Friday, December 10, 2010
The Venezuelan missile crisis
Mettle will be tested. We will soon learn whether Barack Obama is indeed the heir to John F. Kennedy:
Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on western information sources[1], according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, of November 25, 2010. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit o Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on October19, 2010. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela, and the joint development of ground-to-ground missiles.
At a moment when NATO members found an agreement, in the recent Lisbon summit (19-20 November 2010), to develop a Missile Defence capability to protect NATO's populations and territories in Europe against ballistic missile attacks from the East (namely, Iran), Iran's counter-move consists in establishing a strategic base in the South American continent - in the United States's soft underbelly.
It seems to me that there is no scenario under which the president of the United States can permit this. Iran is effectively in a state of war, via proxies, with the United States and its allies. Venezuela needs to understand, in private if not in public, that we will not permit the establishment of an Iranian base in Venezuela and will take any required steps to prevent it.
13 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Dec 10, 12:09:00 PM:
Well said...
This Democratic Partisan weakness continues to invite and enable the very worst. Remember how wrong Kerry, Biden, etc., were about the Cold War and the Reagan recipe for victory over the oppressive Iron Curtain?
Those leaks revealed a disturbing confirmation, the Obama-Clinton foreign policy is far too obsessed with Our Allies, ignoring the real threats, like the concern of the entire ME - Iran getting NUKES.
Everyone in the World, Russia, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, China, North Korea, the Taliban, etc., has grown in an aggressive manner, sensing the enormous weakness of the Obama folly.
It almost seems a number of US Allies are growing with nervous concern seeing this return to "appeasement" - in fact, it was most disturbing to see the Obama Team push Karzai further and further away from the US - basically forcing a consideration of entertaining Iran.
They best be tough with this disastrous potential in Venezuela. The North Korean, Iranian, Venezuelan connection is very concerning. And some have linked some of the dangerous technology back to that horrid Clinton deal in the 90's which allowed advanced technology to be sold to the Chinese back in the day.
It is all very concerning, and "smart power" looks dumber and dumber by the minute.
How will Holt explain an Iranian Base in Venezuela? He really doesn't have to, for his Democratic Partisan supporters either don't care, or simply see the USA as the problem. It is a form of self destructive ignorance, a self loathing enabling of the worst.
IN the end, some Republican will be forced to clean up the mess, dealing with the threats ignored and enabled, just as we watched with the Bush Administration dealing with the negligence of the Clinton failure. Then, Democratic Partisans will blame it all on the Republican who is forced to take aggressive action, for the opportunity to stop the mess with more peaceful means was ignored again by the disastrous Democratic Partisan offering.
By , at
Fri Dec 10, 12:25:00 PM:
TH. Don't be silly. Obama and his foreign policy gurus will see this as just another sign that his pro Islamic policies have encouraged the hi-tech exports from an Islamic country.
By , at
Fri Dec 10, 01:49:00 PM:
Does Chavez want to be the new Castro so badly that he'd create a new missile crisis?
Iran has had Qods operatives in Venezuela for some time:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/21/iran-boosts-qods-shock-troops-in-venezuela/
But this is a dangerous escalation.
By , at
Fri Dec 10, 01:59:00 PM:
I hate to give a fool any credit, for fear of encouraging him, but Biden saw this one coming. Remember when he predicted that Obama would be put to the test with a "generated international crisis", and that his response would be a weak one?
He will "need your support" Biden famously told Obama supporters,
"And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
By , at
Fri Dec 10, 02:15:00 PM:
By 
Cas, at
Fri Dec 10, 03:28:00 PM:
gb: no reason to send in the old timer squad, when you still have the varsity available. I think flight time from US to Venezuela is approx 4 hours, at the top speed that the B-2 is capable of...But will the present C-in-C give that order? Can he order the destruction of the guy (Hugo Chavez) that he admires so much? It's a pretty good bet that the anti-Chavez crowd will try to revolt if we destroy the base...unfortunately, we will get no more gas from Citgo, until after the revolution (Venezuela owns a controlling share of the company)
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Dec 10, 06:03:00 PM:
Better to identify the cargo at sea. Jam the radio with electronic warfare aircraft, sink it. Do it right, and not only are there no witnesses, but the gear goes straight to the bottom.
By , at
Fri Dec 10, 07:06:00 PM:
Right now Obama is our biggest single threat because he cannot perceive of any external threats. Obama does not comprehend threats from outside the U.S. Only domestic threats to his style of socialism. His life up to now has seen nothing like it so he has no comprehension, no understanding. And he has no one close to advise him on this sort of thing.
It's going to be a rough ride while he learns.
By JPMcT, at
Sat Dec 11, 12:33:00 AM:
Despite the results of the mid term election, it is difficult to conceive of two more years of this flagrant incompetence without a major frontal assault. I am beginning to wonder whether this guy will be allowed to complete his term...he's that bad.
Did you see him sulk out of the press room leaving Clinton to meet the press...mumbling something like he was "keeping his wife waiting" too long?
It's surreal!
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sat Dec 11, 08:12:00 AM:
Anon 7:06 - In ever-smaller circles what you describe is simply a distillation of a general problem. To perceive internal threats to one's authority as the Real Enemy, underestimating external threats is a DC problem; doubly, it is a Democrat problem; trebly, a liberal problem. I don't know if Obama is actually any worse than the average beltway liberal Democrat on this, but as he's the only president, his relative rank among them isn't important.
Here's the worrisome part of that. As these external threats creep up, they eventually become apparent to enough people that politically, he will have to hit somebody. (I mean, other than political enemies - eventually even his supporters will recognise that getting tough with Republicans isn't the same thing.) Fights entered in that manner are often ill-advised, more random.
By SecondComingOfBast, at
Sat Dec 11, 11:51:00 PM:
Obama is such a disaster I would be surprised if this didn't happen sometime in the next couple of years. I still don't think he's technically as bad as Carter. I refuse to believe its possible for anybody to be as bad as Carter, or Buchanan. But he might well be the biggest embarrassment to hold the office of President since Franklin Pierce. Something really bad is going to happen sometime in the next two years, you can count on that.
By , at
Sun Dec 12, 10:18:00 AM:
I have the feeling that Obama would simply view this as an opportunity to have a dialog with Chavez. Inevitably, just as talks with Iran over nuclear weapons have gone on forever, this would stretch out for years and nothing would be accomplished while Venezuela and Iran go ahead and do what they were going to do anyway.
By JPMcT, at
Sun Dec 12, 02:49:00 PM:
Flashback to April, 1986. Gaddafi sends terrorists from Libya to bomb US servicemen in Berlin.
Did Reagan open up a dialogue?
No. He dispatched F-111's to Tripoli and took out chez-Gadaffi and his family and, lo and behold, the results were immediate.
Chavez needs somebody to shine a red laser dot between his eyes...then start negotiations.
