Sacramento Bee Logo

Charles Krauthammer: Obama’s Nixon doctrine anoints Iran | The Sacramento Bee

×
  • E-edition
    • Customer Service
    • SacBee Rewards
    • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Apps
    • Mobile & Apps
    • Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube
    • News in Education (NIE)
  • Newsletters

    • Sacramento Region
    • Arena
    • City Beat
    • Crime
    • Local Govt Salary Database
    • The Homeless
    • Marcos Bretón
    • Transportation
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health & Medicine
    • Traffic Conditions
    • Weather
    • Communities
    • Elk Grove
    • Folsom/El Dorado
    • Roseville/Placer
    • Yolo
    • Sports
    • Kings
    • NBA News
    • 49ers
    • Giants
    • Oakland A's
    • High School Sports
    • Joe Davidson
    • More Sports
    • Raiders
    • NFL News
    • MLB News
    • River Cats
    • Soccer
    • Colleges
    • Golf
    • Autos Racing
    • Politics
    • Capitol Alert
    • State Workers
    • The California Influencer Series
    • Local Elections
    • PoliGRAPH
    • State Worker Salary Database
    • Legislative Gifts
    • Local Elections
    • California Elections
    • Election Endorsements
    • Election 2018
    • Voter Guide
    • Investigations
    • Data Tracker
    • Public Eye
    • Afghan Refugees
    • Nursing Homes
    • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Election Endorsements
    • Viewpoints
    • Influencers Opinion
    • California Forum
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Submit a Letter
    • Jack Ohman
    • Editorial Board
    • Entertainment & Life
    • Arts & Theater
    • Books
    • Home & Garden
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Outdoors
    • Pets
    • Travel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Horoscopes
    • Comics
    • Puzzles
    • TV Listings
    • Sacbee Rewards
    • Food & Drink
    • Restaurants News & Reviews
    • Restaurant Directory
    • Cooking & Recipes
    • Beer
    • Wine
    • Appetizers Blog
    • California
    • Big Valley
    • Marijuana
    • Wildfires
    • Water & Drought
    • Lottery
    • Business
    • Real Estate
    • Market Summary
    • Cathie Anderson
    • Nation & World
    • National
    • World
    • Technology
    • Family
    • Celebrities
    • TV news
    • Weird News
    • Video Break
    • News Obituaries
    • Death Notices
    • FAQ
    • ObitMessenger
    • In Memoriam

    • The Sacramento Bee Store
    • Golf Card
    • Farm to Fork Dining Card
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Cars
  • Homes
  • Classifieds
  • Legal Notices
  • Place an Ad
  • Advertise
  • Mobile & Apps

Viewpoints

Charles Krauthammer: Obama’s Nixon doctrine anoints Iran

By Charles Krauthammer

The Washington Post

    ORDER REPRINT →

April 23, 2015 11:00 AM

WASHINGTON – In December, President Barack Obama said that he wished to see Iran ultimately become a “very successful regional power.” His wish – a nightmare for the Western-oriented Arab states – is becoming a reality. Consider:

▪ Gulf of Aden: Iran sends a flotilla of warships and weapons-carrying freighters to reinforce the rebels in Yemen – a noncontiguous, non-Persian, nonthreatening (to Iran) Arabian state – asserting its new status as regional bully and arbiter. The Obama administration sends an aircraft carrier group, apparently to prevent this gross breach of the U.N. weapons embargo on Yemen. Instead, the administration announces that it has no intention of doing anything. Meanwhile, it exerts pressure on Saudi Arabia to halt its air war over Yemen and agree to negotiate a political settlement involving Iran.

▪ Russia: After a five-year suspension, Russia announces the sale of advanced surface-to-air missiles to Iran, which will render its nuclear facilities nearly invulnerable to attack. Obama’s reaction? Criticism, threats, sanctions? No. A pat on the back for Vladimir Putin: “I’m, frankly, surprised that 1 / 8the embargo 3 / 8 held this long.”

▪ Iran: Last week, Obama pre-emptively caved on the long-standing U.S. condition that there be no immediate sanctions relief in any Iranian nuclear deal. He casually dismissed this red line, declaring that what is really important is whether sanctions can be reimposed if Iran cheats. And it doesn’t stop there. The Wall Street Journal reports that Obama is offering Tehran a $30 billion to $50 billion signing bonus (drawn from frozen Iranian assets) – around 10 percent of Iranian GDP.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to The Sacramento Bee

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

▪ Syria: After insisting for years that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria “step aside,” the U.S. has adopted a hands-off policy toward a regime described by our own secretary of state as an Iranian puppet.

