By Richard Baehr, ISRAEL HAYOM
[..]
There is a point at which it is obvious that the current administration has no shame and will say or do anything to accomplish its objectives.
What are the administration’s objectives. It seems there are at least three in play related to Iran and Israel:
The administration has been working to move the Democratic Party leftward on both domestic and foreign policy issues since Obama took office. The further left one goes, the more likely one is to be hostile toward Israel. Obama and the Left’s agenda on foreign policy can best be described as an updated version of the Pete Seeger approach — lay down your swords and shields, and give peace a chance. So withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, make peace with our enemies, and make enemies of our friends (since they worked together with Republican presidents to get us into wars). Iran and Cuba are our new friends, Israel is now much less of one.
The president also seems to have had an obsession with making things right with the Muslim world since he believes the West has behaved badly toward Muslim nations. Terrorism and violence are not Islamic, and the bad actors are a very few individuals who are really embarrassments to and not actually adherents of Islam. The real threat we face is not radical Islam, which does not exist, but Islamophobia and a lack of good jobs at good wages (with no gender imbalance) for jihadists.
With regard to Israel, the president has worked to weaken the ties between the Democrats and Israel, and make support for Israel less of a bipartisan position in Congress, and appear to be more of a Republican Party cause. Incredibly, the president and his flacks have accused House Speaker John Boehner and Netanyahu of damaging the bipartisan support for Israel, when they have ?been working to move Democrats away from Israel for six years. The brouhaha about protocol concerning Netanyahu’s speech played into the administration’s strategy and they jumped on it, once again calling the kettle black.
The Obama administration wants Netanyahu to lose the upcoming election in Israel. Obama wants a more compliant Israeli leader, one who will not threaten what he believes is the signature achievement of his second term — a nuclear deal with Iran — and will also be more willing to make concessions to the Palestinians. The best strategy to accomplish that is to make lots of Israelis nervous that a Netanyahu victory will mean two years of American pressure on Israel and further bad blood between the two countries. The message delivered by the Obama team is that a government headed by the Isaac Herzog-Tzipi Livni Zionist Union can get along with Obama. Obama surrogates therefore meet with the opposition team, while ignoring Netanyahu when he visits, an incredible display of rudeness and disrespect that has almost nothing to do with considerations of neutrality in the upcoming election. Instead, the Obama media team (the major networks, newspapers and bloggers) blame Netanyahu’s “collusion” with Boehner for the current impasse and argue that Netanyahu has violated “protocol” and been disrespectful.
The major issue, of course, is the Iran deal itself. As more details emerge on the proposed deal, the record of continuing concessions to Iran is becoming ever more apparent. They include an apparent agreement to remove limits on the number of centrifuges after a few years; an effective sunset provision on limits on the Iranian nuclear program, extending the breakout period for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon by at most a few months in the early years of the agreement; and acceptance of a weak inspection mechanism, all the while ignoring Iran’s missile development.
The administration was hoping that its pressure on Israel would lead Netanyahu to fold his tent and postpone any speech to Congress until hopefully the nuclear deal was signed and he had lost the election. Netanyahu refused, and at this point, he may be talking as much to the American people as he is to Congress, warning them of the dangers of the giveaway to Iran that is underway, and why Iran remains a bitter foe of both Israel and Western interests. As Rick Richman described it, the Obama team is selling the foreign policy equivalent ofObamacare.
Since no administration figure will play the Jonathan Gruber Obamacare role on the nuclear talks (exposing the lies that underlie the policy, while congratulating himself for his cleverness and deceit), Netanyahu will have to expose the deal for what it is. In short, it is a surrender that will result in Iran getting sanctions relief, and over time, a nuclear bomb, with all the increased leverage in the region that this will bring for a nation that is already a very bad actor. Throw in some proliferation of nuclear programs by other nations, and you have a much more dangerous brand of instability in a region where the U.S. has strategically withdrawn. If I were Obama, I would also be trying to hide what is going on.
