Welcome back, Carter

There have been rumours that Mr Barack Hussein Obama's real name is Barry Soetoro or Barry Dunham. Neither is true. His real name is Jimmy "Chamberlain" Carter. By cancelling the European arm of the missile defence system he's finally come out of the closet and sent Champagne corks popping from Moscow to Tehran.

I didn't expect great things of Mr Obama in the field of defence or foreign relations. In fact, I wasn't surprised when the only real cuts he made to the federal budget were in defence or that his foreign policy consisted largely of insulting allies and grovelling to tyrants. I was even pleasantly surprised when he realised that cutting and running in the face of a a victory in Iraq and possible defeat in Afghanistan would have meant political suicide. Nor was I caught out when he shafted the Czechs and the Poles over missile defence. What I am astonished at is the sheer boneheadedness of managing to combine abject appeasement of Mr Putin by giving him Eastern Europe on a plate with guaranteeing that the Mad Mullahs of Tehran will have nuclear-tipped ICBMs pointed at London and Washington in a few years by sticking on a pair of rose-coloured glasses and saying that, in effect, Brezhnev would never lie to him. More to the point: What did he get in return for this insane giveaway? Not a sausage. Hoping that Russia will "cooperate" against Iran? That Iran will go misty eyed at this gesture of good faith? That's on a par with handing over the keys to your Porche to a guy you met in the pub so he can drive to an ATM for the money to buy it and wondering why you never see him or you car again.

I'm sorry, but I've been through this before. Back in the 1970s, one James Earl Carter took up residency in the White House and spent four years scolding his people, telling them that they'd have to make do with less, that they'd have to adjust to no longer being the world's most powerful nation, and sent an ambassador to the UN who not only went native, but went over to the other side. It had never been unusual to see the United States condemned from the floor of the General Assembly, but it was certainly novel to see it being done by the American's own man. Meanwhile, Mr Carter dutifully and with high moral posturing gutted the American military inventory and resided over a foreign policy that looked like General Effingham's retreat from Kabul. Then, to Mr Carters astonishment ("Brezhnev lied to me!"), Iran fell to a load of nuts whose idea of gay rights was shoving a wall on top of them and the Soviets responded to the dove of peace by overrunning Afghanistan. Considering that the original Battlestar Galactica was airing then, it's amazing that Western Europe wasn't wiped out by the Cylons.

Now here we are thirty years later and a new series of Galactica isn't the only repeat on the schedule. And just like last time, Mr Obama's way of handling real threats from evil, ambitious men is to indulge in wishful thinking that the Iranians aren't really building a bomb and don't really want to destroy us, that Putin isn't acting like an ex-KGB boss who sees himself as a 21st century Peter the Great, that Jihadists can be wished away because they're so inconvenient, and that allies can be taken for granted because they all think "Gosh, isn't The One so dreamy!".

Needless to say, just as Mr Carter got a rude awakening, so will Mr Obama. And God help the rest of us when he does, because I really have no desire to see half of Iran turned into glass after a failed nuclear strike against Tel Aviv nor to watch a United States standing by helplessly with an aging, diminished nuclear arsenal because Mr Obama thinks the Bomb is "icky" while the Middle East plunges into the biggest arms race since iron was discovered.

To quote Bettie Davis, "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night"