Obama's Latest Iran Gambit: Kudos!

I have been somewhat critical of our current President on my blog over the last few months - especially as pertains to his dealings with Israel. I have to say, it's beginning to appear I may have underestimated his shrewdness when it comes to foreign policy. Case in point: he dropped this metaphorical bomb on the Iranians Friday together with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French Pres. Nicholas Sarkozy ('U.S. and Allies Warn Iran Over Nuclear ‘Deception’ - NY Times).

By first getting the Iranians to agree to meet and then only 5 days before the scheduled meeting, confronting them with nearly incontrovertible proof that they have a secret nuclear program hidden inside a mountain just outside of the Mullah's headquarters in Qom, he has backed them into a corner. They back out now and it becomes obvious they are hiding something. They show up to the meeting and they will be forced to answer for their secretive building project and subsequent deception in front of the globe's major superpowers (there's no question the plant is for a weapons program - it's too small for enriching fuel for energy needs unlike the previously declared and inspected plant at Natanz and Iran's failure to declare the plant and its location on a Revolutionary Guard base as well as its location just outside Qom pretty much seal the case.)

In a possible swipe at President Bush, Pres. Obama says he waited to come forth with the revelations to ensure the intelligence data the U.S. had was accurate - unlike Bush with Iraq's supposed WMDs. But the timing can not have been accidental. Waiting till less than a week before the meeting with Iran is too perfect to be merely coincidence. As Obama put it Friday,

“Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on Oct. 1 they are going to have to come clean and they will have to make a choice... The alternative to giving up their program is to continue down a path that is going to lead to confrontation.”

So Kudos to Obama for his latest Iran gambit. He'll certainly have an easier time convincing major global powers to impose 'crippling' sanctions than his predecessor, especially after meeting Iran face to face. No one will be able to say he didn't try. And now he's got a picture of Tehran with the 'smoking gun', so to speak.

Which brings me to another less important point but something I've been meaning to write about nonetheless: What's up with the insane anti-Obama attitude among Orthodox Jews?! In shul in Monsey on Rosh Hashana, the Rabbi suffixed Obama's name with a 'Yimach Shemo' - 'may his name be obliterated' - a phrase generally reserved for the likes of Hitler, Arafat, and Torquemada. Pretty much people who have spent their entire lives oppressing and murdering Jews by the thousands. Unfortunately, most Orthodox Jews are too illiterate, gullible and closed-minded to actually give Obama a fair hearing - I can name many similar instances since Obama took office, though few were this offensive (I was at a party in June, also in Monsey, where someone suggested a plate of extra watermelons be sent to Obama, to some snickers - that may have actually been worse. Come to think of it, maybe Monsey is the real problem ;-) ). Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all Orthodox Jews disdain Obama and of those that do many are not racist but I am still perturbed by all this, especially when the evidence is beginning to mount that the man may actually have some of our best interests in mind.

Bottom line: If he stands Iran down on the A-bomb - still a big if- he will be an automatic hero of mine and I will consider him Israel's greatest friend to ever serve in the White House. And right now, he's got a hell of a better chance of pulling it off than Bush, who carried a big stick, and allowed Iran to get 8 years closer to developing nukes.