▪ Iraq: Iran’s Quds Force Commander Qassem Suleimani, director of Shiite militias that killed hundreds of Americans during the Iraq War and were ultimately defeated by the 2007-08 U.S. surge, operates freely throughout Iraq flaunting his country’s dominance. In March, he was directing the same Iraqi militias, this time against the Islamic State – with the help of U.S. air cover.

This is the new Middle East. Its strategic reality is clear to everyone: Iran rising, assisted, astonishingly, by the United States.

Obama’s initial Middle East strategy was simply withdrawal. He would enter history as the ultimate peace president, ushering in a new era in which “the tide of war is receding.” The subsequent vacuum having been filled, unfortunately and predictably, by various enemies, adversaries and irredeemables, Obama lighted upon a new idea: We don’t just withdraw, we hand the baton. To Iran.

Obama may not even be aware that he is recapitulating the Nixon doctrine, but with a fatal twist. Nixon’s main focus was to get the Vietnamese to take over that war from us. But the doctrine evolved and was generalized to deputize various smaller powers to police their regions on our behalf. In the Persian Gulf, our principal proxy was Iran.

The only problem with Obama’s version of the Nixon doctrine is that Iran today is not the Westernized, secular, pro-American regional power it was under the shah. It is radical, clerical, rabidly anti-imperialist, deeply anti-Western. The regime’s ultimate – and openly declared – strategic purpose is to drive the American infidel from the region and either subordinate or annihilate America’s Middle Eastern allies.

Which has those allies in an understandable panic. Can an American president really believe that appeasing Iran – territorially, economically, militarily and by conferring nuclear legitimacy – will moderate its behavior and ideology, adherence to which despite all odds is now yielding undreamed of success?

Iran went into the nuclear negotiations heavily sanctioned, isolated internationally, hemorrhaging financially – and this was even before the collapse of oil prices. After 17 months of serial American concessions, the Iranian economy is growing again, its forces and proxies are on the march through the Arab Middle East and it is on the verge of having its nuclear defiance rewarded and legitimized.

The Saudis are resisting being broken to Iranian dominance. They have resumed their war in Yemen. They are resisting being forced into Yemen negotiations with Iran, a country that is, in the words of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., “part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

Obama appears undeterred. He’s determined to make his Iran-first inverted Nixon Doctrine a reality. Our friends in the region, who for decades have relied on us to protect them from Iran, look on astonished.

Charles Krauthammer’s email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

  Comments  

Videos

Painting the Delta

Homeless in Sacramento

View More Video

Trending Stories

An unsettling sight: Someone strung dead coyotes along a fence near Oakdale

February 20, 2019 12:04 PM

Reports of ‘homophobic’ emoji set off online uproar. What’s going on?

February 20, 2019 07:44 AM

Gavin Newsom’s housing lawsuit put 47 California cities on notice. Is yours on the list?

February 19, 2019 12:00 AM

Newsom claims ‘retribution’ after Trump administration demands high-speed rail funds back

February 19, 2019 03:36 PM

I owe how much? Americans shocked by impact of new tax law

February 19, 2019 09:00 AM

Read Next

Commentary: Has Newsom become Governor Gaslight?
Video media Created with Sketch.

Viewpoints

Commentary: Has Newsom become Governor Gaslight?

By Dan Walters CALmatters

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 20, 2019 03:30 AM

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s descension into gaslighting following a jab from Trump after Newsom blamed the media for incorrectly reporting his bullet train announcement has earned Newsom a new nickname. Can he live it down?

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to The Sacramento Bee

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE VIEWPOINTS

Tyranny is un-American.  It is time to kick our wannabe dictator out

Viewpoints

Tyranny is un-American. It is time to kick our wannabe dictator out

February 20, 2019 12:01 AM
Inland California: the backbone of our state

Viewpoints

Inland California: the backbone of our state

February 18, 2019 12:01 AM
Gov. Newsom’s decision to change high-speed rail plan doesn’t go far enough

Ben Boychuk

Gov. Newsom’s decision to change high-speed rail plan doesn’t go far enough

February 17, 2019 12:01 AM
Lots of luck to Amy Klobuchar. History shows she’ll need it

California Forum

Lots of luck to Amy Klobuchar. History shows she’ll need it

February 16, 2019 12:01 AM
One year after Parkland shooting, gun violence remains a threat

Viewpoints

One year after Parkland shooting, gun violence remains a threat

February 14, 2019 12:01 AM
Glowing coverage of Kamala Harris ignores reality

Bill Whalen

Glowing coverage of Kamala Harris ignores reality

February 12, 2019 12:01 AM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

The Sacramento Bee App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Photo Store
Advertising
  • Place a Classified Ad
  • Place a Legal Notice
  • Place a Digital Ad
  • Place a Newspaper Ad
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Corrections Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story