That’s Right Nate

Unfortunately, Youtube kills the audio and I can’t figure out how to put Vimeo.com videos on the blog. Here’s a link to the video I made this morning while following the latest news from Iran. It’s probably the most serious thing you’ll see on this blog.

Today, Obama got a bit more forceful about Iran saying, “We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.”  Unfortunately, he uses large words and by the time it gets translated into Farsi, it’s going to read as having the same impact as telling a waiter that you ordered your steak medium and he gave you medium.  The key to being forceful is to to call Iran evil.   For 8 years it worked quite well for George Bush and that’s why Republicans like myself are so disappointed to see Obama do away with the Bush strategy.

The key to being successful when dealing with Iran is to use strong language–exactly what Obama is avoiding.   Another technique is to threaten.   Obama refuses to do this because he doesn’t reallize that you don’t actually have to carry through on a threat for it to be effective.  Tell Iran that if another protester is so much as touched, we will be dropping a nuclear bomb in the center of Tehran.  We don’t actually need to do this, but that kind of rhetoric will get the Iranians to quickly cave.   Threaten them that we will send a massive army to conquer the country.  It doesn’t matter that we don’t have troops to spare.

I learned these lessons from my father.   One of the best parts of growing up was when my sister and I would get in trouble.   My dad would always tell us he was going to kick us out of the house or that he wouldn’t let mom give us food anymore.   The threats would get larger and larger and so totally preposterous that even at 7 I didn’t believe them.  I knew the odds of putting all my toys on a rocket ship and shooting them off into space was well beyond my father’s capabilities.  Still, the threats were great.   Eventually my sister and I would look forward into getting into trouble just so we could hear what threat my dad came up with next.   We used to love telling our friends about them.   This is exactly the approach that we Republicans want Obama to take with Iran.  Let’s make this a Happy Father’s Day in Iran by letting some good threats fly.

The Grand Old Party has fans all over the planet, not only in the United States.  It seems that the current fight for freedom in Iran was inspired by none other than Pete Hoekstra, John and the Republicans in the House of Representatives last year.   As Hoekstra said today via twitter, “Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.”

This was backed up by Texas’s own John Culberson who said, “Good to see Iranian people move mountains w social media, shining sunlight on their repressive govt – Texans support their bid for freedom.”  He then added, “Oppressed minorities includeHouseRepubs: We are using social media to expose repression such as last night’s D clampdown shutting off amends.”

It is amazing to see our plight as a minority party has not been lost on the people of Iran who undoubtedly took inspiration from the Republican attempt to overthrow the opression of Nancy Pelosi.  I took heart to see the way that twitter users immediately came to their aid including many who changed the location on their profiles to Washington DC and their time zone to Eastern in order to confuse Democrats who were trying to use twitter to track down Republican sources of information.  To our brothers in Iran who continue to fight the tyrany of Islam, I wish you good luck in your revolution.   I can assure you that Christianity is worth it as is Democracy.

Over this past weekend, we have seen the people of Iran get beaten, shot, and stabbed as they fought to make their voices heard against a totalitarian state.  Tomorrow, there will be another protest, where brave men and women put themselves in harm’s way to demand that their votes be counted.  Less reported, is an equally heroic march in the United States.  The protester’s goal is nothing less than the firing of David Letterman.

Sure, they don’t have the media spotlight that the Iranians do, but the heroic selflessness of the New York protesters is an inspiration to all who believe in democracy.   These brave men and women will be ready to confront riot police and interns  outside of the Ed Sullivan Theater at 4;30 Eastern Time, an hour before Letterman goes on live.  While Ahmadinejad supposedly committed voter fraud, Mister Letterman most assuredly made an off color joke about Sarah Palin’s daughter.   At least the voters defrauded in Iran were adults.   I guess Bristol Palin is too, but she’s only 18.

The Letterman rally is the work of Michael Patrick Leahy best known for threatening to sue bloggers and tweaters.  However, standing up to David Letterman and the forces of CBS is going to be even more dangerous.   Stay safe Michael.  Our prayers go with you in your fight for freedom.

Not that you could find this out on American television.

Iranians take to the street in protest

As a Republican, I have a natural affinity for conservatives in all elections.   I was thrilled by the results in Europe last week, but this week it was tough to root for Ahmadinejad despite his conservative props.   Many Americans know he’s talked about destroying Israel, but few know that he has an admirable record in crushing feminists, labor unions, and the gay agenda in Iran.

I’m not surprised to see Iran’s regime having trouble keeping control of their people.   After all, when Reagan called the Soviets an “evil empire” and told Gorbachev, “tear down this wall” look at the effect he had on the Soviet Union.   Of course, it didn’t actually collapse until his successor was in the White House.   I’m sure having George Bush call the Iranians part of “the axis of evil” and warn them “you’re either with us or against us” had a similar effect on Iran.  Still, I think all Republicans naturally pull for the riot police when they see them fighting with rabble in the streets.

I believe that much of this is Obama’s fault.   For years, Ahmadinejad had been able to keep a tight grip on Iran by claiming the United States was the great Satan.   During his recent speech in Cairo, Obama disarmed much of the Iranian populace with his diplomatic posture.    Ajmadinejad no longer had a way to deflect criticism of his regime and the economy by calling on the country to unite against America.   Yet another classic example of Obama’s foreign policy naievte.

