Are you better off than you were four years ago? The answer is yes if you happen to rule Iran. Despite Barack Obama's attempts to make pals with fellows he assumed were misunderstood just because they were high-strung, the Islamist loons who rule Persia don't seem willing to accept a moratorium until January on teaching atoms to explode. They have failed to act like good dudes who would slow down their nuke-making as a favor to the incumbent regardless of how cool our president's term has been.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got to speak at the UN on Yom Kippur was just in case you thought this world wasn't completely messed up. The progressive republic that is Iran won't be deterred from the notion that spinning centrifuges to build weapons that threaten millions of innocent people is allowed but men being attracted to men is not. These are the sort of people who'd rather have nukes than a good economy. Of course, Obama would lead us to having neither.
Here in the free world, the administration doesn't seem particularly concerned with stopping the ruling cabal, as maybe we'll discover that they're good ayatollahs once we get to know them. For now, we know that sanctions on Iran work as well as gun laws do in stopping criminals, which is to say they don't. Law and order is antithetical to people who blame both a nasty society for spurring criminality at home and arrogant colonialism for creating international goons. Nothing should be hated as much as asking why our enemies hate us.
Here: have a hot dog. The attempt to befriend the thugs through inviting them to celebrate Independence Day with us still sadly remains the groveling strategy's apex. The outrageously foolish attempt to engage in diplomacy with calculating madmen only worked well as a concept, and even then just for ingenuous suckers who dream of peace without noticing the propensity of Earth's dastards to pick wars.
Or sometimes Obama hasn't cared at all: eating ice cream while democracy protesters bled in Iran's streets was the emblematic representation of his nonchalance aside from his standing nap through the first debate. His only more pathetic dozing came between fund-raising in Vegas and at Jay-Z's Champagne Center while our Middle Eastern outlets were dodging flames.
It's hard to blame our commander in chief for neglecting to monitor developments in every single hemisphere, as the Middle East is far away and thus hard to keep in mind. Plus, the perpetually enraged primitives like us now. Remember: Indonesian childhood.
Perhaps this administration is trying to put the misery of having no money in perspective by endangering lives: pulsating fear makes every moment feel precious even if one's checking account has run dry. But the steady prospect of hazard only makes us realize what a real president's job is and how we don't have one.
Fooling around with the economy bankrupts us. Fooling around while dealing with Iran threatens the lives of free people, including our friends in Israel. He remembers they're our pals, right? The only decent family on the block is the one Obama eggs on Halloween. His perverse contempt for successful people at home is only matched by his fawning over demons abroad.
Despite Obama's delusion that he's going to change his man, he'll fail like every bride who's convinced herself that a knave of a groom is nothing more than a how-to project. As with bastard husbands who copped a feel off a bridesmaid at the reception, Iran's ruling gangsters have been nasty jerks for every moment since the revolution. But America's president would rather apologize for installing the shah than make the cabal apologize for threatening to obliterate the Jews.
What's a little autocracy imposed by an ally? Sure, Iran was comparatively well-behaved before the Islamists began stoning adulterers, and pretending to offer the choice of unhinged bastards for whom to select to lead hasn't quite created freedom. But maybe Egypt and Libya will prove that democracy is ready to take hold in medieval societies after they're done torching our buildings.
As for people who have extensive experience in representative government yet still elect people like Barack Obama, we have to move away from leaders who make us feel bad for being so good at everything. Americans will try getting this voting thing right by choosing a president who doesn't make degrading the nation a priority.
Iran's insistence in promulgating chaos is a chance to diminish us, which is why Obama thinks they can't be all bad. Striving to make the world safe by dismantling both its most powerful and decent constituent is bad enough of our president.
As usual, he also has the results wrong: a weaker America destabilizes the world as quickly as the brutes can grab their blackjacks. If you think that approach is bad, you're correct, and if you know that diluting our power is not happening by accident, you've realized that there are some things worse than mere incompetence.
Everything is screwy on purpose. Obama's completely perverse priorities created deliberate chaos in an attempt to even out the inequalities caused by some people working harder and respecting natural rights.
Resenting planetary elitism doesn't make terrorists quit, either. We aren't any safer than the last time African embassies suffered attacks, with the difference being that the 1998 president could be at least somewhat delusional because he didn't yet have the example of savage villains building up to a massive homeland attack.
Meanwhile, lucky Iranians flee from a leader Obama still hopes to befriend. And A-Jad's camera operator knew enough to flee pre-nukes. Iran fulfilling their explodey madman dreams would make the world irreversibly more hazardous. It's almost too late too stop them now, but it would definitely be so four years from now. Maybe a hamburger cookout will convince Iran to behave during the second term.
Obama can't keep away from cunning lunatics. We must find a president who can make better decisions about relationships. If Mitt Romney wants the incumbent to grovel before him, he should threaten America.
Anthony Bialy is a writer and “Red Eye” conservative in New York City. He tweets at http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy.
