Our World: Ideologue-in-chief
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 29, 2009
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For a brief moment it seemed that 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 12 has 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.

caroline@carolineglick.com