Not a big challenge, but Obama’s unjustly arrogant condescension provided a good opportunity.
[Early afternoon update]
Iran pulls the rug from under Obama:
Obama says his doctrine is “we will engage,” but it looks like the actual doctrine is “we will be fooled.” Of course they insist that nobody will make a fool of them, however they reserve the right to make fools of themselves.
It’s painful to watch. It’s hard not to think that Iran is out to humiliate Barack Hussein Obama. With this calculated slight, they not only want to wipe the floor with his reputation, they want to see him crawl. And he probably will. Obama gave them Iraq, allowed Iran into Syria, permitted Hezbollah to take over Lebanon, and let them run him out of Yemen all in the expectation that Rouhani would give him his “game changer,” his “once in a lifetime deal.”
And now, after he’s handed in all that earnest money and proclaimed his purchase to the world, they won’t deliver the merchandise. He’s been had, pure and simple. They gave him a special surprise gift and he’s proudly opened it in front of relatives and friends, only to discover it contains a pile of … .
Iran knows he won’t fight, because he’s already scuttled his position in Iraq and allowed himself to be humiliated in Syria by drawing “red lines” with crayons. His “moderate rebel forces” in Syria have all defected to someone else. Iran watched America flee from Yemen, Obama’s counterinsurgency “model,” leaving a list of local U.S. intelligence agents to fall into their hands. Those men are probably being hunted down or dying in agony. Tehran probably gaped in amusement as he made enemies with their oldest ally in the Middle East, Israel, all for the sake of the agreement they have now thrown in his face.
But, but…legacy!
The notion that every president must have “legacy” accomplishment(s) has become the excuse for running rampant over sensible policies – assuming you have any.
Why don’t we just automatically deify the Presidents after leaving office, as the Roman Senate deified emperors after their death? It would do a lot less harm. Hell, if they needed more motivation for not doing something stupid, we could deify their wives, mothers etc. as was also done in Rome.
The thing is, I don’t have confidence that Obama has enough of a sense of humor about himself that he’d joke, as Vespasian did on his death bed, “Oh dear, I think I feel myself becoming a god.”
Deification still doesn’t get around the legacy issue. The gods pile up and there’s nothing except legacy to stand out from the crowd.
Iran’s not out to humiliate Obama. They are out to destroy the US. Obama is just the person making it easy to do so, and that is humiliating, but for one thing. Obama is incapable of being humble, and thus can not be humiliated. Obama would need self-awareness to be humble.
Yeah but they figure that if they can humiliate Obama while they are burning the Middle East and Europe…well why not have a little fin?
Humiliating Obama is trivially easy provided you have the will to do so.
Alas the Boehner/McConnell GOP hasn’t the will.
It’s not about fun for the Iranian regime.
In their culture, humiliating an enemy has a far more profound effect than in ours. By making a laughing stock of Obama, they gain tremendous prestige at home – thus shoring up their domestic position.
Thus it serves a powerful purpose for them. And Obama makes a perfect target, naive fool (that’s the most charitable way of putting it) that he is.
“They are out to destroy the US.”
Must be why Obama likes them so much.
I have no hope of this actually happening, but wouldn’t it be interesting (in an ironic kind of way) if Iran overplayed this to the point that President Thin-Skin ordered a strike on their facilities? I think his ego is the only thing that might get him to do that.
One can live in hope …
Iran would have to personally insult Obama. They can talk of exterminating Jews and the USA and Obama won’t bat an eye because he doesn’t particularly care for those groups either but if they were to insult Obama…
This isn’t just me speaking out my ass. Remember how Obama was really super duper pro-Russia right up until the whole Syrian red line debacle. That was bad for our country’s prestige but it was mostly a giant hit to Obama’s. Now, Obama has found he is slightly less flexible in dealing with them.