Iran unveils new weapons just as U.S. releases $550 million of its assets

It looks like someone needs to explain to the Obama Administration how the concept of carrots and sticks actually works. When you're dealing with a rogue nation whose behavior you're trying to rein in, it is sometimes acceptable (if only because there's no getting around it) to give the rogue nation a reward in exchange for their doing what you want them to do. This only works, though, if you actually make them meet the conditions in order to get the reward.

That seems to be where the Obama foreign policy is breaking down vis-a-vis Iran, which apparently is guaranteed its carrot and need not fear the stock. Washington Free Beacon reports:

Iranian banking authorities on Wednesday confirmed that another $550 million is now on its way to Tehran under the interim nuclear accord inked last year with the United States and other Western nations. The United States has agreed to unfreeze a total of $4.2 billion in Iranian oil assets over the next several months. Experts have warned that because the money is being given to Iran with no strings attached it could go to fund terror-related activities or even Iran’s nuclear program.

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The latest cash delivery comes as Tehran unveils a slew of advanced weapons, including ballistic missiles capable of “precision targeting.” Iran was also caught smuggling a shipment of weapons to Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Iran’s Defense Minister announced on Wednesday that the military had made great progress in approving the accuracy of its ballistic missile guidance system, which Tehran views as a deterrence to the U.S. and Israeli militaries.

Not only are they not meeting the conditions, they're publicly rubbing it in America's face, making announcements about progress in their missile program even as the U.S. releases the money. And why shouldn't they? What do Obama's red lines mean? As we found out in Syria, and are now finding out in Ukraine, they mean nothing. It meant nothing when Obama said Iran would not get nukes on his watch, because he is not prepared to take any action to back up his words and the Iranians know it. If it wasn't for the Israelis, there would be no one at all holding Iran accountable:

The interception of the Panamanian-flagged ship, called the "Klos-C," is not the first time Israel has hooked a deadly Iranian cache at sea. In 2009, Israel found 500 tons of weapons on a cargo ship destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon. In 2002, the seizure of the Gaza-bound Karine-A ship, loaded with Iranian arms for Yasser Arafat, persuaded the Bush Administration that the Palestinian leader was actively abetting terror against Israel. The seizure of the ship is a reminder that the aims and methods of Iranian foreign policy remain unchanged despite the alleged moderation of President Hasan Rouhani. It also suggests the possibility that Hamas, which governs Gaza, maintains a military relationship with the regimes in Damascus and Tehran despite its claims to have severed ties after the Syrian uprising began in 2011 and Bashar Assad started massacring Palestinians along with everyone else.

This is the price you pay, America, when you cast a vote based on your impatience with events abroad. America has to be engaged in the world whether we like it or not because the world's bad actors aren't going to stop pursuing their agenda. And contrary to what some of you want to think, America simply does not have the ability to live isolated from the world. We have to import and export. We have to maintain alliances. We have to stand up for other free nations because we need their friendship and it's the right thing to do. This also goes for conservatives, by the way, who are intrigued by right-wing isolationist arguments. When amoral, unstable regimes develop nuclear weapons capable of reaching our shores or obliterating our allies, we simply don't have the option at that point of basking in our non-interventionist purity. Better to accept before the fact that America needs to lead in the world. Obama is not interested in seeing America exercise global leadership. He never has been. He scoffs at the very idea that we have any right to do so. That's why he utters platitudes that sound like leadership but never backs them up. You can fool idiot MTV-watching voters with this crap, but you can't fool the likes of Vladimir Putin or the mad mullahs who rule Iran. They recognize quickly when you're all talk and no action, and they take advantage. That's when you start realizing that it actually does matter how Iran behaves, and that we can't afford the price we will pay when they are allowed to proceed unchecked. But too often in recent history, America has learned this lesson only after being jerked out of the self-imposed slumber in which it entertained the delusion that we don't really need to lead. Surprise. We do.