late last month, reflect Iran’s apparent determination to continue the nuclear activities that have led to new rounds of U.N., EU, and U.S. sanctions in recent weeks over fears that Tehran might be seeking to develop nuclear arms. …

Iran insists it want to enrich uranium only to make fuel for a planned reactor network and denies accusations that it will use the program to make fissile warhead material.

But international suspicions are strong. Tehran hid its enrichment program until it was revealed from the outside. And it acknowledged constructing a secret nuclear facility last year to the International Atomic Energy Agency last year only days before its existence was publicly revealed by the U.S. and Britain.

I say it every time I address this topic, and this time is no different: Years ago we might have been able to enable the Iranian people overthrow the mullahgarchy. That Rubicon isn't even in the rear view mirror anymore. In 2003 we were in the perfect position to invade Iran as we did Iraq, in an all-at-the-same-time clean sweep of the "Arab Crescent" from Syria to Afghanistan, and crush the mullahs as we did Saddam Spiderhole. The mullahs were petrified we were planning precisely that. But we didn't, their "terror" passed, and every day since then they've become more and more convinced that we will not resist them on ANYTHING, and that they've already conquered us, with the official surrender a mere formality.

This latest "open hand" does nothing to change that estimation. Indeed, I suspect that B.O. is "reaching out" again because of this "misunderstanding" that had more to do in any case with Iranian paranoia than any realism seeping into Lucifer's cerebellum.

***Meanwhile, the ChiComms are gaining the capability to match their ambition of driving us out of the Western Pacific:

While a nuclear bomb could theoretically sink a carrier, assuming its user was willing to raise the stakes to atomic levels, the conventionally-armed Dong Feng 21D’s uniqueness is in its ability to hit a powerfully defended moving target with pin-point precision…

“The Navy has long had to fear carrier-killing capabilities,” said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the nonpartisan, Washington-based Center for a New American Security. “The emerging Chinese antiship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post-Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose.”…

“China can reach out and hit the U.S. well before the U.S. can get close enough to the mainland to hit back,” said Toshi Yoshihara, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College. He said U.S. ships have only twice been that vulnerable — against Japan in World War II and against Soviet bombers in the Cold War.

Carrier-killing missiles “could have an enduring psychological effect on U.S. policymakers,” he e-mailed to the AP. “It underscores more broadly that the U.S. Navy no longer rules the waves as it has since the end of World War II. The stark reality is that sea control cannot be taken for granted anymore.”

Ah, but remember, to Obamunists, who consider America (before they got power over it) to be the focus of evil in the modern world, this is a good thing. So the "enduring psychological effect" will be pushing on an open door until at least 2013.

What will be enduring is the crippling effect on American military capabilities of the Obama megadebt, which I'll guarantee you is one of its purposes.

UPDATE (8/8): See here for an in-depth analysis of the DF-21D. Here's J.E. Dyer's conclusion:

It’s the combination of weapons China can increasingly bring to bear that the US Navy is worried about. If we’ve got one big, honking set of tactical constraints imposed by the Chinese submarine threat, another posed by the Chinese attack aircraft threat, and another posed by supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, adding the DF-21D as a flight-ops harassment problem makes it that much harder for our forces to keep their heads above water: to use our weapons to actually attack the enemy, rather than just to defend ourselves.

Funny that the ChiComms are going after naval neutralization, if not outright superiority, at the same time that the mullahs are going after nuclear weapons to actually USE them. Throw in the Russians and Uncle Hugo down south and you could almost get the idea that the ultimate plan is to encircle US.

It'll start on a day much like this....