Posted on 02/23/2009 9:39:19 AM PST by TDCAnalyst
FP: Ryan Mauro, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Id like to talk to you today about the primary foreign policy challenges facing President Obama. What are they in your view?
Mauro: Clearly, the biggest one is Iran. The United Nations now believes Iran has enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. The question now is whether Iran will wait and build up its nuclear capabilities so they can quickly build a nuclear arsenal at a later time, or whether theyll go ahead and start trying to enrich that uranium to a high enough level to actually create a nuclear weapon. This milestone will force Israel to make a decision in the coming months about whether they will launch a military strike on Irans nuclear facilities. Reports that Russia may sell the advanced S-300 air defense system to Iran to protect those sites also decreases the time in which Israel can debate whether to go ahead.
President Obama, therefore, has several challenges. He needs to hope he can put together some sort of deal that will compel Iran to suspend its overt nuclear program and again, hope that Iran doesnt have a parallel covert enrichment program that the UN inspectors and Western intelligence cant locate. There are unconfirmed reports that the Obama administration has decided to stop placing sanctions on Iranian companies involved in their WMD program and even stop enforcing current sanctions. This is a gamble of the highest order. It will free up assets the Iranians intended to use for their missile and nuclear programs, and we simply have to hope that this outreach to the regime convinces them to cut a deal.
It is doubtful that the Israelis will accept this, so hell also have to convince the Israelis to delay whatever aggressive action...
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
Barack Zero - the 600 million dollar selected candidate
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“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
Winston Churchill
That could be cut down to two minutes nowaday.
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