When it comes to rogue Middle Eastern states, President Obama is starting to sound like Emily Litella on the old “Saturday Night Live”: angry bombast, followed by a timid “Never mind.”
First we had Obama’s embarrassing walk-back of his threat to launch military strikes against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against civilians. Now the White House has pulled the rug out from under its own plans for new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic-missile program.
Why? Apparently because Tehran threatened to walk away from Obama’s nuclear accord — demonstrating yet again which side was more eager to strike a deal.
Not to mention how terrified this president is of any confrontation that might threaten the deal — which explains why the State Department offered only a late, low-key criticism of the state-sponsored mob that attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran over the weekend.
Iran clearly thinks it now has license to do whatever it likes — which has the Democrats who succumbed to White House pressure to endorse the deal steaming.
At 10 a.m. last Wednesday, the State Department notified Congress that it was about to announce new sanctions over Iran’s “significant threat to regional and global security.”
An hour later, it delayed the announcement. Late that night, it scrapped it altogether — with the sanctions indefinitely delayed pending “further diplomatic action.”
That Obama refuses to hold Iran accountable for anything also puts the lie to his vow he’d reimpose (“snapback”) sanctions if Iran violates the nuke deal.
As Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) noted, these failures to push back against misbehavior will simply “invite Iran to cheat.”
It’s what critics of the deal have said all along. Even supporters of the deal, like Coons, get it — why won’t the president?