Another major debacle on the way.
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization confirmed for the first time on Friday that Iran was building a “semi-industrial enrichment fuel facility,” designed to produce nuclear fuel that it had not previously announced to international authorities, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
The announcement came hours after President Obama and leaders of Britain and France accused Iran on Friday of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying the country has hidden the covert operation from international weapons inspectors for years.
But who cares eh? Obama doesn’t mind if Iran gets some nuclear power to go along with their oil….they wouldn’t do anything nefarious:
President Barack Obama reiterated that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy _ provided it takes steps to prove its aspirations are peaceful.
In a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday, Obama also restated plans to pursue direct diplomacy with Tehran to encourage it to set aside any ambitions for nuclear weapons it might harbor.
He said this back in June. Do you think it would be a debacle if Obama has known that the Iranians have been keeping a secret nuclear facility and STILL said this?
White House officials said Western intelligence agencies have been tracking the facility for years. Obama said officials from the United States, France and Britain briefed the IAEA in Vienna on Thursday on what they knew about the facility. The three heads of state decided to publicly disclose the existence of the facility after learning that Iran had become aware the site was no longer a secret.
Iran’s report of the facility’s existence—and Obama’s plans to accuse Tehran of hiding it—were first reported Friday by the New York Times.
From The Corner:
Per Tweet Tracker, @markknoller US officials say Obama first told of Iran secret nuclear plant during the transition — as President-elect.
So let me get this straight. Obama changed our country’s philosophy on Iran when he came into office. He did nothing to support the uprising and said it’s all a-ok for Iran to want nuclear power. We can trust them.
But HE KNEW they could not be trusted and still set on this course.
That is a major debacle.
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Like the Anti-christ really cares…
I “love” all the public statements of feigned “outrage”, “reprimand”, and “more harsh words” from Obama and the international community.
He lied from the podium at the White House, he lied on the floor of the Senate, he lied before he was elected and he lied after he was elected. He lied to the brave people who gave their life to be free and he let them die without ever raising his voice to the cruel and dangerous tyrant, the man who is creating death and destruction so the Madhi will return. America, a peoples who have always lead the free world has a coward for a leader.
What I find interesting is that the talking heads (for what it’s worth) are suggesting that Iran went public with this because they “discovered that we knew about it.” That makes it rather obvious that we had an intelligence source feeding us information from inside Iran; if they caught him, they would probably learn what the source had told us, including the existence of that hidden facility.
Whether it was President Bush or President Obama, I can understand avoiding public disclosure if we were getting live intelligence about it…kind of the “enemy you know” sort of thing.
As far as changing the plan is concerned, the axis of evil plan and its accompanying ostracism certainly didn’t stop their work, did it?
Hey — all the little kids are singing his praise —
Yeah… and all the little kids sing the Barney song… whatever catches their little ears.
@wesmorgan1: That’s right and that is why we need to do something about iran, not just threaten them with a dirty look. We should make certain that iran will never get nukes and the only way to be sure is to destroy all their capability for production. What has obama done to stop iran? Have his ‘civilized talks’ with iran made them stop pursuing nukes? Not just no, but hell no! obama is taking a ‘lets be friends’ stance with iran, but he fails to realize that iran doesn’t want to be friends. They want to stall until they can produce a bomb and destroy Israel and threaten the rest of the world. We need a leader with some BALLS to stand up to this thug and put him in his place. Hope all you want, but obama is not that leader.
Don’t worry America. Israel will take care of it. We can’t. No more soldiers and no more money. All hail the Great and Powerful Obama.
Never mind the man behind the curtain…
Nothing new here – we’ve played this same game with North Korea since the 1990s. There might be advantages and certainly some necessity in not disclosing all that we know about covert undertakings in places like North Korea, Iran and elsewhere, but the part I can never understand is how we will fail to take the needed actions to protect ourselves against the eventuality of these programs. The case in point is the the recent example of the decision to scrap the ABM system in Europe. North Korea ran parallel programs but we did finally get interceptors set up in AK. Iran is on the same course and here we are scraping the same ABM program positioned in Europe with nothing to effectively fill the gap. Stupid and reckless fall short of describing that decision.
