IS OBAMA BEING ROLLED?  AND THE ANSWER IS... - AT 8:40 A.M. ET:  In a clear-minded and well-timed piece in today's Washington Post, Robert Kagan asks the musical question.  The evidence is pretty clear, and we're in pretty deep:

Watching the Obama administration launch its "new era of engagement" over the past 10 months, most seasoned observers have pondered two questions: First, if engagement fails, will the Obama team ever acknowledge that it has failed? And what then?

And...

The first question is about to be answered. The main object of the "new era of engagement," Iran, has settled back into its old game-playing...

...Iran's intentions, it seems, are not good. Tehran apparently will not accept the deal but will propose an alternate plan, agreeing to ship smaller amounts of low-enriched uranium to Russia gradually over a year. Even if Iran carried out this plan as promised -- every month would be an adventure to see how much, if anything, Iran shipped -- the slow movement of small amounts of low-enriched uranium does not accomplish the original purpose, since Iran can quickly replace these amounts with new low-enriched uranium produced by its centrifuges.

The logical conclusion:

Tehran is obviously probing to see whether President Obama can play hardball or whether he can be played. If Obama has any hope of getting anywhere with the mullahs, he needs to show them he means business, now, and immediately begin imposing new sanctions.

What about Russia?  We groveled to Moscow by canceling East German missile defense:

So now comes the test. Russia joined France, the United States and ElBaradei in agreeing to the proposal on Iran's low-enriched uranium. Iran is now rejecting that proposal. If the administration's engagement strategy is working, then Moscow should come through by joining in sanctions. If, on the other hand, Moscow declares that Iran's counterproposal is satisfactory, or calls for further weeks or months of negotiations, then we will know that Russia, too, is playing Obama.

The suggestions about Obama in this column are stark, and, I'm afraid, entirely accurate.

Many of us worry that, for Obama, engagement is an end in itself, not a means to an end. We worry that every time Iran rejects one proposal, the president will simply resume negotiations on another proposal and that this will continue right up until the day Iran finally tests its first nuclear weapon, at which point the president will simply begin negotiations again to try to persuade Iran to put its nuclear genie back in the bottle.

And anyone who challenges the Obama strategy will be called 1) a warmonger, 2) a neo-con, 3) a pawn of the Israel lobby, and 4) a friend of Dick Cheney.

Finally:

The worst of it is that the Tehran regime is now desperately trying to buy time so it can regain full control of the country in the face of widespread anger after the fraudulent presidential elections in June and a still-vibrant Iranian opposition. For the clerics, an endless negotiating process is not merely a means of putting off any real concessions on its nuclear program. It is also, and more important, a way of putting off any Western sanctions that could produce new and potentially explosive unrest in their already unstable country. That is the best card in Obama's hand right now. It's time for him to play it -- or admit that poker is not his game.

COMMENT:  That says it, doesn't it?  Probably the most focused column I've read on this subject recently.  It's time for obama to stop campaigning for his office, and fill his office.

October 29, 2009