Post-American Presidency (20 page)

What really happened in Honduras? A military coup, destroying
democratic rule? No. The United Nations, the leftopaths in the mainstream media, and the radical U.S. president tried to paint what happened in Honduras as a coup, but it was not a coup. What happened in Honduras was in reality an example of how democracy works—and constituted yet more confirmation that Barack Obama was not on the side of freedom, but of tyranny. What happened in Honduras was democracy at work: a free nation saving itself from a Hugo Chávez–backed takeover.

The real story behind the chaos in Honduras was that Barack Obama got it wrong,
again
.

Take this hypothetical: imagine that Barack Obama announced that he was going to hold a referendum on legalizing a third term for himself. Imagine that even his attorney general, Eric Holder, advised him that it was illegal. Imagine that the Supreme Court ruled that in light of the Twenty-second Amendment, holding the referendum was unconstitutional. Imagine that in spite of that, Obama coerced the FEC into holding the referendum anyway.

Then—let’s further imagine—it came to light that the Venezuelan strongman Chávez (who has pulled off a similar power grab in his own country) was financing Obama’s referendum. What should the Joint Chiefs do in such a case? And if they removed Obama from office, would they be destroying the Constitution or preserving it?

That was exactly the situation in Honduras. The Honduran Supreme Court and attorney general ruled that Zelaya’s referendum was unconstitutional. The Honduran generals did what they had to do. But then Hugo Chávez, Zelaya’s friend and ally, announced that he had put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert.

And at that point Barack Obama spoke out—to side with Zelaya, Chávez, and dictatorship. Obama said he was “deeply concerned” about what was happening in Honduras and called upon that nation to “respect democratic norms.”
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Obama had put himself, and America, on the same side as Chávez, Ortega, and the Castro brothers. It is a testimony to the Honduran people’s love for freedom that despite all the pressure Obama and Chávez brought to bear upon them, they still voted out Zelaya and the Leftists in the November 2009 elections.
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HIDING A DAGGER BEHIND THEIR BACK

On November 4, 2009, the thirtieth anniversary of the storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Obama struck an appeasing tone toward the Iranian mullahs, as he had so many times before. As he did so, the brave, brutally beaten people of Iran chanted in the streets, “you’re either with us, or you’re with them!”
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This was directed straight at Obama, who had abandoned them in their marches for freedom and free elections. Instead of talking about the need to confront international jihad terrorism and the thuggish intimidation increasingly practiced by rogue states, Obama again kissed the fists of the mullahs: “This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust and confrontation. I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect.”
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The mullahs laughed. And they set about building their nuclear weapons program. And slaughtering their people. It was one of history’s terrible ironies, that the people of Iran rose in a desperate plea for freedom and there should be a U.S. president who had effectively discarded the very idea of democracy—at least for the Iranians—as some ancient relic of a past age.

Instead of helping those Iranians who loved freedom, Obama reached out personally to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei—several times. Khamenei described the messages he was getting from the president: “The new U.S. president has said nice things,” Khamenei recounted amid celebrations in Tehran of the embassy takeover. “He has given us many spoken and written messages and said: ‘Let’s turn the page and create a new situation. Let’s cooperate with each other in resolving world problems.’”

Khamenei, however, thought Obama was being duplicitous. “On the face of things, they say, ‘Let’s negotiate.’ But alongside this, they threaten us and say that if these negotiations do not achieve a desirable result, they will do this and that.… Whenever they smile at the officials of the Islamic revolution, when we carefully look at the situation, we notice that they are hiding a dagger behind their back. They have not changed their intentions.”
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However, long before Khamenei batted away Obama’s outstretched hand, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, saw through the ruse. He observed that “Tehran welcomes direct negotiations with Washington. Why not, given the enormous benefits its nuclear programs have accrued during five and a half years of negotiations with Europe? Why not, with America at the table, buy even more time to marry its impending nuclear weapons with its satellite-launching ballistic missile capability?”

Bolton pointed out that the negotiations that Obama so dearly longed to begin could actually hurt the United States rather than help it. “First,” he said, “diplomacy has not and will not reduce Iran’s nuclear program.” European leaders, according to Bolton, were “belatedly feeling hollow in the pits of their diplomatic stomachs, now that their failed diplomacy has left us with almost no alternatives to a nuclear Iran.” Bolton said that they were dismayed that Obama was trying to reopen the negotiations that they had been trying tentatively to bring to a close before it was too late and too much was lost.

Meanwhile, the West’s supine and confused response to the Iranian nuclear threat, Bolton noted, only emboldened the Iranians in other areas also.
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Certainly they showed themselves ever bolder toward Obama and the United States as 2009 wore on. During the celebrations of the takeover of the embassy in November, the head of security forces in Tehran announced: “Only anti-American rallies in front of the former American Embassy in Tehran are legal. Other gatherings or rallies on Wednesday are illegal and will be strongly confronted by the police.”
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“Only anti-American rallies” were legal. And this after Barack Hussein Obama wrote letters, and sent spoken messages, and smiled, and entreated. “Only anti-American rallies” are legal.

