From time to time I post articles by George Friedman of Stratfor. After reading the review of his latest book which is below, I will have to reconsider. I am sure Freidman isn’t the only one offering such advice. Does distancing herself from Israel mean being neutral? I don’t think so. Why go half measure. Why not undermine Israel also?
Strategy site to Obama: End alliance with Israel
World Tribune
WASHINGTON — A newsletter-publisher said to have ties with the Obama administration has called on Washington to end its strategic alliance with Israel.
George Friedman, publisher of Stratfor, has published a book that called on the Obama administration to reorder U.S. foreign policy. Friedman has argued that the key element of the proposal required the end of U.S. strategic ties with Israel and bolstering of cooperation with the Islamic world, particularly Iran and Pakistan.
“The United States must quietly distance itself from Israel,” Friedman says in his book, titled “The Next Decade.” “It must strengthen — or at least put an end to weakening — Pakistan.”
This marked the second U.S. strategist to call for a revision of Washington’s alliance with Israel. Last year, a former consultant to Obama, Anthony Cordesman, argued that the U.S. strategic alliance with Israel was harming Washington’s interests in the Middle East, Middle East Newsline reported.
Friedman’s organization includes former intelligence officials and enjoys ties with the Obama administration, Middle East Newsline reported.
Acknowledging that his proposal would be regarded as controversial, Friedman said under Obama and former President George Bush, Washington has been in a confrontation with the Islamic world, which consists of one billion people, as part of the “obsessive” U.S. war against Al Qaida.
Instead, a U.S. withdrawal of support for Israel, which receives $3 billion a year in American aid, would restore balance in the Middle East, Friedman argued. He said Washington’s recent policy has destabilized the region as well as bolstered Indian dominance of Pakistan.
“Owing largely to recent U.S. policy, those balances are unstable or no longer exist,” Friedman said. “The Israelis are no longer constrained by their neighbors and are now trying to create a new reality on the ground.”
“The Pakistanis have been badly weakened by the war in Afghanistan, and they are no longer an effective counterbalance to India. And, most important, the Iraqi state has collapsed, leaving the Iranians as the most powerful military force in the Persian Gulf area,” Friedman said.
The book also called on Washington to recognize Iran as the new power in the Middle East. Friedman argued that Washington must arrange a detente with Teheran similar to that with China in the 1970s and the Soviet Union in the 1940s. He said Iran already dominates neighboring Iraq.
“And in the spirit of Roosevelt’s entente with the USSR during World War II, as well as Nixon’s entente with China in the 1970s, the United States will be required to make a distasteful accommodation with Iran, regardless of whether it attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Friedman said. “These steps will demand a more subtle exercise of power than we have seen on the part of recent presidents.”
Friedman said the decline in U.S. support for Israel must mark the first step in a revised American foreign policy. He said this was vital for what he termed the survival of the U.S. empire.
“The United States is a commercial republic, which means that it lives on trade,” Friedman said. “Its tremendous prosperity derives from its own assets and virtues, but it cannot maintain this prosperity and be isolated from the world. Therefore, if the United States intends to retain its size, wealth, and power, the only option is to learn how to manage its disruptive influence maturely.”
India may not be a good partner either. Thousands of Christians are actively persecuted there (driven from homes, land, beaten in the streets) and the government looks the other way.
Sam the Sham? Oy!
I know that.
America is entitled to think what they want.
It’s my contention that in many ways, America is Israel’s albatross around our necks.
It was a donkey.
Ve’yesh omrim it was a camel.
But that’s not the argument Freidman makes. He makes the argument that Israel is an albatross around America.
Regardless, he is still completely wrong.
Uncle, this sounds like a parable.
We need more parables.
I believe there is one dealing with Israel, the promise land. Let’s hear it.
Just like every antisemite who wishes the Jews to emigrate from their countries is a closet Zionist so the Friedmans are lovers of Zion, even when it appears they aren’t. Is breaking our strategic relationship with America good or bad for the Jews?
There once was a farmer who owned a horse. And one day the horse ran away. All the people in the town came to console him because of the loss. “Oh, I don’t know,” said the farmer, “maybe it’s a bad thing and maybe it’s not.”
A few days later, the horse returned to the farm accompanied by 20 other horses. (Apparently he had found some wild horses and made friends!) All the townspeople came to congratulate him: “Now you have a stable full of horses!” “Oh, I don’t know,” said the farmer, “maybe it’s a good thing and maybe it’s not.”
A few days later, the farmer’s son was out riding one of the new horses. The horse got wild and threw him off, breaking the son’s leg. So all the people in town came to console the farmer because of the accident. “Oh, I don’t know,” said the farmer, “maybe it’s a bad thing and maybe it’s not.”
