Obama bets his presidency, and the 2016 election, on Iran

WHAT has been the policy area that helped determine the success of US presidents in the last four decades?

Maintaining the health of the American economy? Followed perhaps by protection of the nation's security abroad and the safety of the people at home?

Wrong! The one issue that helped make or destroy American presidents in the last 40 years has been US policy in the Persian Gulf.

It's true that the Persian Gulf is geographically distant from the United States, and that the countries that lie on its shores - including Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran - don't share American culture and values.

But then recall the diplomatic disaster that followed Iran's Islamist revolution that helped wreck the presidency of Jimmy Carter: The overrunning of the US Embassy in Tehran by an angry mob of young Islamic revolutionaries and the taking of more than 60 American hostages on November 4, 1979. President Carter launched a failed military operation to release the hostages, who wer…