How do you solve a problem like Obama? He combines that fantastic combination of arrogance, ignorance, laziness and stupidity, and yet with the American institutional respect for the Presidency (at least amongst Republicans) it is hard to get Americans to make personal statements about their head of state. So now the Iranians have done it for us:

President Barack Obama is a “low-IQ US president,” whose threat to launch a military offensive should nuclear talks fail is an oft-cited punchline in the Islamic Republic, particularly among children, an Iranian general said on Tuesday.

“The low-IQ US president and his country’s Secretary of State John Kerry speak of the effectiveness of ‘the US options on the table’ on Iran while this phrase is mocked at and has become a joke among the Iranian nation, especially the children,” General Masoud Jazayeri said, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

You don’t often find me agreeing with Iranian generals. The effect of marijuana on the intelligence of adolescents is well understood and there was the young Barack, member of the “Choom Gang” in his high school days. But it is even potentially worse than that if we come to this editorial in The Washington Post of all places, titled President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy:

FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past. Secretary of State John F. Kerry displayed this mindset on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday when he said, of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, “It’s a 19th century act in the 21st century.”

That’s a nice thought, and we all know what he means. A country’s standing is no longer measured in throw-weight or battalions. The world is too interconnected to break into blocs. A small country that plugs into cyberspace can deliver more prosperity to its people (think Singapore or Estonia) than a giant with natural resources and standing armies.

Unfortunately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not received the memo on 21st-century behavior. Neither has China’s president, Xi Jinping, who is engaging in gunboat diplomacy against Japan and the weaker nations of Southeast Asia. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is waging a very 20th-century war against his own people, sending helicopters to drop exploding barrels full of screws, nails and other shrapnel onto apartment buildings where families cower in basements. These men will not be deterred by the disapproval of their peers, the weight of world opinion or even disinvestment by Silicon Valley companies. They are concerned primarily with maintaining their holds on power.

This sense that Obama lacks a fixed sense of reality, that he is incapable of dealing with conditions as they are, is also found in an article by Elliot Abrams which is titled, If he believes it, it must be so and subtitled, “Obama’s scary interview”. Here is his summing up of Obama’s thoughts on Iran:

When it comes to Iran, Obama shows an attitude that can only be described as solipsistic: what’s in his mind is reality. And any other reality is just plain silly.

He has his own private reality that is not shared by any of his major advisors. A low-IQ president with a private reality of his own who will not listen to anyone else is not a good bet at making serious decisions.

How can Obama be influenced? At the moment in many cases he is prevented from doing what he might wish to because of constitutional constraints. But how can he actually be influenced? I can only think that that Iranian general might be onto something. Just call him stoopid. Say out loud that what he is doing is stoopid. That he is stoopid. His decisions are stoopid. His policies are stoopid. It’s just a thought but given that other obvious characteristic of the Obama personality, his incredible vanity, it might at least get him to concentrate a bit more on the issues and less on playing golf and shooting hoops. The US is heading for a train wreck, and will take the rest of us with it if he can’t be stopped. If they won’t impeach him, they must find some way to discipline him so that the stated policies of a president of the United States are no longer seen as an international joke.