RUSH: Well, this next story can’t make the regime happy. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has really dissed our young president, Barack Obama. ‘Ahmadinejad ridiculed President Barack Obama’s new nuclear strategy, which turns the US focus away from the Cold War threats and instead aims to stop the spread of atomic weapons to rogue states or terrorists,’ and that’s being charitable about it. ‘Obama on Tuesday announced the new strategy, including a vow not to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them,’ which is just absurd. It’s an open invitation to any of these rogue states that don’t have nuclear weapons, and that’s most of them, to hit us any other way they can. We just promised them that we’re not going to nuke ’em back. We’re going to have to invade them if we respond, maybe drop some conventional bombs on them somewhere.
Here’s what Ahmadinejad said: ‘American materialist politicians, whenever they are beaten by logic, immediately resort to their weapons like cowboys.’ Do you realize what an insult that is? Because Bush, the hated and reviled Bush, he was the ‘cowboy.’ The Democrats called him the cowboy. ‘Mission accomplished.’ They hated the hell out of it. And here is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is supposed to like us now. Obama really believes that disarming — by the way, folks, people are asking, ‘Why is he doing this?’ People can’t get their arms around the fact that he thinks the country is the problem. And you’re going to have to come to accept that pretty soon, folks, because it’s the only way you’re going to understand everything that he does. He looks at himself as a ruler, not somebody who governs. The only reason to change our nuclear strategy the way Obama did is if you think the United States is the problem in the world — and believe me, he does. So it’s a combination here of getting a big PR show. He’s strutting around, ‘Look at me! I’m different than everybody else.’
Some people believe this. I, actually, don’t. But some people think he’s sending a signal to the rest of the world, ‘Look, you can trust us now. We’re not going to nuke you and we have no animus toward you, and you can like us now and you can stop threatening us.’ I don’t think that’s what it’s all about. He’s not that naive. Maybe some of the idealists in his administration are, but don’t take your eyes off the ball. This is all about punishing this country for what he thinks are its crimes and its sins since the founding. But Ahmadinejad was not through. After calling Obama a cowboy, he said, ‘Mr. Obama, you are a newcomer (to politics). Wait until your sweat dries and get some experience.’ I love it. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Normally, you know, when somebody like this would diss our president we would all rise up in anger, but I find myself — not agreeing with Ahmadinejad, but I’m — amused by the fact that Obama is not used to being criticized. He doesn’t take to it very well, and a lot of our foreign policy is aimed at neutralizing Iran attitudinally.
We don’t have any serious sanctions on the Iranians. Somebody proposed a real embargo on gasoline for Iran. The Iranians don’t have any refineries. They have to import all the gasoline they use. They have a lot of oil. They have to export it, have it refined, and imported back for gasoline. Somebody said if you really want to do sanctions, blockade and embargo gasoline getting in. ‘Oh, no, no, we can’t do that. Why, that would harm the Iranian population. We can’t do that. That would be counterproductive.’ What the hell are sanctions for? How do you simply sanction the regime? How do you simply sanction the mullahs and Ahmadinejad? The whole purpose of economic sanctions is to cause great harm to the population! So these sanctions, when you hear about them — third and fourth trip — they’re nothing. They are toothless. We’re doing nothing. Nobody has done anything about Iran’s nuclear buildup. And I do believe that Obama was trying to convince them to roll it back by saying (paraphrasing), ‘You’re not a problem. We’re not targeting you. We’re changing our nuclear policy. We’re in the process of disarming here.’
It’s naive and silly and Ahmadinejad has just indicated that he’s not buying it.