Obama the rookie

US president’s disastrous Middle Eastern policy will not stop Iran
Mordechai Kedar

Thirty years ago, at the end of 1978 and beginning of 1979, US President Jimmy Carter’s blind approach and his obsessive concern for human rights everywhere, and particularly in the Shah-ruled Iran, prompted Khomeini’s rise and brought Khomeinism to power. Carter did not permit the Shah to handle the protests against him, that is, to disperse them with gunfire. The result was the ayatollah takeover of Iran and the murder of thousands of Shah supporters. Everything the world suffered, is suffering, and will suffer because of Iran is the direct result of the short-sightedness of an American president who understood nothing in the ways of the Middle East.

The enduring problem of American politicians is that they view the world via their own cultural lenses and think that “if only we engage in dialogue with the others” they will be “like us,” “just like everyone else,” and “will become nice”; if only we give them jobs and comply with their “just” demands (the right of return, our capital which never had Palestinian significance, unwillingness to recognize our state, etc.) they will go to work in the morning and return in the evening to play with their children and fish.
Obama is currently making the same mistakes Carter did. He naively thinks that through dialogue with the ayatollahs he will achieve what the Europeans have failed to achieve for many years. He refuses to read what many researchers, politicians, and statesmen worldwide write, and refuses to listen to all those concerned by Iran – Arabs, Israelis, and Europeans – who have no doubt that the ayatollahs intend to first take over the Middle East, and later possibly take over the entire world, should they be given the chance.

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