The mullahs had never made any secret of their anti-Americanism and hostility to Washington, but Barack Obama was undaunted. His conciliatory message on the thirtieth anniversary of the storming of the U.S. embassy was only one of many such messages.

SLAPPING THE EXTENDED HAND

Obama appeared anxious to sanction the evil of the Iranian mullahcracy.

He had done all he could to demonstrate his goodwill to the Iranian mullahs, and to bring them to the negotiating table. He started in his Inaugural Address, offering to “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
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As is the lot of appeasers throughout history, all he received in return was disdain and renewed bellicosity. They knew a beggar when they saw one, and accorded him the respect they believed he merited. Virtually from the beginning of the Obama administration, the Iranian leadership reacted to his overtures with gleeful contempt.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demanded just over a week after Obama took office that the United States “must apologize to the Iranian people and try to repair their past bad acts and the crimes they committed against Iran.”
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Government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham crowed days later that the new president’s request for talks “means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed.”
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Not long after that, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, said that “in the past years, the U.S. has burned many bridges, but the new White House can rebuild them”—if, that is, it “accepts its mistakes and changes its policies.”
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Likewise when Obama set a deadline of the end of September for Iran to begin talks over its nuclear program, Ahmadinejad was again contemptuous—although those talks did ultimately take place. “From our point of view,” said the Iranian president, “Iran’s nuclear issue is over. We continue our work within the framework of global regulations and in close interaction with the International Atomic Energy Agency.… We will never negotiate over obvious rights of the Iranian nation.”
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And when Iran’s nuclear representative sat down with the American negotiator, Ahmadinejad turned out to be entirely correct: the Iranians budged not one inch.

Barack Obama didn’t ask them to.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, MULLAHS

Obama was undaunted. Late in March 2009, he stretched out his hand to Tehran again, issuing a videotaped greeting to “people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” on the occasion of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year.

He praised Iranian culture: “Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and
more beautiful place.” He praised Iranian immigrants: “Here in the United States our own communities have been enhanced by the contributions of Iranian Americans.” He praised Iranian civilization: “We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world.”

Obama acknowledged that relations between Iran and the United States had been “strained.” But he stressed the “common humanity” of Iranians and Americans. To the mullahs and Ahmadinejad he declared: “My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”

The new president spoke glowingly of “a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce. It’s a future where the old divisions are overcome, where you and all of your neighbors and the wider world can live in greater security and greater peace.”
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But in response to these high-minded words, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was again scornful and threatening. He referred to the United States as “the arrogant ones, those who speak through violence, the [most] corrupt people in history.” He took issue with the manners of the superpower: “We advise you to correct your behavior, since the world is changing.… Stop the egotism, the aggression, and the lack of manners. Speak to the [world’s] nations in a correct manner and politely.…”

Iran, he said, is “a nation that cannot be defeated,” and “no power in the world entertains the notion of taking action against the Iranian nation. Even if someone were to entertain this notion and want to undertake any act of aggression against the nation… he should know
that the Iranian nation is ready, and any hand outstretched in order to attack will be cut off.”
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Two weeks after that, Ahmadinejad sneered at Barack Obama’s desire to sit down and talk it out. While saying that “we welcome” Obama’s invitation to dialogue, he added: “We say to you that you yourselves know that you are today in a position of weakness. Your hands are empty, and you can no longer promote your affairs from a position of strength. We recommend that you amend your rhetoric towards the rest of the nations, respect them, and not talk with the Iranian nation from the position of egocentric people.”
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Again and again, Barack Obama extended his hand. And again and again, the Iranians slapped his face. In May 2009, for example, Iran’s government-run media announced that the Iranians had successfully tested a missile that could reach not only Israel, but also southern Europe and U.S. military bases in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
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Iran was clearly emboldened by Barack Obama’s weakness—at the worst possible time for it to be emboldened.

BEGGING IN CAIRO

Yet Barack Obama came begging yet again during his major address to the Islamic world, delivered in Cairo on June 4, 2009. Obama noted there that “our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons” had been “a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.” At issue now, he said, “is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.”

And he repeated yet again: “We are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.” Part of that mutuality, as far as he was concerned, was a disarmed and vulnerable United
States: “No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation—including Iran—should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
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A world in which the most powerful nation has voluntarily divested itself of nuclear weapons, while granting nuclear power to rogue states in exchange for promises that they will not use nuclear energy for weapons, is a world that will soon have a new most powerful nation—and nuclear weaponry proliferating like never before.

IRAN SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL

For through the summer and fall of 2009, while Barack Obama begged for an audience with the Supreme Leader Khamenei and his henchman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Islamic Republic—the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the regime that trampled upon international law and stormed the U.S. embassy in 1979, holding American hostages for over four hundred days—faced the biggest challenge of its thirty-year existence. In 2009, demonstrators filled the streets of Iran, denouncing the regime and crying out for freedom.

It was a glorious opportunity for the leader of the free world to demonstrate his support for free people everywhere, and strike a decisive blow against the bloody regime that had considered itself at war with the United States for three decades.