Iran tests fires missiles.

Whose fault is it?

Barack Obama on the “CBS Early Show” this morning:

“What this underscores is the need for … a clear policy that is putting the burden on Iran to change behavior. And frankly, we just have not been able to do that the last several years, partly because we’re not engaged in direct diplomacy.”

Barack Obama on CNN this morning:

“We have to have a kind of aggressive diplomacy which unfortunately has been absent over the last several years.”

Barack Obama on NBC’s “Today Show” this morning:

“Part of the problem that we’ve got right now is, weve been basically farming out diplomatic activity to the Europeans.”

…. according to Barack Obama.

Instapundit recently alerted us to a piece in the New York Sun about an alarming disruption in America’s pro-democracy efforts for Iran:

The former director of President Bush’s flagship democracy program for the Middle East is saying that the State Department has “effectively killed” a program to disburse millions of dollars to Iran’s liberal opposition.
In an interview yesterday, Scott Carpenter said a recent decision to move the $75 million annual aid program for Iranian democrats to the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs would effectively neuter an initiative the president had intended to spur democracy inside the Islamic Republic.

Near the bottom of the article, we read this:

The money for Iranian democrats increased significantly in 2006 to $75 million after Iran announced that it had begun to enrich uranium at its Natanz facility. But most of that money, $49 million, was designated for Voice of America’s Persian service and Radio Farda, an American funded Persian radio station that mixes news and popular music.

“If the program is just going to be expanding Voice of America and Radio Farda,” Mr. Carpenter said, “don’t brand it as the Iran democracy program.”

Actually, it does. The fact is, America’s international broadcasting efforts, for which I used to work, is a democracy program. It can be stand-alone, or it can work with other campaigns. Carpenter unecessarily separates international broadcasting from other pro-democracy efforts. All efforts work hand-in-hand. These aren’t isolated initiatives.

That point is made a bit differently but far more eloquently and subtly in today’s Washington Post in a piece by Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Satloff writes an intelligent and compelling critique of Karen Hughes’ tenure as the Bush Administration’s public diplomacy director.

Satloff suggests that with Hughes now out of the way, we can “focus on identifying, nurturing and supporting anti-Islamist Muslims, from secular liberals to pious believers, who fear the encroachment of radical Islamists and are willing to make a stand.” One element of his strategy? International broadcasting:

marshaling government resources — our embassies, aid bureaucracies, international broadcasting units and intelligence agencies, as well as our commercial, educational and civic relationships — to give anti-Islamists the moral, political, financial, technological and material support they need.

That’s the correct approach for supporting freedom around the world. A broad strategy, of which international broadcasting is one solid element.

At first blush, last night’s debate exchange with Tim Russert over Iran and Israel made Barack Obama seem weak on fighting terror and tyrants.

Obama: “Now, we are a stalwart ally of Israel and I think it is important to understand that we will back them up in terms of their security.  But it is critical to understand that — until we have taken the diplomatic routes that are required to tighten economic sanctions — I have a plan right now to make sure that private pension funds in this country can divest from their holdings in Iran. Until we have gathered the international community to put the squeeze on Iran economically, then we shouldn’t be having conversations about attacks on Iran.”

Economic sanctions first?  Makes for sound, safe diplomacy — but would Israelis agree that this is the best way to protect their country?

Turns out yes, if you listen to Israel’s legendary terror fighter Benjamin Netanyahu:

“There are two ways to stop it. One is the military option, and the other is the economic sanctions option. I think that the preference, obviously, is to first try the economic sanctions, but make it clear to everybody, including the Europeans, that, if that fails, the military option will be entertained.”

Not bad company for Obama.

From the Washington Post’s coverage of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appearance at the United Nations:

An Iranian reporter asked Ahmadinejad how he could say during an appearance at Columbia University on Monday that there are no homosexuals in Iran, noting that she knows a few herself.
“Seriously?” he replied. “I don’t know of any.” He asked for their addresses so the government could “be aware of what’s going on.”

That’s one way to get someone’s address.  Just imagine how it plays out: “So what do we say we grab dinner out and a movie?  I’ll have my Gestapo pick you up around eight?”

