Posted on 08/12/2013 4:09:17 PM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
In his second term, Richard Nixon had Watergate, but also the rescue of Israel in the Yom Kippur War.
In his second term, Ronald Reagan had Iran-Contra, but also a treaty eliminating U.S. and Soviet missiles in Europe, his "tear-down-this-wall" moment in Berlin and his lead role in ending the Cold War.
In his second term, Bill Clinton had Monica, but also came close to a peace treaty between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat.
Obama's second-term scandals — IRS, Benghazi, wiretapping The Associated Press and Fox — are in the low-kiloton range compared to the resignation of Nixon or the impeachment of Clinton.
And as Obama is going to get nada from a Republican House on guns, amnesty, cap-and-trade or a second stimulus, he should look for his legacy — as Nixon, Reagan and Clinton did — to foreign policy.
Two opportunities beckon. First, the mirage — a Middle East peace. Essential to any treaty, however, is a withdrawal of Israeli "settlers" from the West Bank, a sharing of Jerusalem, Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a "Jewish state" and Arab repudiation of the "right of return."
Good luck. Bibi Netanyahu, who calls Jerusalem our "eternal capital" and Judea and Samaria our ancient lands, is not going to divide Jerusalem or uproot Jewish settlers from the West Bank — not when he opposed their removal from Gaza by Ariel Sharon.
Bibi will not do it, cannot, if he wants his Likudnik coalition to survive. And Obama lacks the clout in Congress or this capital city to force Bibi to do anything he does not wish to do.
Hence Obama's legacy hopes lie not in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington this week, but in what is happening in Iran — the inauguration of the president who replaces Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Hasan Rouhani was elected with 51 percent of the vote by the constituency that voted against Ahmadinejad in 2009. His triumph was due to his endorsement by former presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. Both had been kept off the ballot by Ayatollah Khamenei.
Rouhani is a founding father of the Islamic Republic and was a close ally of Ayatollah Khomeini. But he was elected on a pledge to revive the economy, get sanctions lifted, and re-engage with the West.
He won on a promise of better times for the Iranian people and an end to Iran's isolation.
Yet the only way he can achieve these goals is to come to terms with Obama on Iran's nuclear program. And as he was once Iran's lead negotiator on that program, Rouhani knows exactly what is required.
Despite the decades of acrimony between us, the basic elements of a Washington-Tehran deal are there.
Rouhani's political future, the continued allegiance of his Iranian followers who want to re-engage with the West and the world, hangs on whether he can get a deal on Iran's nuclear program and a lifting of sanctions. He knows this.
What Rouhani cannot do is surrender Iran's rights to nuclear power and research. On this his nation is united. But he may be able to give the West what it requires, intrusive inspections, to prove that what Iran claims to be true is true — that it has no nuclear weapons program.
If we can get that, we should be able to get a deal, and America can lift her sanctions, their objective having been achieved.
That would be the crown jewel of Obama's second term.
Bammy is the Flubber TOTUS.
Maybe O’bama could work his way up to it by getting a disarmament treaty with Barbados.
Since VJ is probably an **Iranian asset**, all this sounds like a good plan for GayMuzzie.
Notice how we did NOTHING during the abortive “Green Revolution” in Tehran...?
Gosh I wonder WHY...!
BIG BELTWAY SMOOCH WITH THE MULLAS...! How nice...!
Where was the “barf alert”?
Iran is going to be the disaster of Zero’s second term.
His entire foreign policy will be in shatters once Netanyahu puts an end to the farce.
The peace deal worked on during the Clinton Administration was never a threat of being accepted. It just provided Yasir Arafat with another venue for another infatada.
One of the worst columns I’ve ever read by Buchanan. The deal is predicated on the absence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran. If there were no program Iran would have allowed inspections so there would be no need for the deal. Pat is living in a fantasyland.
Those nuclear inspections really worked well for Saddam’s Iraq and Korea’s kim jong il, didn’t it.
IOW, Pitchfork Pat’s full of $%!+ as always. Negotiations with the mullahs can only consist of, do you want to go quietly and have a proper Islamic burial, or would you rather resist and wind up as pig manure?
Report: Iran’s new defense minister behind 1983 bombing of US Marine base in Lebanon
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