Israel is finding itself abandoned by the U.S. after President Obama, was yet again outmaneuvered by Vladimir Putin, and signed a terrible deal that saves Iran's nuclear program. President Obama is coming up way short in dealing with Russia's KGB President. Putin has brilliantly entrapped America in a lose-lose situation throughout the Middle East. From Syria to Libya to Iran to Iraq, the Russian President is outwitting Barack Obama which has a devastating effect for America's closest ally, Israel.
We can see clearly how incompetent the Obama Administration is with this recent Iran nuke deal. On the one hand, the United States must use all its leverage to force the Iranians to back away from their quest to create nuclear weapons to protect its allies and to maintain Middle East stability. But, on the other hand, America has to woo Iran and keep the Iranians from growing too close to the Russians. This sort of balancing act - while difficult - can be done through the same sort of carrots and sticks that Ronald Reagan and America used with China in the 1980s. But Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan. It's because President Obama fundamentally lacks principles, real world experience and he is Muslim, that when faced with the possibility of Europe and Russia jointly endorsing an Iranian nuke program, Obama can only go with the flow.
President Obama's disastrous Middle East foreign policy created this current Iran nightmare. If we go back it becomes even clearer with his reckless decision to withdraw from Iraq in 2009. The Iraq War was a bloody, very brutal conflict and expensive, but having American troops remain in Iraq (even nicely tucked away in their bases) gave us still priceless leverage over the Iranians to keep them from sliding too close to Russia and developing nukes. And our troops, while on the ground, helped to prevent Iran reaping tens of billions of dollars in black market activities (mostly oil) in the Iraqi Republic. Those billions were funneled into Iran's Quds Guards, which are now a hugely formidable military force and helped Iran through the “sanctions”.
What President Obama seems ignorant of is the name of the game: Oil. When Vladimir Putin goes to sleep at night, he's not counting sheep, solar or wind farms; he is counting how much influence Russia has to control the global price of oil. That's why Putin sees Israel as an irrelevant annoyance on the world stage, and he looks at Saudi Arabia and dismisses them as a country fraught with its own significant internal problems that is quickly depleting its oil reserves. When he calculates the score at the end of each day, Putin sees how much oil influence he has today, and thinks how he can get more tomorrow. Putin knows if he can flip Iran into Russia's pawn, it would be the crowning achievement to his reign as Russia's latest Tsar.
After all, Shia-majority Iran has the world's fourth largest oil reserves (with more being discovered), and it controls the Straits of Hormuz, where 35% of the world's oil goes through. Also, it has a rapidly expanding population - unlike Saudi Arabia. In fact, the Shia constitute a huge and growing portion of the populations of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait. Shia traditions differ markedly from the Sunni, and the Shia is typically far less radical and despise Saudi Arabia's extremist form of Islam. Russia knows that in future, Iran is going to have far more influence in those countries due to demographics and cultural transformations than those countries will have in Iran.
Controlling Iran would give Russia the power to permanently break the OPEC oil cartel, and by controlling Iran - Russia would by extension - control Iraq (after the U.S paid to rebuild it). Putin would effectively control nearly all the oil flowing into Europe (they already control most of the natural gas). With that much power, he could permanently fracture the America-Europe Western Alliance.
It's a strategic nightmare that Obama and his brilliant people around him, have no good solutions to offer. It seems all Barack Obama wants to do is nicely nudge the Iranians not to develop nukes, and to then meekly offer them some financial concessions. He's a desperate and pathetic leader who is looking at Mr. Putin, and wondering how he, “Emperor Obama” got in this quagmire. Had Mr. Obama kept American troops in Iraq or given some more strategic thought to Oil, he might have been in a better position to halt Iran from becoming an extension of Vladimir Putin's energy expansion and giving Israel's security away in the process.
Faithful Ally Israel now seems to be the sacrificial lamb to Obama's incompetence. Even worse, the ramifications are now that the Saudis are announcing they have "on order" nuclear weapons from Pakistan. Obama has flushed our friends, supplied our enemies and strengthen our Russian adversary.
This is a foreign policy disaster. Good Job Obama and crew, at this rate you will soon be selling off Alaska to the Russians for a few rubles.