Blame it on the Boogey (man) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
I'm a staunch Obama supporter; but this one just doesn't work for me. Nevertheless, it's understood that the most likely answer to questions about why the presumably progressive Obama administration would continue along the Project for a New American Century (PNAC)-inspired neo-con path laid out by his predecessor is hardly shocking. My guess - at the risk of pulling a Dinesh D'Souza ("How Obama Thinks") - is that it involves raw politics. Regardless of how "progressive" any leader - including Barack Obama - may be at heart, attaining and retaining the office of the U.S. Presidency requires a strict adherence to a certain kind of domestic and geo-political status quo.
BOO!!
Certainly, in a metaphorical sense, for President Obama and the Democratic Party, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could easily represent the political reincarnation of Willie Horton whom "tough on crime" former President George H.W. Bush masterfully presented as the incarnate American boogey man in order to frighten voters into rejecting the presidential aspirations of liberal, anti-death penalty "technocrat" Michael Dukakis. That would be the best-case-scenario for Ahmadinejad in that Horton, though incarcerated, is still alive. Far more unfortunate for Ahmadinejad, would be his reincarnation in the form of another darkly-hued American boogey-man - Ricky Ray Rector whom then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton utilized in 1992 to burnish his "law and order" cred as a means of sustaining his presidential aspirations. In the heat of his presidential campaign, Clinton made the politically-motivated decision to loudly rush to back t0 Arkansas to oversee the brain-damaged Rector's execution. How brain-damaged was Rector? So totally out of it mentally to request that the dessert provided as part of his last meal just prior to his execution be set aside "for later."
In light of the possibility that Obama may find justification for a military response against Iran based on Ahmadinejad's rhetorical excesses, I'd argue that in terms of threats, Americans probably have more to fear from some of our own in the Mid-East allies such as Afghanistan's manic-depressive President Hamid Karzai; from Saudi Arabian fundamentalists of the kind charged with the September 11 attacks; from Pakistan (which possesses nuclear weaponry and is widely believed to be harboring bin Laden); or even from domestic political and social provocateurs like Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh or some members of the quasi-secessionist Tea Party Patriots movement.
Yet despite this, much of the covert activity in Iran initiated by Bush has been stepped up during the Obama administration and additional overt actions, such as new sanctions, continue to be applied. Fair enough, I guess. However, I cringe at the possibility of a last-minute 2012 "wag the dog" scenario in which the President Obama, perhaps sinking in the polls, somehow finally becomes "convinced" that Ahmadinejad has either gone too far with his rhetoric, or come too close to conceiving his nuclear first-born. But the ducks are currently lined up; the set up is in place. What a pity were such to occur. A military strike against Iran under such circumstances would represent yet another dubious, if not altogether vain expenditure of lives and resources for purely political purposes, only this time, by an administration considered progressive.
"The Obama administration insists that for the moment it is committed to penalizing Iran for its nuclear activities only with diplomatic sanctions," remarked New York Times correspondent Mark Mazzetti in a piece he wrote about a "secret directive" signed by General David Petraeus late last year. "Nevertheless, the Pentagon has to draw up detailed war plans to be prepared in advance, in the event that President Obama ever authorizes a strike."
For me, this move would likely lead to a turning point in my view of the present administration as it would further blur the line that distinguishes a so-called "progressive" from a neo-conservative administration on matters of geo-politics, particularly during a campaign year. It would perhaps show that within both, there is a shallowness of heart masked by shamelessly overzealous deliverances of what turn out to be demonstratively false expressions of "support for the troops." Right now, in nearly all such instances, this kind of callous hypocrisy tends to come from those who fancy themselves conservative and "patriots." A clear example of this occurred late this summer.
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