Arriving in Shanghai, Secretary Clinton said, “For trade to work in any economy and for it to produce the benefits we know it can, there must be a level playing field where domestic and international companies can compete freely and openly.” She wants China to rein in Pyongyang, which is completely dependent on Chinese aid to keep their people fed.

Tell me, Mrs. Clinton, do you really expect the Chinese will “level the playing field” so we can compete with them? That they will reverse course in relations with North Korea? Why should they do us any favors? What leverage do we have? Because negotiating without leverage isn’t negotiating, it’s begging.

The leverage is in the opposite direction. We need the Chinese to lend us money so we can continue our spending binge.

Rather than tighten our belts and cut back on government spending now that times are tough, the Obama administration has put it on steroids. The United States is spending money we don’t have, lots of it, and borrowing it from the Chinese. Just how much longer will the Chinese be willing to pay for Obamacare, Wall Street bailouts, and sweetheart labor union deals without expecting something in return?

It’s already started. Recently, a top assistant to Secretary Clinton apologized to the Chinese for Arizona’s immigration law. Last week a Chinese Finance Minister scolded us over our indebtedness saying, “the United States needs to take a hard look at its own fiscal situation in the light of what has happened in Europe.”


What’s next? President Obama, with his usual eloquence, gave us the answer in his commencement address at West Point last weekend. He acknowledged that “at no time in human history has a nation of diminished economic vitality maintained its military and political primacy.”

To quote columnist Charles Krauthammer, “decline is a choice.” Mr. President, is that where you’re taking us?

Wrong. Iran is shipping only part of its uranium — the rest is staying put at the covert enrichment plant at Qom, where it’s an integral part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

So why bother? Because Iran doesn’t want to give the U.S. or Israel an excuse to attack its nuclear sites. It doesn’t want the UN, especially U.N. Security Council members Russia and China, to impose severe economic and gasoline sanctions for being non-compliant on nuclear enrichment. Those trading partners don’t want to be dragged into sanctions either – they don’t see Iran’s nuclear weapons program presenting a threat to their security. So the deal announced today gives them all an excuse to ease off on sanctions, while allowing Iran to continue secretly enriching uranium to weapons grade quality.

The deal Iran has just announced is mostly a charade. The country is pretending to halt its nuclear enrichment program in hopes that we pretend to believe them. Meanwhile, the world is edging closer and closer to a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the world.

What gives? Why the about face?

But that’s nothing compared to the about face the administration did with the Times Square bomber.

Last week, just hours after Faisal Shahzad was pulled off the plane at JFK, the media treated us to a sob story. — The poor guy was an immigrant who whose American dream ended in nightmare, who lost his job and couldn’t meet the mortgage payments. This fit into the administration’s narrative that terrorist acts are “man caused disasters.” Terrorists aren’t part of a worldwide jihadist movement, they are “lone wolves,” the terror matter is best handled in open civilian courts where we try Americans citizens gone wrong. Proof that the administration’s approach was working? Well, not so fast. The Times Square bomber offered up valuable intelligence information from the start.

But that information must have caused the collective jaws at the White House to drop. Because by Sunday we were treated to Attorney General Holder, White House Counterterrorism Adviser Brennan and Secretary Clinton trotted out to talk tough on terrorism. Turns out the Times Square bomber was dispatched from Taliban training camps in North Waziristan, supposed hideout of Usama Bin Laden. What was he saying — that there were more homegrown terrorist sleeper cells? That more attacks were planned? That he was a dry run? That we weren’t smart, just lucky. Oops! Time for an about face — before our luck runs out and the next terrorist attacker succeeds.

Team Obama hasn’t done an about face on closing Gitmo or trying terrorists in New York, but that can’t be far away.

The administration has now done so many about faces that our heads are spinning. Hopefully it’s a sign that they’re finally facing reality.

But more likely it’s a sign that they flailing. And what’s that doing for the bad guys?

Apparently accused Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad is ‘singing like a bird,’ to U.S. law enforcement officials, claiming he wanted to kill Americans in retaliation for drone attacks in Pakistan and because he hated George Bush.

But what if it’s all a ruse? What if he was just part of a dry run to figure out how to do a more serious attack later? And what if he was supposed to die in the blast, but chickened out at the last minute? What if he’s been making it up ever since?

Think about it – he claims to have gone to bomb school in Waziristan.

But we know that so far, those bomb school grads have all been suicide bombers. He’s nobody special — it’s unlikely his handlers would have given him an exemption. They would have considered him expendable.