A few days later, the government declared war and instituted a draft of all able-bodied young men. They came to the town and carted off hundreds of young men, except for the farmer’s son who had a broken leg. “Now I know,” said the farmer, “that it was a good thing my horse ran away.”
The point of this story is obvious. Life is a series of events, and until we’ve reached the end of the series, it’s hard to know exactly why things are happening.
Please U.S. Do us the biggest favor and distance yourself from us. PLEASE!!!!!! We need the clarity as a people to stop with our petty differences and come together as the people we are. As a friend of mine, a historian says “many civilizations have risen up with great spender and tried to eliminate the Jewish people, The Assyrians, The ancient Romans, The ancient Persians, Hitler. We are a small small nation. It shouldn’t be such a hard job. Yet here we are after 3500 years, still here and still fighting for our rights to our homeland, while all of these regimes are in the dustbin of history. It defies logic, because it’s not logical. We have friends in high places. So don’t mess with us.
Even Obama’s fortunes turned when he threw Netanyahu to the door.
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He was just drinking Sarsaparilla K. from a paper cup. 🙂
Why is it that those who purport to be experts in a particular field are often the dumbest. George Friedman still doesn’t get it. The world’s problem is Islam itself. Sacrificing Israel to placate the Muslims and Arabs is like throwing meat to a ravenous animal who will only want more. We can do without “experts” like George Friedman.
Has Friedmann been watching the Zeitgeist documentary, and learned ‘conscious dreaming’??
I doubt Friedman is Torah observant (Orthodox). Hint: note what the article mentions he was drinking at the bar. Nope. Try again, Bloatmeal.
Freidman is Othodox Jewish, Laura, the father of Yeshiva kids. Jews here on Israpundit like to say the problem is all “Leftist” Jews. No, it’s Jews in general: They try to out-do one another, trying to prove they’re more this or that — more Zionist, more Pacifist, more Internationalist, more Religious, more you-name-it. The whole world seems to be caught up in a sibling rivalry, spun out of control. The Jews won their biggest victories in 1948 and 1967, PRECISELY because the US didn’t lift one finger to help them (nor their enemies). The world is littered with the corpses of world leaders to tried to oppose the Zionist cause. The US should not be meddling in this conflict. We used to be afraid the Soviets would gain the upper hand; but the Soviet Union has since collapsed. So has the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Mameluke Empire, you name it. Jerusalem has become a rock of offense to the whole world, and those fight against it always suffer in the end. Friedman has engaged his pen against his own people, and has been struck with madness. Don’t anyone try to help him; and pray that Obama doesn’t listen to him.
Where do I begin to detail just how perverse this line of thinking is? Why does the foreign policy establishment continually fail to grasp that the global jihad is based on an ideology that’s been in practice for 1400 years? What will it take for them to finally awaken to the fact that altering our foreign policy to further appease islam and throw Israel to the wolves will not bring us safety and security. There are no alliances to be had between islam and infidels except that of our total submission to them. Europe has had an anti-Israel, pro-islam foreign policy in place for decades, at least since the Yom Kippur war, and far from guaranteeing its security, Europe is in far greater danger from jihad than we are. Yet this fact goes completely over the heads of George Freidman and so many members of the foreign policy establishment. These people need to be immersed in islamic history.
U.S. war against al qaida? It is al qaida and islam in general which is waging war against us.
Why is Indian dominance over Pakistan considered by Freidman to be a bad thing? Why would we want to strengthen an islamic sharia state and let it be dominant over or equal to our democratic ally India?
Too many people assume, incorrectly, that links with the U.S. has always been to Israel’s benefit. Remember also that there is NO legal treaty or commitment for the U.S. to come to Israel’s aid in a crisis and we still refuse to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital which signals to the world that we consider Israel existence to be temporary.
There is a school of thought that argues that Israel is better off without so-called U.S. aid and with its many negative strings. Israel should be more independent of the U.S. administration and State Department but that will in no way diminish the strong ties between the people of Israel and America.
The Jews are fighting against Israel, it seems.
Friedman is obviously into a numbers game; in this case quantity vs quality. This “one billion [Islamic] people” will drag the US down.
Then there’s this:
Why on earth would he want a counterbalance – especially Pakistan – to India?
He may be saying these things as part of a broader strategy; I hope so, because if not, he is fundamentally insane. The strategy would be to stop giving Israel the paltry $2 billion – which is an excellent idea, one that frees Israel from US-based obstacles to doing whatever has to be done militarily – and to drive Israel and India further together to form a strong bond in all respects (in effect, further tipping “the balance”). An Israel-India alliance would certainly be one of both quality and quantity (there are one billion people in India, and India has a fairly high proportion of industrious, intelligent people).
“Detente with Iran”? If Friedman is serious (ie – this is not just “strategic talk” as exemplified above) perhaps he needs to get out more often…