In the pictures I’ve seen from Iran, I have to admit that it is really hard to tell who are the protesters and who are the Muslims, but it is clear that many in Iran are outraged at the election results.  I don’t think any of us in this country can know what its like to cast a vote and have your candidate declared winner only to have victory snatched in the middle of the night, by a less than fair process and a government with a vested interest in the outcome of the election.

It seems to me that with Iran in chaos and many of the young people in the country crying out for freedom, that this is the perfect time to bomb them and take out their nuclear capabilities once and for all.   With their attention focused totally inward, they will not be able to stop us and there is a very good chance that we will be seen as liberators.   of course Obama would never do that.  He’ll probably just keep being diplomatic.  Isn’t that what got us in this fix in the first place?

From the President that brought you the war in Afghanistan.

I’m warning you lie-berals out there.  There is another reason to vote against Obama.  Yesterday Rush Limbaush had an interesting exchange with a caller:

CALLER: Well, you mentioned before that he [Bush] had some plan, before leaving office that he was going to do something.

RUSH: I had talked to a bunch of his donors and said to me that they can’t see Bush leaving office with Iran still a problem, a nuclear problem. And he’s not out of office yet, either.

This comes on the heels of an article from Daniel Pipes at New Republic Online suggesting:

What I suspect will be the case is, should the Democratic nominee win in November, President Bush will do something. And should it be Mr. McCain that wins, he’ll punt, and let McCain decide what to do.

So if you peacenicks out there want war with Iran go ahead and vote for Obama I dare you.

Now that Obama is the Democrat nominee it seems like the ideal time to discuss his appeasement plan and contrast it with the level headed diplomacy that we’ve had for the past 8 years and that McCain wisely wants to continue.

To begin with, let’s look at North Korea.  An inexperienced President like Obama would probably have tried negotiating with them a few years ago when they were building up a nuclear program believing that we had more leverage.  Bush wisely waited until the bombs were already built.  By doing so North Korea knew we were serious because they already had the weapons.

When it comes to Iran, Bush may himself have been tempted to negotiate in 2003 when Karl Rove received a secret Iranian proposal for negotiations from Iranian Ambassador in Paris Sadeq Kharrazi  Kharrazi and the three top figures in Iranian foreign policy: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, then President Mohammad Khatami and his Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi.

In the proposal which was negotiated with Swiss ambassador Tim Guldimann the Iranians stated Iran was willing to consider far-reaching compromises on its nuclear program, relations with Hezbollah and Hamas and support for a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel as part of a larger peace agreement with the United States. 

Of course that was before the Iraq war and before Ahmadinajed came to power.  The new hardline government in Iran is unlikely to offer us the same terms.  On the other hand, Bush has played a very clever waiting game and it should be long with continued pressure before Iran caves.

Bush was probably not so anti-negotiation, but became that way after some less than stellar negotiations.  Maybe he rebought part of Alaska from Putin or gave assurances to Chavez for some magical coffee beans.  However, I am sure that Bush didn’t come to his position lightly.  As a 21st century  Bush has discovered a way of negotiating through the media that is responsible for much of this administration’s foreign policy success.

The Bush strategy involves not talking to our enemies, but in making public indirect threats about them either to the media or through third-parties.  By doing this publicly, they not only get their way, but have the added bonus of humiliating the foreign leader and making him lose face when he inevitably acquiesces.  I’m not denying that Obama can learn these techniques, but do we really want a leader who is learning on the job?  I don’t.

The United States is a democracy.  In a democracy the people pick the leaders.  In Iran, foreign policy is controlled by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and their National Security Council which is headed by Ali Larijani who is also the country’s top negotiator on nuclear issues.

The problem is as John McCain points out, “I mean, the fact is [Ahmadinejad’s] the acknowledged leader of that country and you may disagree, but that’s a uh, that’s your right to do so, but I think if you asked any average American who the leader of Iran is, I think they’d know.”

As a democracy we have chosen Ahmadinejad as their country’s leader.  Our strength as McCain has pointed out is in not negotiating with him.   We cannot allow the Democrats to take away one of our fundamental rights as a country–the ability to pick national leaders.  We must refust to speak to Ahmadinejad as a show of strength regardless of who may have actual power in Iran.

America’s first foray into Appeasement was in 1794 with the John Jay Treaty signed with England where America agreed to pay prewar debts to British merchants if England stopped capturing American merchant ships.  Over 150 years later JFK agreed to take missiles out of Europe if the Soviets removed theirs from Cuba.

Appeasement is identified as acquiring peace from your enemies by giving them gifts or concessions.   What Obama has proposed doing is bargaining with Iran in order to get peace in the middle east.  In theory Iran would call off their friends in al-Qaeda as well.

What Obama fails to reallize is that Iran is right by Iraq.  What Iran would love more than anything is to influence politics in that country.  If that happens it would be disastrous for the war effort.  Aside from Iran who else would Obama talk to?  Cuba? Venezuela?  North Korea?  Libya?   We have a lot of enemies and talking with them won’t get us anywhere. 

Few have the foreign policy expertise of Oliver North.  He’s their history guy.  Here’s his take, “That’s what the President said yesterday in Jerusalem. And a little reminder today, a shot across the bow here at the NRA, when John McCain got up and said, ‘You cannot have these kinds of unconditional, no preconditions discussions, with despots and dictators’ – dead on the mark.” 

This man has been an expert on foreign affairs for over 25 years and he comes right out and calls it.  You can’t deal with despots and dictators.  What Obama wants to do is a recipe for disaster.  The United States can’t afford that kind of leadership.