"I'm not interested in victory."

2 issues are coming to dominate the landscape of this young presidency:

1.) Afghanistan

2.) Iran

Health care has a way of taking a back seat when Iran is launching a barrage of test missiles capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe, 1 day no less after a "secret" underground nuclear facility became public. Add to that General McCrystal, the theater commander in Afghanistan, is rumored to have asked the president for an additional 30,000 troops to quell a growing enemy. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff himself, Admiral Mike Mullen, flew out to get the request in person, and then reportedly carried it back to the president. McCrystal (of the inspiring pre battle speech to his Marines that I posted some months back) & General Patraeus, Cent Com Commander and avid backer of McCrytal's request, are veterans and even architects of the successful surge strategy in Iraq, and they have the further endorsement of this plan from Mullen himself - so saying "no" will be a hearty task for Obama given this is all now public knowledge. Yet saying yes will be near catastrophic to his base support. The hard left did not elect this man to fight a war, let alone win one, he was (as he promised) sent there to "end" a war (or 2). For the life of me I still don't see how you "end" a war - you either win it or lose it, but I digress. The bottom line is to lose in Afghanistan is to cede ground to the very architects of 9/11. It will be a generational loss to the very terrorists Obama claimed we took our eyes off of by invading Iraq. Unfortunately I have almost no confidence that the president will draw the ire of his left wing base, but not because he is "scared" of them but because he IS of their mindset and feels to betray them is to betray himself, if you want my personal psychoanalysis of our Commander in Chief. And that of course means our fighting men and women will be forced to do more with less ... I desperately hope I'm wrong about him on this ... we will certainly see in the near future.

His perhaps even more immediate problem is Iran. 2 days after Israeli PM Benjamen Netenyahu held up Nazi documents from the Wannasee Conference in response to a holocaust denying Iranian speech, and 1 day after a secret underground nuclear facility was made public, Iran is shooting off enough rockets to cause Hezbollah leaders everywhere to get a chubby.

Now, it is to that development (the secret underground facility) to which I want to turn our attention in the remainder of this post, and on 2 fronts. First, the interaction with Chip Reid (the CBS chief White House correspondent) just yesterday at a solo presidential post G20 press conference.

Reid: Thank you Mr. President, you just mentioned sanctions that have bite, what kinds of sanction, and I know you can't get into details but what kind of sanctions at all would have bite with Iran, do you really think that any kind of sanctions would have any effect on somebody like Ahmadinejad, secondly some of your advisers today said that this announcement was a victory, do you consider it a victory and if so why didn't you announce it earlier since you have known since you were President elect?

President Obama: "Umm ... this isn't a football game. I'm not interested in victory, I'm interested in solving the problem"

He then went on to describe exactly what the "problem" was as he sees it. I didn't transcribe the rest because I - along with the rest of the world - could scarcely get past the first 2 lines, but the roughly 56 second interchange is Here for your viewing/listening pleasure.

I don't have to describe to anyone here how exceedingly troublesome it is for the president of the United States to send that sort of signal, "Im not interested in victory", on a myriad of levels too numerous to mention in a book, let alone a post. But what I'm even more interested in is what no one else is seemingly talking about as far as I can tell. Reread the second part of Reid's question, if you'll indulge me ... "secondly some of your advisers today said that this announcement was a victory, do you consider it a victory and if so why didn't you announce it earlier since you have known since you were President elect?"

The administration was quick to point out that it was in fact NOT blindsided by the news over the secret underground Iranian nuclear facility. They wanted to appear on top of the situation, at least in terms of Intel, and I have no doubt that they did know. You can read (or hear) Chip Reid reference that fact very clearly in his statement. The "success" he spoke of was the administration noting Russia and China's willingness to publicly condemn Iran's latest actions in strong terms. They saw that as a "victory" for the White House given that only a few months ago those 2 nations weren't willing to make such a public condemnation (a clear - "see I'm doing what Bush couldn't" jab). But the throw away line of Reid's is the most important of all: "... you have known since you were president elect."

Does anyone get what that then means? The missle shield he abandoned in Poland/Czech Republic was, yes, an "unwelcome mat" for Russia, that was the acknowledged side effect. But the PRIMARY purpose given, argued and accepted between Bush, Poland and the Czechs was the defense missile shield was to be a clear and large deterrent to a belligerent, nuclear bound Iran. THAT was its' primary focus. Meaning Obama GAVE AWAY THE STORE ON MISSILE SHIELD IN FULL KNOWLEDGE OF THE SECOND, UNDERGROUND IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITY!!!!

Am I the only one that has made that connection, and is absolutely astonished by it?

You see my friends, I don't buy this argument that his world view is pure "naivety." This is the result (this president's reasoning) of a student taking his deconstructionist philosophy theory too far, and blurring, to the point of erasing, all clear lines between good and evil. And once you are left with ONLY "differing perspectives" with no judgment as to their validity, well - Marxism, socialism, Communism, and a foreign policy out look tantamount to a child's view of the world can very easily make its' way into your cerebral cortex ... and thrive.