Obama hubris meltdown: ‘I lead the strongest military the world has ever known’

The POTUS-in-Chief.

It’s certainly easier on the spirits these days to ignore Obama than to pay attention to his activities and pronouncements.

But it’s worth making sorrowful note of the fateful words he spoke in his speech to the UN General Assembly on Monday.  We cannot doubt that they are likely to become as famous a misreading of reality and the current moment as Neville Chamberlain’s “peace for our time” proclamation – curiously enough, uttered almost exactly 77 year ago, on 30 September 1938.

Here is what Obama said at the UN (emphasis added):

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Iranian officials: Obama offered big concessions in secret talks with Iran in 2011-12

There has been a persistent thread of reporting in Western media about secret contacts between the Obama administration and the Iranian regime, going back for years before the formal P5+1 negotiations that opened in 2013.

But there hasn’t been much explicit information on the content discussed in the secret meetings.  If the statements made in passages translated by MEMRI are valid – excerpts from speeches and Iranian media interviews with top officials – the reason for that is obvious.  According to the Iranians quoted, the Obama administration planned from the outset to give away the major bargaining points.

MEMRI says a full translation has yet to be completed, so we must wait on that for a more extended discussion.  But here are some highlights

Complete unraveling: Top 5 reasons why the non-deal agreement with Iran is bad

These are the top five other than the fact that it’s not a deal; it’s a surrender.  The West has agreed to lift the sanctions on Iran.  Iran has not agreed to give up anything she needs to acquire a bomb, or cease any of her aggressive behavior (e.g., arming and training Hezbollah and Hamas, fighting wars in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen).  Not one of these things – not one – is a measure of performance Iran will actually have to demonstrate to get the sanctions lifted.

1. The agreement paves Iran’s path to the bomb. The only question about Iran and the bomb now is when Iran will get it. If Iran adheres to the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement (link to full text here), she will retain the means, and improve the expertise, to build nuclear weapons throughout the next 10 years.  She would wait for that 10 years to pass, however, before enriching enough uranium to test a warhead and stockpile weapons.

Nuke talks: Iran keeps holding out for a more complete surrender from the West

You may have heard that the Iran nuclear talks will continue past the 30 June deadline.  It just won’t be possible to negotiate a “deal” on this charged topic by tomorrow.  That’s not really because no matter how much the Obama-Kerry negotiating team gives in, the Iranians keep reiterating terms for our surrender.  The Iranians have been quite consistent all along.  It’s because Team Obama is dragging its heels on the surrender, making our concessions piecemeal.

The latest concession by the Obama-Kerry team involves the earlier demand, by the U.S. and EU-3, that Iran allow international inspection of the military sites potentially connected with a nuclear weapons program.  Like the other demands once outlined by Team Obama as indispensable (e.g., the “freeze” on new enrichment-related activities, the long-sought disclosures on earlier weaponization work, or “possible military dimensions”), this one was categorically rejected last week by Ayatollah Khamenei in a major policy speech.

Russia defines Arctic intentions with supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles

St. Nicholas presides over the Russian military base at Nargurskoye, on Alexandra Island, Franz Josef Land, which is undergoing a major expansion by Russia.

If it wasn’t clear before that Russia intends to be prepared to “fight the Arctic,” it should be now.  A report from last week indicates that the Russians plan to put “Bastion” anti-ship missile systems at their Arctic bases in 2015, to go along with airfield improvements, aircraft deployments, and installation of mobile anti-air missile systems and early warning radars for a network of bases that extends from one end of Russia’s Arctic coast to the other, and well into the Arctic Ocean.

There is certainly a question as to what “threat” Russia imagines herself to be countering with the deployment of the cruise missile systems.

But that’s really asking the wrong question.  Given the dearth of non-Russian surface ship traffic through the area in question (maps 1 and 2), and the certainty that other nations with Arctic claims have no motive to put ships in that area against Russia’s will, a more accurate interpretation of this move is that Russia seeks to hold a geomilitary veto over the sea-lanes, in a manner similar to the veto sought by China over the South China Sea.