Krauthammer: The Myth of Iran’s ‘Isolation’
In announcing the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, President Obama stressed not once but twice Iran’s increasing “isolation” from the world. This claim is not surprising considering that after 16 months of an “extended hand” policy, in response to which Iran actually accelerated its nuclear program — more centrifuges, more enrichment sites, higher enrichment levels — Iranian “isolation” is about the only achievement to which the administration can even plausibly lay claim.
“Isolation” may have failed to deflect Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it does enjoy incessant repetition by the administration.
For example, in his State of the Union address, President Obama declared that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated.” Two months later, Vice President Biden asserted that “since our administration has come to power, I would point out that Iran is more isolated — internally, externally — has fewer friends in the world.” At the signing of the START treaty in April, Obama declared that “those nations that refuse to meet their obligations [to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, i.e., Iran] will be isolated.”
Really? On Tuesday, one day before the president touted passage of a surpassingly weak U.N. resolution and declared Iran yet more isolated, the leaders of Russia, Turkey, and Iran gathered at a security summit in Istanbul “in a display of regional power that appeared to be calculated to test the United States,” as the New York Times put it. I would add: And calculated to demonstrate the hollowness of U.S. claims of Iranian isolation, and to flaunt Iran’s growing ties with Russia and quasi-alliance with Turkey, a NATO member.