Only what’s left of Obama’s political life is under attack, I hasten to reassure his fans, though one can detect a distinct longing in some quarters to jeopardise his physical existence as well.
Given that the Republicans control both Houses of Congress, Obama is a lame duck. Still, as he still possesses presidential powers, there’s no shortage of volunteers to cook the bird in orange sauce.
It has become abundantly clear even to slow learners that this beneficiary of affirmative action run riot really doesn’t belong in the White House. He never has.
Besides a photogenic appearance and a knack for demagoguery honed in his previous career as ‘community organiser’, Obama brings nothing to the job – other than an opportunity for Americans to repent their sin of black slavery.
After two elections and six years of Obama in the White House, that aspiration has lost much of its urgency. Coming to the fore instead is naked primal fear.
People around the world have suddenly realised that, with Obama-led America no longer wishing to lead the world, a nuclear catastrophe is looming large.
For the White House is no place for nincompoop community organisers with their ideology of care, share, be aware. As America has appointed herself the Leader of the Free World, the freedom of this world and even its continued existence depend on how well America plays this role.
Having said that, I don’t believe that the world needs a global policeman or indeed leader, and nor do I think America is ideally suited for that role.
Every serious country should pull its own weight on defence, policing itself. Only then military and political alliances like Nato can be a marriage of equals rather than a sort of global vassalage with America playing the part of feudal lord.
However, we must deal with situations as they are, rather than as we’d like them to be. If America is to lose her function as global protector, she ought to be eased out of it gradually, with other countries developing a valid ability to keep the world safe.
No vacuum of power must be allowed to appear, for it’s only likely to be filled by evildoers who won’t think twice before acquiring and using nuclear weapons.
Ever since such weapons became available and their potential was demonstrated with such explosive power in Japan, mankind has done all it could to prevent their use.
The problem with a nuclear exchange between any two countries is that its consequences would be unpredictable. It’s conceivable that a shootout with tactical nukes could stay local, with the two countries involved just fighting it out and then going home to lick their wounds.
But such a conflict could also escalate to a point where the whole survival of our species could be endangered. In between those two extremes there are a whole range of scenarios, ranging from disastrous to cataclysmic, that are too awful to contemplate.
The sheer unpredictability of any nuclear exchange has led to all sorts of non-proliferation treaties that have so far managed to keep nuclear weapons out of real loonies’ reach – just.
US power has been central to this relative success, and it is this power that Obama is trying to neuter. His playing footsies with Putin over the Ukraine and Syria, craven vacillation over North Korea and irresponsible withdrawal from the Middle East have all been factors of danger to the world.
Yet none of them has been as fraught with explosive potential as his proposed nuclear treaty with Iran, whereby the US will lift all sanctions in return for the Ayatollahs’ nebulous promise not to make a nuclear bomb just yet, at least not openly.
This isn’t so much the accurate text of the agreement as its essence, but the essence is accurate enough.
Hence the price of Iran doing America’s bidding in fighting Isis (which has appeared as a direct result of America’s bungling) is a nuclear-armed Shiite loony bin whose declared purpose is to destroy Sunni lands and Israel.
No wonder the potential targets of what passes for Obama’s foreign policy are running scared. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has delivered a rousing speech to US Congress, where he was invited without Obama’s prior knowledge.
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are feverishly looking for ways of beefing up their security and possibly acquiring nuclear weapons themselves. And Israel, which already has such weapons, has made it clear she’ll use them when it becomes inevitable that Iran will go nuclear.
All such measures, present and future, are tantamount to a declaration of war on Obama’s presidency. And now Congress has launched its own offensive.
In circumvention of accepted practice, and quite possibly US law, 47 of the 54 Republican senators, including three presidential candidates, have published an open letter telling Iran that Obama’s deal isn’t worth the proverbial paper it’s written on.
Republican-controlled Congress, they explained, will never ratify the treaty, and the next president will revoke it “at the stroke of a pen”. So don’t get your hopes up high, was the overall message.
Obama’s Democratic admirers scream treason to the Constitution, and, though I’m no expert on American constitutional law, they may have a point.
What’s more, there are enough experts on American constitutional law among the signatories to know that the Democrats may have a point. But, as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.
This letter has the makings of an American constitutional crisis and an effective paralysis of the US as a global power. This means that a match is being taken to the wick sticking out of the powder keg.
The world is on the brink of a major war – largely thanks to ‘Oh, Bummer’, who lists the Nobel Peace Prize among his attainments. Can the prize be revoked in parallel with the Iran treaty, one wonders.