From WAPO. And keep watching what Iran does in Iraq, because it could further disillusion the Saudis who are not keen on Shiites.
On Thursday, at the invitation of the pro-Israel group JINSA, former George W. Bush administration officials John Hannah and Eric Edelman, together with Ray Takeyh, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Dennis Ross, former adviser to President Obama, assembled to discuss the prospects for a final Iranian deal. It was illuminating, to say the least.
Ross and the other panelists were emphatic that bringing Iran into the Iraq picture and allowing the mullahs to succeed in their aspiration of a Shiite state beholden to Tehran was a very bad idea. Ross reminded the audience that Iran has killed numerous Americans by its manufacture of improvised explosive devices and “in many ways Iran is responsible for what is happening in Iraq.”
It is easy to lose U.S. credibility in the world. We’ve done it before in the Middle East, Ross reminded us. But what is different now is that the administration thinks it has been wildly successful. It doesn’t use leverage and won’t use leverage because the president fails to admit that anything is amiss. As bizarre as this may sound, inside the White House bubble presidents — especially ones surrounded by political hacks — can convince themselves of a great many things. This one seems especially prone to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment