Latest Video from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and its a good one.

I think Obama says it best: "There is a time to campaign, and there is a time to govern."

Throughout this last year, as our debt grows to monstrous proportions, Iran steps closer to a nuclear bomb, and unemployment remains around 10 percent, Obama has consistently shown by his actions that for him, it is never the time to govern.

By David Gutmann, American Spectator

The Israeli intelligence website DebkaFile has reported that Obama is now seriously considering an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities. His change of heart is not, according to Debka, prompted by the Israeli Netanyahu — whose nation is most directly threatened by Iranian nukes — but by an ultimatum from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who told Obama that his nation could not tolerate Iranian WMD, and would develop its own if Iran was allowed to acquire them. In other words, Netanyahu’s threat of a Middle Eastern conflict that could devastate Israel and escalate to all-out nuclear war carried less weight with Obama than the far less severe consequences threatened by the Saudis. Nevertheless, their threat moved them to the head of the queue. We know that Obama doesn’t want a nuclear weapons arms race, but is he also afraid of offending the Islamic monarchs before whom he dutifully genuflects?

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by Leslie H. Gelb, The Daily Beast

 ineffective…

In recent days, we have seen the future of diplomatic machinations with Iran, and it is messier and more alarming than before. Its challenges are rooted as much in America’s peculiarities as Iran’s, and now, as well, in the newfound muscle and assertiveness of new major powers. These realities won’t evaporate and will increasingly frustrate Americans above all.

The Obama team was right to preempt the Brazil/Turkish pact on nuclear exchanges with Iran. It was basically an Iranian scam to circumvent new United Nations sanctions and other limitations on its nuclear programs. But Brazil and Turkey were also right to pursue their separate diplomatic track and solution. They were reflecting the mounting attitude in the world that Washington’s anti-nuclear proliferation policy essentially serves American interests and not those of most other nations. And from their point of view, they were simply doing what the United States has been doing all along, namely protecting their own interests first. That is the story lost in current news accounts.

Here’s the story of the Brazilian and Turkish revolt against U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy, and what can be done about it:

As is clear, Iran maneuvered Turkish and Brazilian leaders into an agreement to dispatch a limited amount of low-enriched uranium to Turkey for conversion into fuel rods, which would then be shipped back to Tehran for use in its ailing medical reactor. This arrangement, however, still leaves Tehran with a considerable amount of uranium, potentially usable to enrich to weapons-grade material. The deal also is silent on Tehran’s fulfilling its legal obligations to allow full and open inspection of its nuclear facilities. And it is also obviously intended to deflect American efforts to ratchet up economic sanctions against Iran. Nonetheless, Washington moved ahead on that front and reached agreement on a draft Security Council resolution to impose tougher sanctions (with the participation of China and Russia), suggesting that Iran’s ploy is failing.

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by Charles Krauthammer, Townhall

 Turkey and Brazil side with Iran because of Obama’s weakness

It is perfectly obvious that Iran’s latest uranium maneuver, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, is a ruse. Iran retains more than enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. And it continues enriching at an accelerated pace and to a greater purity (20 percent). Which is why the French foreign ministry immediately declared that the trumpeted temporary shipping of some Iranian uranium to Turkey will do nothing to halt Iran’s nuclear program.

It will, however, make meaningful sanctions more difficult. America’s proposed Security Council resolution is already laughably weak — no blacklisting of Iran’s central bank, no sanctions against Iran’s oil and gas industry, no nonconsensual inspections on the high seas. Yet Turkey and Brazil — both current members of the Security Council — are so opposed to sanctions that they will not even discuss the resolution. And China will now have a new excuse to weaken it further.

But the deeper meaning of the uranium-export stunt is the brazenness with which Brazil and Turkey gave cover to the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions and deliberately undermined U.S. efforts to curb Iran’s program.

The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world.

That picture — a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam — is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there’s no cost in lining up with America’s enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.

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BY ED MORRISSEY, Hot Air

This must be what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton mean by “smart power.”  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not exactly known for his erudition or deep intellect, has managed to outmaneuver the US on uranium enrichment, reaching a deal with Brazil and Turkey to exchange raw nuclear fuel for processed fuel rods.  That deal still allows Iran to enrich some of its own uranium, but even while the US objects, it allows political cover to Russia and China:

Iran backed the Obama administration into check in its ongoing nuclear chess match by announcing its own fuel swap deal after a Western-backed plan fell apart last fall.

The country, trying to avoid sanctions after it rejected a deal with the U.S., Russia, France and the International Atomic Energy Agency in October, steered around the United States in brokering a swap with Turkey and Brazil.

In a sense, Iran left the Obama administration an out by declaring it would continue producing 20 percent enrichment uranium even as it proposes shipping nuclear material to Turkey. To become official, the deal still has to be agreed to by the same group of nations that pursued the deal last fall — and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a written statement that while the fuel swap would be a “positive step,” any move to continue enrichment internally would be a “direct violation” of Security Council resolutions.

