Appeasement of the Day

UPDATE: Former UN Ambassador John Bolton in the Wall Street Journal: "Get Ready for a Nuclear Iran."


Responding to Iran's drive for nuclear weapons, the Obama Administration's tried comicly denying the facts, negotiations that only encouraged more rapid uranium enrichment, capitulation, and "crippling sanctions" (ultimately downgraded to "sanctions lite"). Last week, the Administration flip-flopped again; the latest policy could be the worst yet:

The Obama administration is pressing Congress to provide an exemption from Iran sanctions to companies based in "cooperating countries," a move that likely would exempt Chinese and Russian concerns from penalties meant to discourage investment in Iran.

The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act is in a House-Senate conference committee and is expected to reach President Obama's desk by Memorial Day. . .

A White House official confirmed Wednesday that the administration was pushing the conference committee to adopt the exemption of "cooperating countries" in the legislation.

Neither the House nor Senate version of the bill includes a "cooperating countries" provision even though the administration asked the leading sponsors of the Senate version of the bill nearly six months ago to include one.

According to Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the proposed exemption "is aimed squarely at letting businesses in China and Russia off the hook in exchange for their cooperation."

In other words, in an effort to secure support from Security Council veto powers, Obama already watered-down the sanctions to the vanishing point. On top of that, the President now proposes to apply the sanctions -- which would bar from the U.S. market companies selling significant gasoline or petroleum refining equipment in Iran -- more strictly to American companies than to Russian or Chinese companies. Such asymmetric sanctions put U.S. business at a competitive disadvantage. Meanwhile, pro-genocide Iranian President Ahmadinejad gets a State Department visa to come to America so he can equate acceleration of bomb-building with nuclear non-proliferation, derailing NPT talks.

Let me break that down: Minimal foreign policy effectiveness? Check. Antithetical to U.S. interests? Check. The Obama Administration? Double-check.