Tag Archives: Cairo

Let’s face it; President Barack Obama’s hope for a dialogue with dictators was a naïve gamble to begin with. Even many people in his own party thought it was an academic exercise from an inexperienced law professor that wasn’t rooted in reality. But during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama was on one side of the argument of what to do about Iran and Hillary Clinton and John McCain were on the other. Obama championed the idea that he could rally the international community to do more to isolate the Government of Iran and that he could sit down with its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to convince him that he should give up the illegal pursuit of a nuclear bomb. Clinton and McCain, however, advocated for a tougher approach that included immediate new sanctions, using The White House bully-pulpit and possible military action. While Obama believed that he could convince Ahmadinejad of the error of his ways through direct dialogue, Clinton and McCain warned that it was a waste of precious time.

One year later Obama has single-handedly allowed the Iranians more than a year of unfettered progress toward a nuclear weapon with less pressure and inquiry from the international community. Even the slow-moving, state-the-obvious International Atomic Energy Agency announced this week that it fears Iran is working toward a nuclear warhead to go along with its undisclosed uranium enrichment activities. While Obama experimented with his classroom thesis of talking dictators out of their nuclear pursuits, many in the international community celebrated the fact that they weren’t being confronted by the United States with the lingering Iran problem. From Cairo to Berlin, the world celebrated Obama’s perceived world peace and even gave him the Nobel Prize. The Iranians, meanwhile, continued to build a nuclear weapon. While Obama did his world-wide victory lap, the Iranian Government celebrated their freedom. And although the United States has been negotiating with Iran for more than 30 years, Obama has been acting like this nation has never tried diplomacy. It is dangerous for a President to believe that his personality is so different from previous leaders’ that people will change their course of action just because of who is asking.

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