Obama on Iran: So much for Change

Author: Jared Fallon

For a presidential candidate running on the one-word campaign of “change”, Senator Obama has made some very disappointing choices, among which was choosing the 6^th longest running Senator in US history as his running mate. His disappointments most certainly extend to his clearly inexperienced and depth-lacking approach to foreign policy, as if the Democratic Party is immune to international conflict due to the past Republican President’s publicly unpopular war efforts. The serious of flip-flopping stances on Iran that Obama has taken certainly warrant a closer look into his stance on Iran and the questions that are raised in comparing his shifting opinions.

Seeing how Barack has only served in the Senate since 2004 the 5^th black US Senator has not had to truly take interest in US-Iran affairs until recently. His first stance paints a very different picture contrary to the “all diplomacy and no fight” approach he pairs with his charismatic smiles with on a daily basis. In an interview on October 1, 2004, as the highly anticipated 13^th District Illinois Senatorial race was coming to a close, the Chicago Tribune came across startling findings. The soon to be Senator was quoted declaring he would support the use of “surgical” missile strikes against Iran if it didn’t follow Washington’s demands for the abandonment of its nuclear program. “The big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to these pressures, including economic sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at what point are we going to, if any, are we going to take military action?”

The interview’s overall discoveries point to a less aggressive tone that Obama sticks so closely today, beginning with his personal investment pressure bill he introduced in May 17, 2007. S.1430, the bill he references in most interviews and debates covering Iran, aims to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to publish a roster of people that have made an investment totaling over $20 million in the energy sector within the country. The bill is 1of 71 that Obama has sponsored throughout the duration of his Senatorial career. The second most popular stance for Obama to take on Iran is that of economic sanctions – an option that hoards of UN failures and soured Cuban/Russian/US relations can be traced back to. But the real flip-flop that Senator Obama made was over a series of comments at a speech in Pendleton, Oregon on March 19, 2008.

“They (Iran) don’t pose a serious threat to us in the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. (Naive are those people who believed that nuclear weapons have the potential to level the playing field in conflicts) If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance.” After comparing this to Obama’s previous support of missile use towards Iran, one should question whether or not the missile tactic approach was just for fun or if for some reason Iran poses a far less serious threat than it did four years later, despite the President’s determination to have Israel “wiped off the map” and its proud leveraging influence it has used on the international stage with its nuclear capabilities.

Lastly, if one were to follow Obama’s most recent rhetoric on Bush/Cheney’s lack of “principled democracy” and diplomatic negotiations, why would economic sanctions truly help? This sort of hard-line policy does a great job in providing a president’s people with renewed fire against an external force, leaving the population only with more reasons for wanting less talk (that Obama is overwhelmingly in favor of) and more action on the part for change that translates into economic policies that the people decide, not the external force that exerted the rough economic times in the first place. Whether or not one believes Iran’s nuclear program is far less threatening than the former Soviet’s, one cannot support the notion of enraging the people of a nation with a nuclear arsenal, expecting engagement to purely provide a solution. Iran has teeth, and whether or not Obama believes it would be good to fight back with tongue or not, he needs to choose a more definitive policy on Iran, especially considering its increasing nuclear might.