That’s why there was no elaborate plan to get him away after he fled the van.

It appears it took Shahzad two days to figure out an escape plan – fly Emirates Air to Dubai, the major airline hub in the Middle East, and change planes for Pakistan. He made the reservation on the way to the airport, paid cash, used his own passport, and had no luggage. If he was supposed to survive the blast, he would have preplanned an escape route, complete with fake passport, and scrupulous avoidance of the one place they knew we’d look – international flights to the Middle East.

Why a dry run? To flush us out, to determine what surveillance we had in place – cameras, license plate readers, undercover cops. To see how difficult it would be for a van filled with explosives to get to Times Square and stay there long enough to detonate. To see what our response was – how would law enforcement react and the public would react. To see how easy it was for an American citizen to evade detection beforehand.

What have they learned? That an attack on Times Square would be comparatively easy. That the surveillance program in place in Lower Manhattan isn’t yet in place in Midtown Manhattan. That the only thing that stood between a foiled attack and a fireball in Times Square was a bungling bomber and an alert bystander. And that Americans, once again, got lucky.

And then there’s this question: are they sitting back in their caves in Waziristan taking odds on when America’s luck runs out?

Contrast this to President Obama, who also came into office facing a troubled economy. He is expanding government and increasing taxes; and unemployment is climbing. He begrudges America’s military superiority, which he acknowledges exists “whether we like it or not.” His efforts to extend “the hand of friendship” to the Iranian regime have been rebuffed. His attempts to enlist Chinese and Russian support to halt Iran’s nuclear program have so far met with failure. His take as America: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Which approach do you trust to keep America safe?

Kathleen Troia “K.T.” McFarland is a Fox News National Security Analyst and host of FoxNews.com’s DefCon 3. She is a Distinguished Adviser to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. She wrote Secretary of Defense Weinberger’s November 1984 “Principles of War Speech” which laid out the Weinberger Doctrine. Be sure to watch “K.T.” and Mike Baker every Monday at 10 a.m. on FoxNews.com’s “DefCon3″ already one of the Web’s most watched national security programs
.

President Obama is in the middle of a frenzied fortnight of efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. First, there was the new Nuclear Posture Review, the administration’s effort to overturn America’s deterrence policy, which has kept the peace for 60 years, and replace it with a more limited plan that calls into question America’s nuclear umbrella over our allies.

Second, President Obama initialed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russian President Medvedev, which reduces nuclear arsenals of both countries.

Today begins Washington’s Nuclear Summit, where 47 nations will meet to discuss how get a handle on loose nuclear materials and keep them out of hands of terrorists.

And when the flurry of meetings is over we’re all supposed to feel safer. But we shouldn’t. Why? Because the president’s nuclear initiatives are akin to putting deadbolts on the front door, while leaving the back door wide open.

The biggest threat to world peace today isn’t Russia’s nuclear arsenal or America’s nuclear policy – it’s Iran’s nuclear weapons program. If allowed to go forward unchecked it will precipitate a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous, unstable part of the world — as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Emirates and others conclude they need nuclear weapons of their own.

Israeli leaders believe that if Iran gets nuclear weapons Israel’s days are numbered. If the U.S. fails to stop Iran, Israel could soon conclude it has no choice but to launch a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Most experts believe an Israeli-Iran war will quickly escalate into a regional conflict and could well draw in the U.S. So how is this making us safer?

The president has offered us hope that he can bring about a world free of nuclear weapons. But as long as his actions are more hype than hope, he’s lulling us into a false sense of security at a time when the world is on the verge of becoming a much more dangerous place.

Today President Obama reversed 60 years of U.S. nuclear policy and pledged we would not retaliate with nuclear weapons were we — or our treaty allies — attacked with conventional, biological or chemical weapons by nations in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He hopes that other nuclear weapons states will follow suit with a similar pledge and we will be well on our way to a world without nuclear weapons.

In addition, by carving out those rogue states not in compliance, like North Korea and Iran, the president will give them sufficient incentive to drop their nuclear weapons programs.

That’s a lot of change resting on nothing more than awful lot of hope.

During the Cold War we kept the peace between the U.S. and the Soviet Union through a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). As President Reagan said, we insure that “any adversary who thinks about attacking the United States or our allies…concludes that the risks to him outweigh any potential gains. Once he understands that, he won’t attack. We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression.”

