Marie Harf: Kissinger's and Schultz's Detailed Critique of Obama's Foreign Policy Is Just a Lot of "Big Words and Big Ideas"

The Party of Intellectuals.

Party on, Wayne.

Party on, Female Garth.

Harf sparred with AP reporter Matt Lee, interrupting him several times as he tried to get a reaction to the op-ed from the State Department.

"Really, you don't think it’s nuanced?" Harf asked Lee.

"Is there a question or are you just commenting?" Harf replied. "I'm not going to go line by line."

In defense of the deal, Harf employed the typical White House talking points. The Obama administration has repeatedly challenged critics of the deal to offer an alternative. This response has been used to rebut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Republicans, foreign leaders, and even some from his own party.

"I didn't hear a lot of alternatives. I heard a lot of–sort of a lot of big words and big thoughts in that piece, and certainly there is a place for that. But I didn't hear a lot of alternatives about what they would do differently," Harf said.

By the way, whichever commenter used to talk about being "into" Marie Harf: You should be ashamed of yourself. And if you're not, we'll all be ashamed on your behalf, Weirdo.

That critique is here, but unless you're a WSJ subscriber you have to use the google backdoor to see it.

For 20 years, three presidents of both major parties proclaimed that an Iranian nuclear weapon was contrary to American and global interests--and that they were prepared to use force to prevent it. Yet negotiations that began 12 years ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability, albeit short of its full capacity in the first 10 years.

Mixing shrewd diplomacy with open defiance of U.N. resolutions, Iran has gradually turned the negotiation on its head. Iran's centrifuges have multiplied from about 100 at the beginning of the negotiation to almost 20,000 today. The threat of war now constrains the West more than Iran. While Iran treated the mere fact of its willingness to negotiate as a concession, the West has felt compelled to break every deadlock with a new proposal. In the process, the Iranian program has reached a point officially described as being within two to three months of building a nuclear weapon. Under the proposed agreement, for 10 years Iran will never be further than one year from a nuclear weapon and, after a decade, will be significantly closer.

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney had something to say.

CHENEY: Well it starts from a flawed presumption on Obama's part. For most of the last 70 years since World War II, we've had a bipartisan record in this country between Democrat and Republican. Harry Truman, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, the Bush’s believed America had to play a leading role in the world and needs to maintain first class military capability to do that and occasionally use it. That the world works best with U.S. leadership. The first president, really, who doesn't -- no longer believe that fundamental truth is Barack Obama.

...

HEWITT: Is he naive, Mr. Vice President? Or does he have a far reaching vision that only he entertains of a realigned Middle East. That somehow it all works out in the end.

CHENEY: I don't know Hugh. I vacillate between the various theories I've heard. If you had somebody who, as president -- who wanted to take America down. Who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world, reduce our capacity to influence events. Turn our back on our allies and encourage our enemies, it would look exactly like what Barack Obama is doing. I think his actions are constituted in my mind are those of the worst president we’ve ever had.

I agree, including with the vacillating. I don't believe it in the Strong Form of the proposition, but I do think I believe the Weak Form.

Obama believes the greatest threat to world peace, and the greatest engine of evil in the world, is America. He thinks he is doing what is in America's best interests -- by weakening it, by not allowing it to hurt the world (and, indirectly, thus hurt itself).

Obama's agreement with Iran is not designed to bind Iran -- it is designed to bind the US. It guarantees Iran's right to develop its bomb. Once it has its bomb (probably within a few years), the US cannot bomb its centrifuges or otherwise stop it.

In fact, the US will be precluded from responding hostilely to Iran at all -- even if it bombs Israel or other US allies.

You can't really bomb a country with the bomb.

Obama's "deal" guarantees Iran's goal -- getting the bomb -- while deliberately restricting the US from interfering with it.

Videos at the respective links.

Update: Speak of the lying Marxist.

Iran is now saying it is a "lie" that the US has the right to inspect its "military sites" -- that is, the ones we'd actually want to expect.

Who to believe here -- the fanatical religious leader who will say anything to bring about his heavenly utopia on earth, or the leader of Iran?

I believe Iran.

posted by Ace at 05:52 PM

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