And how are all those working out for the Big O? He has had over a year of setting deadlines with the Iranians and them ignoring them. In the meantime they have continued with their plans. And now policy in the U.S. seems to be shifting to "containment", signaling their engagement policy was an abject failure. As the sanctions policy will be.
And wasn't it the Democrats who were screaming that sanctions against Saddam weren't working?
I see, so let's just bomb bomb bomb Iran. Your solution? And just how will America survive the aftermath of that, pray tell? To your second point, we have barely survived the non-nuclear bomb bomb bombing of Iraq. THINK!
Changing the goalposts here? How has Obama's campaign of open handedness worked out with Iran? He ran on exactly that approach, pledging to sit down and talk with Iran at any time. They rightly have snubbed him continuously, recognizing that he has no leverage to make them do anything.
So how has your boy's foreign policy approach worked over 25% into his term? Wouldn't you call that a total failure?
I don't understand how what you are saying makes sense. Yes, he ran on that approach, and the Iranians rebuffed those outreaches. Now we're proceeding with securing stronger sanctions, the likes of which the Bush administration failed to secure due to their fostering of special relationships instead of pragmatic diplomacy with actors like China and Russia.
I don't see the policy failure here. We attempted to engage in open diplomacy, they've failed, now we can move forward with legitimacy in further actions. This is the problem with alarmists, you tend to fire first and ask questions later, but the very failure of Iraq was not in solely its policy substance, but in its procedure. That is, the unilateral, non transparent actions of the U.S. cost us legitimacy and exacerbated the Iraq war effort.
If there ever IS to be an Iranian war, we already have increased legitimacy in the fact that we have attempted to engage in open diplomacy.
No administration agrees with you on bombing Iran except the most extreme administrations. Right now Bibi's administration is vying for that title, and even they recognize that wanton bombing of Iran at this stage of the game when the U.S. is close to secure international support to cripple their economy would only be detrimental to their security.
Not to mention, the entire reason Iran wants a nuke is for greater regional security (the likelihood of Iran using a nuke on Israeli is far less of a threat than nuclear terrorism), and effective sanctions could counterbalance any effect nuclear proliferation would bring to Iran.
I don't see any solutions from you. You keep saying his FP is failing, but then according to you so has every American government since the 70's when Pakistan and India illegally procured and continued to test nuclear weapons. it's illogical to believe that an actor determined enough in this climate won't be able to make gains in acquiring any type of technology that's out there. It's a testament to the stability of our nuclear order (which then logically undermines the notion of russia as some crazy bully), that over 60 years since it's invention, only four actors have illegally acquired the weapon, and none of those actors were the ones most likely to use the bomb since it's birth.
