COPENHAGEN AND TEHRAN - MORE TIED TOGETHER THAN YOU THINK - AT 7:31 P.M. ET: 

The weak accord with which the United Nations climate summit closed is a harbinger of world leaders' likely future failure in efforts to impose tougher sanctions against Iran, diplomats said Saturday.

The historic climate talks ended Saturday after a 31-hour negotiating marathon, with delegates accepting a U.S.-brokered compromise that gives billions in climate aid to poor nations but does not require the world's major polluters to make deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions.

Following the end of the summit, diplomats said that China's flexing of its political muscles in its disputes with the United States at the conference should serve as a warning of what will happen when the Obama administration seeks to bring tougher sanctions against Iran for UN Security Council approval.

COMMENT:  I'm afraid it's true.  China bested the U.S. by quite a bit at Copenhagen.  It stood up to a president who's easy to stand up to you, especially if you're a foreign dictatorship.

President Kennedy failed in foreign policy during his first year in office, largely because he projected an image of inexperience and weakness.  Obama is failing the same way.  Kennedy was bright enough, and political enough, to understand what had happened.  He improved in his second year.  While that can be the case with Obama as well, Obama's instincts are far to the left of Kennedy's, and he is backed up by a university/college complex whose proprietors believe that the Vietnam War was the greatest catastrophe in human history, and maybe beyond that, into the Solar System. 

Even Hugo Chavez dumped on Obama during the Copenhagen conference.  As usual, Obama didn't snap back.  That lack of snap will be noticed in Tehran, where they notice everything.

December 19, 2009