The health care impasse has been a lucky break for the Obama administration. It has kept the people's eyes and minds off the disaster that it is brewing for us on Iran. Now, the fact is that on each and every foreign policy initiative it has taken defeat has stared us in the face. Some of our adversaries may be too cautious to rub it in our eyes. But all you have to do is read the papers to see.
Venezuela, however, is not so diplomatic. It has now recognized--I think the first to recognize--the two satrapies Moscow has carved out of its neighbors. For which carving we rewarded the Russians with a retreat of our missile plans in Poland and the Czech Republic. But we have yet to hear anything substantive from Washington about the involvement of Cararcas with Iran's nuclear designs about which I wrote earlier this week.
Still, the real rogue in this drama is Iran itself and its macabre president, Dr. Ahmadinejad. The government is now making war on its own people. And, soon, perhaps, it may--as Berthold Brecht suggested to his own German Democratic Republic--dissolve its people. But its response to Washington's nine-month limp diplomacy is just what that diplomacy deserves. In the meantime, we are still talking deadlines while the building of the bombs and the missiles goes on apace.
The Washington Post this morning has dissected the situation. It is nothing less than grim. And the administration looks just plain silly and very very weak.