The Obama Two-Step

The Obama Two-Step
By Alan Caruba
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If you need a reason to be wary of Barack Obama, consider what I have begun to call the Obama Two-Step. It is his incredible ability to say two things, completely opposite to one another, and keep on dancing around the subject.

For example, on June 4 he told a gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC) that he would work to “eliminate” the threat posed by Iran to security in the Middle East and around the globe. “The danger from Iran is grave and real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat”, said Obama, adding that it included doing “everything” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

By the next day, June 5, WorldNetDaily reported that Obama considered Iran, as well as Cuba and Venezuela to be “tiny compared to the Soviet union. They don’t pose any serious threat to us.”

During the Kennedy administration, the Cuban missile crisis was considered enough of a threat to go to war unless the Soviets removed them. The Soviet Union was brought to its knees by unrelenting resistance from 1945 to 1990. Venezuela is under the control of a communist dictator, Hugo Chavez, an admirer of Fidel Castro, and someone who is pursuing a policy of extending Communism when and where he can in South America.

In a world where a group of terrorists can seize four airliners and fly two of them into the Twin Towers and one into the Pentagon, we not only have a threat from nation-states, but from entities driven by their own ideological intent to destroy the nation.

As for a threat from Iran, that nation has been providing arms to the enemies of the American military stationed in Iraq. That alone is tantamount to an act of war. It declared itself the enemy of the United States when it took our diplomats hostage in 1979 and held them hostage for 444 days. It continues to shout “Death to America” and a similar policy against Israel.

Obama’s comments before AIPAC were delivered with the usual eloquence he brings to any speech, but he needs to explain why Rashid Khalidi, a longtime critic of Israel, is one of his friends and someone who sponsored a political fund-raiser for him in 2000. The Woods Fund, while Obama served on its board, gave money to the Arab-American Action Network, run by Mona Khalidi.

Further evidence of the Obama two-step is his initial declaration that he would be happy to meet with the president of Iran, Mamoud Amadinejad without any precondition and then his subsequent position that this would occur only with the extensive diplomatic preparation such a meeting between any U.S. President and head of a foreign state would require.

Obama is rapidly proving that he is willing to say anything one day and reverse course the next. This is a most worrisome character trait in any politician, but the worse one possible in someone who wants to be the next President of the United States of America.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/.

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