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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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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AP

 Mahmoud is not intimidated by Obama’s talk

Iran will begin enriching uranium to 20 percent from Tuesday, the Islamic republic’s atomic chief announced on Sunday just hours after being told to do so by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The decision raises the stakes in a dispute with the West less than a week after Iran had appeared to accept a UN-drafted nuclear deal on the supply of fuel for a research nuclear reactor in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad’s move drew fire from Britain and the United States, and analysts said it was a bid to exert pressure on Washington and drive a wedge between the six powers over attempts to impose new sanctions on Tehran.

"We will inform the IAEA in a letter tomorrow (Monday) of our intention to enrich uranium to 20 percent," Ali Akbar Salehi told the Arabic-language Al-Alam television, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"The higher enrichment will begin at the Natanz plant from the day after tomorrow (Tuesday)," he added. Natanz is in the central province of Isfahan.

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FOXNews

 Obama’s approach has yielded no results

The Obama administration on Monday said Iran’s plan to build 10 more nuclear enrichment  facilities and expand to a half-million centrifuges was "unacceptable" — but once again, in the face of yet another deadline, it offered no specific response beyond wait-and-see.

On at least four occasions this year, President Obama has set deadlines for Iran to comply with international demands that it demonstrate transparency and cooperation on nuclear developments. 

But the Islamic Republic has blatantly ignored all deadlines set by Obama and the United Nations to freeze its uranium enrichment program, prompting critics to say that another "deadline" will have little, if any, impact.

Iran announced ambitious plans Sunday to construct another 10 nuclear facilities after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, called on it to halt work on a uranium enrichment plant.

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By Jerusalem Post

Will Obama side with the holocaust denier?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the US to choose between Israel and Iran on Tuesday night, according to Iranian state media.

Speaking in Istanbul at the 25th Session of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Iranian president said that it was up to US President Barack Obama to realize his motto of "change".

"The support of both Israel and Iran can’t go hand in hand," he was quoted as saying by IRNA. "No change is made unless great choices are made.

"We would welcome the changes, and wait for big and correct decisions to be made… We will clasp any hand that is extended sincerely toward us, but changes should be made in practice."

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By Bruce Walker, American Thinker

Obama needs a new foreign policy strategy

President Obama seems to be grappling with an approach to safely resolve the grave international problems of Iran and of North Korea.  He is floundering for the right tactics when what he needs is the right strategy.  As my friend Herb Meyer, who worked closely with Reagan in winning the Cold War, reminds us, Reagan’s strategy was straightforward:  ”How about this?  We win.  They lose.”  Barry Goldwater put in much the same during the 1960s, when his Cold War strategy was summarized in his 1963 book title Why Not Victory?

Obama, like many Leftists, confuses national security tactics with national security strategy.  Our strategy, after July 4, 1776, was to win independence.  Members of the Continental Congress could visit with representatives of the Crown all they wished, but the strategy of the conflict – not the tactics – changed and decided the course of the war.  Winston Churchill, in the darkest days of the Second World War, said that “Our policy is victory.  Victory at all costs.”

Obama needs to learn a bit about statesmanship from Churchill, Washington, and Reagan.  These men all had a defined goal and they each knew why reaching that goal was vital to mankind.  When politicians lack a strategic plan, we end up with messes like Vietnam, Korea, or the Treaty of Versailles.  Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon could never figure out whether they wanted to defeat North Vietnam – a relatively simple task which our four mothballed Iowa class battleships could having largely done alone – or to leave South Vietnam to the communists.

Wilson, the only president as naïve as our current president, promised the peoples of Europe sovereignty, and then allowed France and Britain to create precisely the sort of polyglot nations like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, which made some sort of European war almost certain and a Carthaginian peace on Germany which made it very hard for noble Germans to win elections in Weimar Germany.

By Conn Carroll, Heritage Foundation Blog

Obama claims they had a fair debate... Really?!

On the eve of Friday’s election in Iran, President Barack Obama told reporters: “We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran. Whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact there has been a robust debate hopefully will advance our ability to engage them in new ways.” But almost immediately after the polls closed, election authorities miraculously claimed to have counted millions of paper ballots and named the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner.

Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, then went on state television Saturday to declare the result a “divine assessment.” Responding to reports that Iranian security forces were keeping main rival Mir Hossain Mousavi in his home, Mr. Ahmadinejad dryly responded: “He ran a red light, and he got a traffic ticket.”

The only real surprise from the weekend’s results was how blatant Iranian authorities acted to preserve the current administration. It was naive to ever pretend that Iran, a theocratic dictatorship, was ever a true democracy. In reality the ayatollahs hand-picked the four contending candidates from a pool of 475 who initially sought to run for the presidency. The senior clerics on the Guardian Council, which vets the candidates, severely narrowed the choices to less than 1 percent of the original field of challengers. The four who were permitted to run for the presidency share a deep commitment to the extremist Islamist ideology that sparked Iran’s 1979 revolution.

By Leo Rennert, America Thinker 

Kim Jong Ill shocks Obama this Memorial Day

President Obama vowed to do a better job than George W. Bush by using diplomacy instead of wielding a big stick in dealing with hostile nations like Iran, North Korea and Syria. It hasn’t worked.

Obama pleaded with them to “unclench their fists” and promised to reward them with a softer, more deferential United States eager to atone for past bullying tactics.  Thus, the President opted for more positive relations with the United Nations, extolled the virtues of multilateralism, and appointed high-level special envoys to Iran (Dennis Ross), to Afghanistan-Pakistan (Richard Holbrooke) and to Israel and the Palestinians (George Mitchell).

So far, however, there have been no takers for Obama’s entreaties.  Just the opposite.  The president’s charm offensive has had the opposite effect — a tougher, more belligerent tone, coupled with ominous muscle-flexing by the likes of Tehran and North Korea.  The Taliban also has been riding high, while Pakistan falters.