President O’Dumbo has know about this since he won the democrat selection and chose to keep it secret. It was one of the briefings he received from the GWB administration, which by the way is keeping America safe through today. Didn’t O’Dumbo speak and vote against every program to monitor ‘terrorists’ phone calls while in the senate? Scrapping the missile defense system should and probably will become a criminal offense by O’Dumbo.
It’s not so much “What did the President know?”, but what he still doesn’t know.
Our ability to know and predict the true intentions of a dangerous, theocratic regime with apocalyptic fantasies like Iran’s is just about nil. Our lack of HUMINT within Iran and amongst supporters of the Ayatollah took us by complete surprise 30 years ago. I seriously doubt that we’ve improved enough in the interim to afford ourselves the kind of leeway we continue to believe we have when dealing with Iran.
Campaign rhetoric about sitting across the negotiating table from madmen with nuclear ambitions may make foreign policy and national security experts like Katie Couric all squishy and breathless but it isn’t a strategy and not worth the effort if the other side has no intention of limiting it’s own ability to project power regionally or beyond.
Maybe the question to ask is really two-fold: When will the President learn and what will it cost us?
tfhr…” Maybe the question to ask is really two-fold: When will the President learn and what will it cost us? ”
No doubt Obama will not learn and the cost will be huge. Right now Israel has better HUMINT than does the US. A few of our Allies do as well. We have an edge in technology but there is no substitute for “eyes on”. At this point how many Allies trust us? A few do not trust with reliability any information we have. A lot of Our information comes from them. WE outsourced HUMINT decades ago with few exceptions.
Pandering to Tyrants and Dictators is not Foreign Policy by any stretch of the Worlds imagination. Issuing empty threats of UN sanctions that will not be enforced is not Diplomacy. Negotiations from a position of weakness has a pretty sure outcome. His sidekick Joe Biden has been 90% wrong on Foreign Policy for over 30 years. Hillary is a Tourist that has overseas speaking engagements from time to time and no real experience at anything useful besides spending OPM.
Israel will deal with Tehran in terms that they will understand. While Obama consults his tea leave readers, France and Germany will step up. The Saudis have no use for Iran and consider them to be a threat. Thats my take on it. There is a time to talk and a time to act and the clock is ticking.
Obama is still campaigning. Someone needs to tell the Kenyan Community Organizer Pretender that neither North Koreans or Iranians Vote in our elections. Funding UNIONs or ACORN has nothing to do with keeping America safe. Fooling around with the Economy as an Amateur over his head, destroying America’s prestige in the International Community is NOT in Our National interest.
Is that a harsh assessment? Nope. Just observations based upon some experience in National Security and Foreign Policy over the years in places where US Embassies were evacuated and Forces were deployed to salvage failed Policy.
@Old Trooper:
Concur.
I’ll also add onto this point:
“The Saudis have no use for Iran and consider them to be a threat. That’s my take on it. There is a time to talk and a time to act and the clock is ticking.”
You are quite right.
Even if people in the United States and Europe want to play down the danger posed by a nuclear Iran, this threat is not going to be ignored in the Arab world. If anyone thinks the Saudis won’t pursue a nuclear capability in the face of a nuclear Iran, guess again. Riyadh purchased a MRBM capability from the PRC years ago when Iran was busy trading ballistic missile shots with Iraq during the “War of the Cities” phase of their conflict. Those CSS-2s have such a lame CEP that using them for anything but what they were designed for – lobbing nukes over 2500 kms – would be pointless. In my mind’s eye, when the Saudis bought those Chinese MRBMs they were sending a message to potential developers of NBC capabilities and delivery systems in the Gulf region and beyond, that the Kingdom of Saud would have it’s own independent means to respond to future threats. With their money, the Saudis can shop for the warheads of their choice and China, Pakistan, and others will line up to make the sale. The Non-Proliferation Treaty is as useful as the number of toilet paper sized squares into which it can be cut.