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Reuters

 Putin issues Obama a stern warning

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the United States and other Western nations on Thursday against imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, Interfax news agency reported.

The European Union has said it may impose unilateral sanctions if a U.N. Security Council resolution fails.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has been lobbying Western companies not to do business with Iran, but has not imposed sanctions against them.

Countries facing Security Council sanctions "cannot under any circumstances be the subject of one-sided sanctions imposed by one or other government bypassing the Security Council", Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax.

"The position of the United States today does not display understanding of this absolutely clear truth."

Russia is in talks with the United States and other U.N. Security Council members on a fourth round of sanctions. Moscow has indicated it could support broader sanctions but has stressed they must not harm the Iranian people.

Washington has not publicly warned of unilateral sanctions but has made clear it wants tougher measures than veto-wielding Security Council member Russia is likely to accept.

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By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER, NY Times

 Gates says the White House had essentially no plan

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course.

Officials familiar with the memo’s contents would describe only portions dealing with strategy and policy, and not sections that apparently dealt with secret operations against Iran, or how to deal with Persian Gulf allies.

One senior official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the memo, described the document as “a wake-up call.” But White House officials dispute that view, insisting that for 15 months they had been conducting detailed planning for many possible outcomes regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

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By JOSH GERSTEIN, Politico

 Obama admits, he will probably not get the international community behind his agenda

President Barack Obama acknowledged Tuesday that, despite his full-court press for tough sanctions aimed at persuading Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program, he could not promise that China and other major powers would go along.

“I am going to push as hard as I can to make sure that we get strong sanctions that have consequences for Iran as it’s making calculations about its nuclear program, and that those are done on a timely basis,” Obama said during a news conference at the end of the 47-nation summit he convened in Washington to address the dangers of nuclear terrorism.

The president met Monday with Chinese President Hu Jintao, and afterward White House aides portrayed China’s willingness to discuss the mechanics of a sanctions plan as major development and a sign of international unity on the issue. But, on Tuesday, the president himself was more sanguine about prospect of achieving sanctions with bite.

Obama said he was “mindful” that many countries have trade and energy ties to Iran that could be disrupted, but that “a strong number of nations” on the United Nations Security Council support sanctions.

But he was quick to add, “I’m not going to speculate beyond that in terms of where we are.”

Obama also left open the possibility that the sanctions won’t be successful. “Sanctions are not a magic wand,” he said. “What sanctions can do….is to hopefully change the calculus of a country like Iran.”

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AP

 Ahmadinejad says Obama is an “amateur”

Iran’s hard-line president on Wednesday ridiculed President Barack Obama’s new nuclear strategy, which turns the U.S. focus away from the Cold War threats and instead aims to stop the spread of atomic weapons to rogue states or terrorists.

Obama on Tuesday announced the new strategy, including a vow not to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them. Iran, however, was pointedly excepted from that pledge, along with North Korea, because Washington accuses them of not cooperating with the international community on nonproliferation standards.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the focus would now be on terror groups such as al-Qaida as well as North Korea’s nuclear buildup and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Pressuring Iran in its standoff with the West is a particular focus of the new strategy. The exception from the non-use pledge represents a warning to Tehran. But also, the new guidelines aim to show Washington is serious about reducing its own arsenal and about gathering world support for stricter safeguards against nuclear proliferation — a move aimed at further isolating Iran diplomatically.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad derided Obama on Wednesday, depicting him as an ineffective leader influenced by Israel to target Iran more aggressively.

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WSJ

 Obama has done nothing about a Nuclear Iran

‘Our aim is not incremental sanctions, but sanctions that will bite." Thus did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seek to reassure the crowd at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee two weeks ago about the Obama Administration’s resolve on Iran. Three days later, this newspaper reported on its front page that "the U.S. has backed away from pursuing a number of tough measures against Iran" in order to win Russian and Chinese support for one more U.N. sanctions resolution.

This fits the pattern we have seen across the 14 months of the Obama Presidency. Mrs. Clinton called a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable" no fewer than four times in a single paragraph in her AIPAC speech. But why should the Iranians believe her? President Obama set a number of deadlines last year for a negotiated settlement of Iran’s nuclear file, all of which Tehran ignored, and then Mr. Obama ignored them too.

In his latest Persian New Year message to Iran, Mr. Obama made the deadline-waiver permanent, saying "our offer of comprehensive diplomatic contacts and dialogue stands." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a quick rejoinder. "They say they have extended a hand to Iran," the Iranian President said Saturday, "but the Iranian government and nation declined to welcome that."

The Iranians have good reason to think they have little to lose from continued defiance. Tehran’s nuclear negotiator emerged from two days of talks in Beijing on Friday saying, "We agreed, sanctions as a tool have already lost their effectiveness." He has a point.

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