“We” have known it all along. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and former Carter National Security Advisor Zbignew Brzezinski proposed to enlist Iran’s help in stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan in a 2004 report for the Council on Foreign Relations:
From the perspective of U.S.interests,one particular issue area appears particularly ripe for U.S.-Iranian engagement:the future of Iraq and Afghanistan.The United States has a direct and compelling interest in ensuring both countries’security and the success of their post-conflict governments.Iran has demonstrated its ability and readiness to use its influence constructively in these two countries, but also its capacity for making trouble.The United States should work with Tehran to capitalize on Iran’s influence to advance the stability and consolidation of its neighbors. This could commence via a resumption and expansion of the Geneva track discussions with Tehran on post-conflict Afghanistan and Iraq. Such a dialogue should be structured to obtain constructive Iranian involvement in the process of consolidating authority within the central governments and rebuilding the economies of both Iraq and Afghanistan.Regular contact with Iran would also provide a channel to address concerns that have arisen about its activities and relationships with competing power centers in both countries. These discussions should incorporate other regional power brokers,as well as Europe and Russia—much like the “Six Plus Two”negotiations on Afghanistan that took place in the years before the Taliban were ousted. A multilateral forum on the future of Iraq and Afghanistan would help cultivate confidence and would build political and economic relationships essential to the long-term durability of the new governments in Baghdad and Kabul (p. 45).
Obama is following Gates’ and Brzezinski’s recommendation to the letter, but also the point of absurdity. It is the stupidest, most reckless, and most destructive foreign policy action the United States has taken in my lifetime.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
First Things: Obama's Anti-Israel Strategy Rooted in US-Iran Deal
Writing in First Things, David P. Goldman says there's method to the Obama administration's anti-Israel madness. The US has switched sides, tilting towards Teheran and against Jerusalem in order to be able to exit from Iraq and Afghanistan: