Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
22 January '10
We must now face an extremely unpleasant truth: even giving the Obama Administration every possible break regarding its Iran policy it is now clear that the U.S. government isn’t going to take strong action on the nuclear weapons’ issue.
Note that I didn’t even say “effective” action, that is, measures which would force Iran to back down. I'm neither advocating nor do I think there was ever any possibility that the United States, even under Obama's predecessor, might take military action.
I’m saying that they aren’t even going to make a good show of trying seriously to do anything at all.
Some say that the administration has secretly or implicitly accepted the idea that Iran will get nuclear weapons and is now seeking some longer-term containment policy. I doubt that has happened. They are just not even this close to reality.
From their behavior they still seem to expect, incredibly, that some kind of deal is possible with Tehran despite everything that has happened. Then, too, they may hope that the opposition—unaided by America--will overthrow the Iranian government and thus solve the problem for them. And they are too fixated on short-term games about seeking consensus among other powers two of them—China and Russia—are clearly not going to agree to anything serious. This fact was clear many months ago but the administration still doesn’t recognize it.
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