IGNORING THE NATSEC CRISIS AT OUR DOORSTEP: JAMES JAY CARAFANO
Exclusive: Ignoring the National Security Crisis at Our DoorstepPresidential Policy: Does It Make the Grade?, James Carafano, PhD
The biggest national security news last week barely made the news at all. It is troubling to watch Congress continue to play politics with the reauthorization of key counterterrorism tools in the Patriot Act (like the ability to tract terrorists as they jump from cell phone to cell phone) and basically see the White House stand on the sidelines. By law, these tools would “sunset†at the end of the year unless reauthorized by Congress. Obviously, these authorities are needed, but Congress has dithered and the White House has done little to pressure the legislators to act.
In order to dodge, the charge of being “soft on terrorism,†a 60-day extension of the authorities was tacked on to the Defense authorization bill. This strategy allows Congress to kick the question of the Patriot Act down the road and deal with it later.
The problem is that there is still a faction in Congress that wants to water down the authority of law enforcement, and the White House and leadership in both houses are unwilling to just say “no.â€
Meanwhile, Obama made a quick trip to Copenhagen to put a plug in for action on climate change. Unfortunately, the kind of change the White House is pressing for is likely to make us less safe and secure. Without question, the greatest security threat of an international climate treaty is that it would make the economies of the U.S. and its allies less competitive, depriving them of the capacity to defend themselves and aid other nations.
Sadly, the administration paid far too little attention to the national security crisis at our doorstep. Iran made more than a few headlines this week – all of them troubling. The Wall Street Journal notes,
On Wednesday, Iran tested a new version of its Sajjil-2 medium-range ballistic missile, a sophisticated solid-fuel model with a range of 1,200 miles – enough to target parts of Eastern Europe.
Also this week came news that Western intelligence agencies have an undated Farsi-language document titled “outlook for special neutron-related activities over the next four years.” It concerns technical aspects of a neutron initiator, which is used to set off nuclear explosions and has no other practical application. The document remains unauthenticated, and Iran denies working on a nuclear weapon. But it squares with accumulating evidence, from the International Atomic Energy Agency and other sources, that Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons design and uranium enrichment.
Heritage expert Jim Phillips concludes,
Clearly, Iran’s radical regime is making significant advances in missile technology that it seeks to display to the world, at least in part to discourage international action against its nuclear weapons program, which it continues to conceal and deny despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
What we have not seen from the administration is any sign they have an effective plan to deal with threat.
As the year comes to an end, it appears in the case of Iran, as with most key national security issues, the White House strategy is just to “kick the can down the road.†As the year comes to end, the president just keeps piling up one more “I†for “Incomplete†after another.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is a leading expert in defense affaires, intelligence, military operations and strategy, and homeland security at the Heritage Foundation.
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