Dana Milbank’s coverage of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad includes this gem:

The reception was rather friendlier at the press club, where the sole questioner was moderator Jerry Zremski of the Buffalo News. He introduced Ahmadinejad as “one of the most newsworthy heads of state in the world” and chose written questions submitted by the audience such as “Do you plan on running for reelection in two years?”

I’m watching Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak to Columbia University students.  And I’m waiting for someone to throw a pie in his face.

After all, he’s taking advantage of our freedom of speech.  Normally, when someone controversial (i.e. conservative) speaks freely on a campus, the typical response is an enlightened student to rush the stage with a pie.  Freedom of pastry, after all.

Hasn’t happened yet.  But I’m sure they’re just waiting for the right moment.

I’ll wait, too.

Wanna know why Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is a master at the craft of debating and speaking?

Check out this exchange yesterday on CNN:

CHETRY: No doubt you heard the news today about the Bush administration considering putting Iran’s elite National Guard (sic) on the list of state sponsors of terror.  Is that a good idea, in your opinion?

DURBIN: I want to continue to put the pressure on Iran to let them know that we don’t want the development of nuclear weapons and we certainly don’t want them to continue to send weaponry and bombs into Iraq that endanger our soldiers. I was just in General Odierno’s office last week in Baghdad, and he showed me one of these roadside bombs that they had managed to dismantle, made in Iran, clearly made in Iran, that can penetrate any armor that we can build in the United States. So the putting the pressure on Iran is the right move.

CHETRY: So you think this move as listing them as a state sponsor of terrorism is a good move?

DURBIN: Moving the guard in Iran, the Iran guard to this level, says to everyone, if you want to do business with Iran, do it at your own peril. We don’t want to do business with a terrorist state.

CHETRY: Very good.

Very good, indeed — not for praising the Bush Adminstration for its “good move,” but for seeming to claim it as his own.  Too bad the reporter didn’t press him to answer the question.  Still, would Durbin ever credit Bush?  Probably not.

A rare chance to praise Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) for this tidbit we found in Dana Milbank’s story today:

As it happens, nonsense was on prominent display at both ends of the Capitol yesterday. The day began with a hearing of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee investigating a singular case of government dysfunction: how the administration had allowed al-Hurra, a U.S.-funded Middle Eastern television station, to promote Holocaust deniers and anti-Israel campaigns. “Why are American taxpayer dollars used to spread the hate, lies and propaganda of these nuts, when our goal was to counter them?” asked the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.).

Nuts is probably the best description you can say in Congress.  Axis of evil-doing nuts.

The New York Sun runs this editorial on Alhurra, America’s Middle East satellite news network run by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (where I used to work):

Among Alhurra’s blunders has been a broadcast of Hezbollah’s leading ideologist of anti-Jewish terror, Sheik Nasrallah. Alhurra kept him on the air — live, no less — for more than an hour, a stunt that some members of Congress recently charged, in a letter to Secretary Rice, violated a written policy. The congressmen quoted a report in the Wall Street Journal that quoted Sheik Nasrallah, five minutes into his rant on Alhurrah, as saying “the only place where bullets should be is the chest of the enemies of Lebanon: the Israeli enemy.” The congressmen also cited a bizarre broadcast that gave credence to Iran’s Holocaust denial conference. This has lead to calls in the Congress and in the press (particularly eloquently in dispatches by Joel Mowbray issued by the Wall Street Journal) for greater oversight.

The Holocaust denial conference mention is particularly noteworthy.  Some examples of what Alhurra broadcast:

• Anchor: “Iranian foreign minister Manushaher Muttaki said that his country’s intent is not to deny or prove this issue (the Holocaust).”
• Mohamed Abou Jihad, Hamas’ representative in Tehran: ““It is obvious that only part of the story is told regarding what happened during WWII.”
• Reporer: “Even if opinions have differed about how true the Holocaust is, particularly that some denied its occurrence.”
• David Duke: “Thanks to President Ahmedinejad, experts from all around the world were able to gather here in order to discuss this incident and exchange views about it.”

This may represent the worst lapse in editorial judgment ever for America’s international broadcasting efforts.