Lessons from Copenhagen

by Gordon Cooper

From Broader View Weekly, October 9, 2009

All we need to know about our president’s priorities and his readiness to play a major role in the world was made crystal clear to us this past week. While our brave soldiers fought the Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan and the illegitimate president of Iran flaunted his defiance toward the UN and the United States, we saw our president flying off toward Copenhagen to put the full force of his charisma behind the push for the 2016 Olympics to be played in his hometown of Chicago. Five full-size jets, two of which were undoubtedly needed to carry his ego alone, carried the leader of the free world to a foreign shore, not to show support for the above-named troops or to meet with foreign leaders about the crisis in Iran, but to act as a public relations office for a city that needs a major change in its effort to control rampaging youths more than it needs the Olympics.

The first indicator of your leader’s weakness is when he is criticized by the French leader as being too soft. President Sarkozy’s criticism of Obama, which seemed to escape the attention of our national anchors who had their hands full covering the weighty issues of David Letterman’s affairs, would have been trumpeted from every front page if he had called Bush naïve or accused him of living in a virtual world. Yet those are the words Sarkozy used in reference to Obama’s speech at the UN and his demeanor during the talks at Geneva.

Perhaps Sarkozy knows something of which he speaks. After all, his nation still smells of the burning buildings that resulted from radical Islamists who – for all their misguided direction – at least demonstrate true resolve and passion for their cause, which, by the way, is not peaceful coexistence with those of us they believe to be infidels.

Obama seems to indeed suffer from the naïve supposition that all the world needs is a song to sing and a Coke to drink and we will all live together in a nice yellow submarine. The sad fact is that the “peace at any cost” mantra of the 60’s and 70’s brought us the Carter years and it wasn’t until a more mature outlook from Reagan and Co. in the 80’s brought American pride and idealism back into prominence.

An overlooked fact by Obama as he takes his apology express to every international venue is that if it were not for the policies of Reagan, Bush 1, and Bush 2, he would be dealing with Iran plus an empowered and emboldened Saddam Hussein as well as a U.S.S.R that would have bases in Salvador and possibly Guatemala. He seems to miss the point that it was not by negotiations alone that we were able to dissuade radical dictators.

My brother claims that the recent meeting in Geneva represents a victory for multilateral talks and that we walked away from there with a whimpering, remorseful Iran agreeing to all the demands of the UN and IAEA. I am afraid to say that the real winner in Geneva was Iran. They gave up nothing and they received plenty. They admitted they had a previously undisclosed nuclear reactor in the region of Qom. Then they sheepishly agreed to open the facility for inspections – in two weeks. This surely shows that they are scared of Obama and the UN, right? Wrong.

A sad fact that has escaped the rookie in the White House, is that the reactor in Qom is not even operational. The real threat is located at the reactor in Natanz and while we send in inspectors who will issue reports and have further Security Council wrangling, the work goes on unhindered and sanctions are avoided for another six to nine months – more than enough time for weapons-grade Uranium to be developed.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government is left to its own devices to defend its borders as they now realize that no help is to be expected from the president who essentially sided with the Palestinian suicide bombers in his speech to the UN. If they (the Israelis) demonstrate true resolve and forethought by using a surgical airstrike to destroy the reactors before they become operational, it will be even more evident that Obama lacks leadership on the world stage.

So, what have we learned in the past few weeks? Well, we learned that not only are we not the first choice for the Olympic games, we aren’t even first choice for the games that really matter.