Posted on 05/09/2008 12:02:45 PM PDT by JZelle
As President Bush enters his final months in office, there are mounting signs of disarray when it comes to current U.S. policy towards Iran and North Korea. The three remaining plausible candidates to succeed him — Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain — have yet to explain how thier policies will differ from the current administration. Regarding Iran, for example, senior administration officials are continuously disavowing their own administration's National Intelligence Estimate, produced late last year, which suggested that Iran had halted a critical component of its nuclear weapons program. But the damage to American credibility has already occurred, and the administration appears to have decided that the Iranian nuclear program will be left for its successor to deal with.
It hasn't always been this way. During Mr. Bush's first term, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton was particularly energetic about urging Moscow not to supply fuel for Iran's light-water nuclear reactor at Bushehr. The Department of Energy studied how much plutonium could be extracted from the facility and concluded that a middle-range estimate would be enough to build 50 to 60 nuclear weapons. But after Mr. Bush was re-elected, the administration, under intense pressure from Europe, made a regrettable bargain in an effort to bolster its diplomatic case against Iran: accept the premise that Tehran has every right to go forward with purportedly "civilian" nuclear energy programs even if such programs could be diverted to military use. This has led to the absurd situation (spotlighted in hearings held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this year), in which the White House is supporting an Energy Department budget that includes $4 million for two Russian institutes that are helping Iran complete the Bushehr reactor.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
They figure Star Wars Part Deux is locked in. Major job done.
It is quite obvious that either Hussein Obama or McCaniac will not have the gonads to take on tinpot dictators and rouge countries. AQ, Hamas, and Hezbola will have a field day in 2009.
So how will that make things any different?
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