1) You don't know what you are talking about, the Taliban are not going to lay down their arms and play nice with everyone else. The are hard line Islamist, sure they may play the game until NATO leaves but I can fucking guarantee as soon as the threat is gone Afghanistan will return to it's pre 9/11 self. Afghanistan is completely tribal, they have no alegence to the central government, they do what is best for their sect end of story. The only way a central government can control the country is through ruthless dictatorship thus the Taliban.
No kidding afghanistn is tribal and taleban are animals. IMO, there's also no question they'll always be there, they'll always have a voice. The biggest military in the history of the world couldn't kill them in 8 years. I think taleban will control many of the warlords who contorl 90% of the country. They aren't leaving, and we'll never end them. Al-Q is close to being gone.
2) The POTUS is not going to attack Iran, he is to worried about public/world opinion, if anything he is going to turn a blind eye a let Isreal do it, which is going to start a giant shit storm in the ME.
letting ISR do it is the same thing - even cheney stopped that, remember? Maybe shitstrom - they hit syria last year, didnt they? And so what - IMO i'd rather have a quick shitstorm there, and set their program back 10 years, than a major shitstorm when they are handing out suitacse nukes to anyone with 20 mil. let iSR cook their plants.
3) How? You seem to think you can negoatiate and trust illogical dictators to follow through? What's going to happen? The IAEA is going to do nothing as usual accept complain and pass toothless UN resolutions with harsher and harsher language until the looneys finally nuke someone.
Look , nukes aren't going anywhere. however, if worldwide stockpiles of nukes are reduced by 30% in all nations, it's a win for Obama. We can still cook the world 40 times over, no worries there... just not 50 times. Is that so bad? Nukes will never go away. But less is better... since we are paying for them submitches.
I don't know what gives you the impression that somehow Barack Obama can just change the nature of people simply with his presence. You need to understand something about the ME they respect strenght, they see negotiation as a sign of weekness, no matter what dog and pony show that but on for the international media.
Obama still has 150k troops in iraq, and nearly 80k men in afghanistan, with 17k more coming? I wouldn't call putting 250 men in your backyard 'soft' on terror. the ME saw 911 as weakness on bush's part. Obama hasn't slipped like that, he's kept troops the same... aside from the smile and happy talk, is Obama all that diff from Bush? He actually is using MORE troops in afghanistan than bush.