Pat Buchanan Praises Obama While Neo-Cons Seeth

Old school conservative Pat Buchanan has encouraging things to say about the situation in Iran and a hat tip to President Obama and it is published in Townhall of all places.

The dilemma for America is that the theocracy defines itself and grounds its claim to leadership through its unyielding resistance to the Great Satan -- the United States -- and to Israel.

Nevertheless, Obama, with his outstretched hand, his message to Iran on its national day, his admission that the United States had a hand in the 1953 coup in Tehran, his assurances that we recognize Iran's right to nuclear power, succeeded. He stripped the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad of their clinching argument -- that America is out to destroy Iran and they are indispensable to Iran's defense.

With the mask of patriotism and the legacy of true revolution lost through this election fraud, Iran's regime stands exposed as just another dictatorship covering up a refusal to yield power and privilege with a pack of lies about protecting the nation.

It sure seems that he's right. The regime did panic and you have to think the Cairo speech was a part of that.

Meanwhile the Bush defenders seeth. You'd think they'd be happy that Iran is crumbling, but not if it's under Obama's watch.

Steyn:

Obama? They don't care about his speeches. The nukes? They'll happen regardless, with wide support. This election was stolen for reasons of internal survival and long-term regional strategy by a regime confident enough to snub not just a U.S. government promoting impotence as moral virtue but those allies in Europe who regularly jet in to offer cooing paeans to the vibracy of Iranian democracy.

Victor Davis Hanson:

There is some value to the present irony. Erstwhile U.S. allies can begin to fathom the wages of their much-desired “post-American world.” It appears that it wasn’t George W. Bush’s Manicheanism that “played into the hands” of Mr. Ahmadinejad, who now has a fresh lease on power, despite the U.S. charm offensive of the last six months.

The Neo-Con experiment, unfortunately didn't work. Continuing to threaten and scold Iran was meaningless. They knew the US could not invade, especially after the Iraq debacle. There was no big stick to fear. More creative diplomacy was needed. We have to move on to new ideas. Some people don't want to let it go.

Nation Building Ideal Almost Lost

Pulling out of Afghanistan is gaining support on the right. Here's Diana West in at the ultra-neo-conservative Townhall: Let Afghanistan Go

I decided to ask someone with real military experience how we could fend off jihad without further digging ourselves into Central Asia. I called up retired Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, one of the few top military leaders who talks on the record, to ask for his strategy recommendation for Afghanistan.

"Basically, let it go," he said.

Let Afghanistan go -- music to my ears, particularly given the source is no Hate-America-First professor or Moveon-dot-org-nik, but a lifelong patriotic conservative warrior. "There's nothing to win there," he explained, engaging in an all-too-exotic display of common sense. "What do you get for it? What's the return? Well, the return's all negative for the United States."

Obama is making a huge mistake by continuing this war. I thought he was supposed to bring "change"?