This worked whether the adversary was the Soviet Union, or a lesser state. If a country picked a fight with us, we kept open the possibility of unleashing a response that would crush them. We thereby deterred them from launching an attack against us in the first place. This policy of deterrence may have made for an uneasy peace — but it managed to keep that peace for 60 years — perhaps the longest period of great power peace since the fall of the Roman Empire.

But President Obama wants us to believe he knows better. He wants to wash his hands of this old, tired policy of nuclear deterrence as the first step in his plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons. That may be fine as far as it goes (although I have my doubts), but it fails to address the nuclear threat the United States and our allies are most likely to face in the months and years ahead — nuclear weapons in the hands of rogue states or state sponsored terrorist groups.

Regardless of all the press briefings and talking points about reducing U.S. and Russian stockpiles, or reducing the number of targets in the U.S., or modernizing the nuclear arsenal, the real issue with Obama’s new nuclear policy is it fails to check the rise of rogue nuclear states like Iran and North Korea, or to deal with sub-national terrorist groups — like Al Qaeda — who he admits are seeking nuclear weapons.

How can Iran take President Obama seriously about the possibility of a retaliatory nuclear attack when he doesn’t even have the backbone to impose unilateral crippling gasoline sanctions, which even his Democratically-controlled Congress is pushing for? When President Obama prefers yet another round of watered down U.N. sanctions, in the hope that this time they’ll come around around to the negotiating table.

Without crippling sanctions President Obama has no leverage over Iran. And negotiating without leverage isn’t negotiating, it’s begging. Does President Obama really believe that his goodwill gestures will convince Iran to change course, especially now that it is so close to possessing a nuclear arsenal?

Or has President Obama already thrown in the towel, and concluded that a nuclear Iran is inevitable and the best way to deal with them is through containment and deterrence……and the reassurance whispered behind closed doors that, ‘they wouldn’t dare…’ It’s okay, if those weapons aren’t aimed at you. But if they are, it’s not the odds that worries you, it’s the stakes.

President Reagan said, “a nuclear war which can never be won must never be fought.” (I know because I drafted those words). But Reagan never took the nuclear option off the table. And he said those words while he was building up America’s defenses, modernizing our nuclear arsenal, and launching the Star Wars system to defend against nuclear weapons. Reagan understood that without leverage, these are just empty words.

President Obama has said similar things while taking the nuclear option off the table and cutting back on missile defense. He’s given up whatever leverage we had in the form of goodwill gestures.

We’ve seen the folly of unilateral concessions before. Jimmy Carter believed that if we showed unilateral restraint by canceling the B-1 bomber, the Soviet Union would follow suit and cancel their Backfire bomber. They not only built the Backfire but several others.

Reagan believed in peace through strength. His policies allowed us to win the Cold War without firing a shot.

President Obama believes in peace through unilateral concessions. Not only is it unlikely to work, it might even contribute to ending the peace.

After eight years the war in Afghanistan is finally getting serious. In December 2001, just three months after the attack on the World Trade Center, we had destroyed 95 percent of Al Qaeda. Sadly, we then failed to finish the job and destroy the remaining 5 percent. What happened next? Bin Laden and the ragtag remnants of Al Qaeda escaped our clutches and decamped to Pakistan, where they remain today.

But eight years later we’re still in Afghanistan. So how do we get out and leave Afghanistan to Afghans – while making sure Al Qaeda doesn’t return?

The Marjah offensive is our last chance to get this war right. We’ve finally put enough troops in the country to make a difference. We’ve finally realized that civilian casualties today mean more people fighting against us tomorrow. We’ve finally trained up enough Afghan National Army to fight alongside us.

General McChrystal’s plan for Afghanistan is like General Petraeus’ was in Iraq — to clear, hold and build. First, U.S., British and Afghan Army forces will clear the Taliban out of southern Afghanistan. Then we will hold the area and build a secure and thriving society — something we’ve never done before: “We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in,” says McChrystal. In the past we’d clear the area, then head back to headquarters while the Taliban blended back into their communities or headed for the hills to bide their time — only to return once the coast was clear.

Will the new strategy work? Maybe, but in the end it won’t be up to us. The American military will, as usual, perform brilliantly. But then it’s up to the Afghan government to make peace with the tribal leaders, keep the Taliban from returning, stop the poppy crop, govern effectively.

It’s a long shot. So far the Karzai government has been corrupt and incompetent and content to let Americans do the fighting for them. Do they want to change? Will they? Can they? We just don’t know.