The same mind set is alive and well much closer to home for us. Brazil just announced that it will pursue nuclear technology now that Hugo Chavez has expressed his willingness to chase the nuclear genie with Russia’s help.
Now is not the time to encourage or ignore the pursuits of certified lunatics like the ones running North Korea, Iran, Syria, or Venezuela, because we unwisely think they’re either too far away from us or their goals, at this particular moment in time.
Totally agree here. Multiple threats out there and they are growing like weeds. Team Obama Diplomacy is a repeat of the Neville Chamberlain days. No scrap of paper or UN Resolution has any value other than something that Chavez, Kim Il Dong or Ahmadinejad will wipe their backsides on and laugh.
Obama does not have the perception or experience to know when to circle the wagons. Netanyahu issued a statement clearly and succinctly. Obama missed it. Sarkozy did not.
Gordon Brown did not. The World watched the UN General assembly farce and India and
Pakistan saw a weakened America and they do have Nukes and delivery capability. Merkel made no statement but won an election but has EU commitments and NATO commitments.
Things are becoming complicated.
I refused a promotion to O-7 and retired. Because No One Listened to an old “boots on the ground” but a War College educated guy that was an OCS Commissioned but not a Staffer guy. The West Pointers are Political. My class ring was not from that fine school on the Hudson but my campaign ribbons were stacked too high for them and pleasant conversation for them was not for me. I only drink and eat with folks I respect. I was a Soldier not a Politician. I cared more about substance and not talking points.
We see it alike. My Daughter is a USAFA Cadet. She does not want to fly Pelosisi’s bus. She wants to fly the F-22 and remembers me arriving home from missions and gave every Trooper a hug at Pope AFB before kissing me and a new report card to trade me for a dinner a solution for an algebra or geometry problem that evaded her.
Obama’s Kids never had that passion or respect.
Take Care tfhr.
Patriotism is not dead. Retire when you are ready. Others You trained will step up.
@Old Trooper:
72 hours when Monday arrives. We’ll see what happens next.
tfhr, I have bet all of my chips in one hand in dangerous places and knew the odds and lived to tell the story in places Obama can’t find on a map. No Media coverage just a mission.
Netanyahu put his chips out on the table for his Nation. Much like his brother did at Entebbe.
Israel has been at War since 1948. They have never lost one until lately when the UN got into it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Entebbe
72 hours only mean something for Operational Purposes. You understand that and the IDF knows that and their survival as a Nation depends on it as an Obama America that has a post 9.11.01 mentality that has been dumbed down and complacent and watches American Idol.
You are still on Active Duty and I am out to pasture retired but vigilant. Watch it from Your position and know that you are not alone in your concerns.
@Old Trooper:
Actually, I meant that I retire 72 hours from Monday – that’s 73 total hours left on the active rolls. You know I was going to wear my uniform for one last time to watch them bring the colors down at FT Belvoir on 30 September so I could render one last salute but they don’t actually haul them down anymore. They keep it lit. I may run up to FT Myers to see if they still do it right.
@tfhr: I didn’t know that “they don’t actually haul them down anymore” because I haven’t been near the flagpole at 5:00p.m. But I was on the track timing my son’s run recently when the call to the colors rang out. I stopped what I was doing, and I stood at attention with my hand over my heart until the music ended. Some of the people out there stared at me like I was performing some mystical rite. They didn’t have a clue. A couple of young soldiers initially looked embarrassed, but then they followed my example. It’s sad that no one seems to be taught this tradition anymore.
CONGRATULATIONS!
WELL DONE SOLDIER!
I retired at Ft Bragg and had the 18th ABN Corps Commander shaking my hand and my Daughters eyes on me and a firm reach around from her. Defense of America is not my business. Cattle ranching in Montana is.
Jana is a USAFA cadet, I run a cattle ranch and do not ever regret Your Service. Folks above my pay grade get Us in trouble. But folks like You kept America safe. Take some knowledge in that.
We gave our best.