But, as Petraeus says, putting the Afghan war on a timeline is aimed directly at the Karzai government — nothing will focus the minds of Afghanistan’s leaders so much as the threat of our imminent departure. Ultimately, we’ve got to cut the umbilical cord.

President Obama believes that if we reverse course, apologize and are deferential enough, those ills will disappear. So far, it’s not working.

With the Detroit bomber we now have a clear pattern that reveals how the Obama administration deals with terrorists – try them in civilian courts with the full rights of American citizens.

When the young Mr. Abdulmutulib got off the plane in Detroit he had started talking to the FBI. He told them there were more like him — that is, Yemeni trained suicide bombers — coming to America. But once we granted him Miranda rights, he got him lawyered up and clammed up. Does Abdulmutullab know who the next terrorist attacker is, where he’ll strike, what weapons he will use? Now, we’ll never know. Yet Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was quick to claim the “system worked.”

Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks, in public civilian courts — even though the evidence gathered against him might be thrown out of court, his testimony gives Al Qaeda a propaganda platform, and the trial presents a irresistible target for suicide bombers.

The Obama administration remains committed to closing Gitmo and releasing some of the prisoners to Yemen, though previous Gitmo “grads” have returned to Al Qaeda, rather than join the Yemen Rotary Club.

And Team Obama remains so committed to political correctness that they refuse to use profiling to identify potential terrorists.

Contrast this to the way they’re treating three Navy SEALs who succeeded in capturing an Iraqi terrorist. They’ve been courtmartialed for giving the terrorists a bloody lip.

President Obama believes that many of the ills besetting America are the result of Bush administration policies and if we reverse course and apologize and are deferential enough, those ills will disappear. So far, it’s not working. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda has spread its tentacles to new countries, recruitment is up and they’re sending a new wave of suicide bombers to attack us.

The president is treating terrorists like citizens and citizens like terrorists. It’s not working – it’s not making us safer – and it’s time to stop.

While Obama talked about lofty goals and moving beyond Cold War divisions, Putin was picking lint off the sleeve of his suit. When Obama talked about freeing the world of nuclear weapons, Putin gazed off in the other direction, with an extremely bored look on his face.

Behind the scenes it was much the same. Obama was hoping to achieve a grand bargain with the Russians – they would stop Iran’s nuclear program and in exchange, we would give up the Missile Shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Russians said nyet. We tried to sweeten things, presumably for the next round, by agreeing to put the missile shield on hold, but even this concession is unlikely to bring the Russians around anytime soon.

Even if Obama were to give Eastern Europe back to the Russian sphere of influence, it’s not clear the Russians will try to stop Iran or even could if they wanted to. Time is running out on America’s number one national security priority – preventing Iran from getting the bomb. Improved relationships with every country in the world mean little if that world includes a Nuclear Iran. And according to experts, that frightening prospect is only a year away.

So Obama has to try another track to bring the Iranians to the negotiating table – immediately – and ready to do business. The one way to get their attention now is a gasoline embargo.

Iran may be the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, but since it doesn’t refine that oil, Iran still has to IMPORT Forty percent of its gasoline. That gasoline comes from just 5 companies – four in Europe and one in India. The ships that deliver that gasoline are insured by a handful of companies in Britain, France, Germany and Japan. If we can pressure those refining and insurance companies to stop doing business with Iran, we can get Iran in the economic equivalent of a half nelson.

Congressional legislation to that effect has just been introduced by Senator Lieberman and others -to sanction any company that helps Iran import gasoline. Last year, British Petroleum, BP figured this was coming so they stopped selling gas to Iran, figuring they’d prefer to lose out on that business rather than risk their American customers.

If these European, Indian and Japanese companies do what BP did, and stop trading with Iran, others will probably move into fill the void. But they will charge Iran more for the gas – much more – which means the average Iranian has a higher price tag at the pump. That’s bound to make Iranian citizens really mad. Just two years ago, when the Mullahs tried to raise gas prices the Iranian people rioted – torching gas stations and taking to the streets.

Hmmmm….doesn’t that sound familiar?

The Mullahs of Iran are unlikely to be lulled into giving up their nuclear weapons program just because we sing them the sweet songs of diplomacy.

On the other hand, the last thing we need right now is a military confrontation with Iran to topple their government.

What we can do, and should do immediately, is cut off their gasoline, so that those Iranian citizens, who have recently taken to the streets to protest a sham election, will take to the streets again to protest an incompetent government. That’s how we helped bring down the Soviet Union, and that’s how we can help bring down the Mullahs.