@ watsa46:
Obama is following the Alinsky’s rules to a T. I remember talking about this with many Jewish democrats and they would not believe me. Now when I hear any complaints I remind them:
You voted for him. The Jews in my building are more blind Democratic Party followers than Jews. Their children and grandchildren are going the same path. Frustrating. Reason evades them.
One of Mr Obama’s major goals has been removal of Binyamin Netanyahu from power in the Israeli Knesset election 16 days from today. An indicator of Mr Obama’s fecklessness as a foreign policy power player is the struggle he has mounted in vain against Mr Netanyahu’s appearance as guest speaker Tuesday evening before a joint session of the Congress of the United States, where the Israeli prime minister can be counted upon to give strong and believable evidence that Mr Obama’s Iran policies will lead almost directly to an Iran armed with nuclear weapons and the means of deploying them. And that those weapons will be controlled by a fanatic Iranian ruling cabal that wishes the destruction not only of Israel but also of the United States of America.
HaShem willing, Mr Netanyahu will arrive safely in the USA, in Washington, and in the Capitol of the United States, escorted and honored by most if not all of the members of the US Senate and the US House of Representatives. They, all of America, and most of the rest of the world — certainly including Israel — will be hanging on every word from the prime minister, and he will be accorded the honors of a hero. Mr Obama and his key aides must surely know what will go down that night and in the weeks and months to follow. And unless the president is made of the toughest of fiber, he will know and will feel that he has been reduced to defeat and helplessness by a man he so foolishly imagined he could treat as if he were a mere pizza delivery boy.
Mr Obama and Ms Rice are not likely to change their Middle East or Iran-focused policies. But the outcomes of what is now very likely to take place this week are multifold, and all against what Mr Obama had hoped for:
1) The Democratic members of the two houses of Congress will not all boycott Mr Netanyahu’s address. As a matter of fact, there is growing pressure from within Democratic Party ranks for their congressmen and senators to be present. And one might well imagine that Hilary Clinton would not want the party that she hopes will win the White House for her next year will not be split merely because her predecessor has lost a political struggle with the Israelis.
2) Mr Obama, in order to carry out his intended policy, will have to veto all but certain legislation passed against that policy by both houses of Congress. It is possible that enough Democrats will join with the Republicans on the other side of the aisles to override any such veto. Such overrides have happened before in American history, and they shall happen again, depending upon the issues and the personalities in the White House.
3) With the rapid shrinkage of US power and influence in the Middle East, Mr Obama has all but ceded imperial influence in that region to an enemy who rules the largest country in the world and whose power is being rebuilt by one of the most judicious and careful tsars in Russia’s long history. Mr Putin has been given many reasons and opportunities to regard Mr Obama and his key foreign policy advisors in contempt. Conversely, he may well regard Mr Netanyahu and the State of Israel with growing respect because that country and its leader has stood up to Mr Obama and his misplaced version of American exceptionalism. Russia will come out of all this as the most influential non-local power on the chess board of the Middle East. There are now a number of reasons why Israel should build up its relationships with Russia, China, and India — all of which are in the process of growing in any case. Because Israel, like any other sovereign country, has no permanent friends, only permanent interests.
4) About the coming election. the latest I24 New election poll, performed for that group by the Geocartography Knowledge Center, a respected Israeli market research firm. That poll now shows Mr Netanyahu’s Likud ticket leading Herzog’s and Livni’s temporarily joint ticket by two Knesset seats. With the upshot of the this week’s main event in Washington and its short-term aftermath, I cannot imagine that Mr Netanyahu will come out even stronger in the weeks leading up to the election, certainly enough to be able to make a coalition with 70 or even more seats out of the 120 in the Knesset. If Mr Netanyahu is an intelligent as I think he is, he will promise and turn over to Mr Kahlon the Finance Ministry, which that man so strongly wants. All things considered, he may do a very good job in that function.
Can all this be settled in a manner that does not promise an all but certain and destructive nuclear war involving Israel? I think so. But that shall require a strong combination of Eurasian powers able and willing to act as necessary. I do not think the USA will regain its base of influence in the Middle East. But what is taking shape is the groundwork for an Israel that will be allied with the military and anti-Moslem Brotherhood government of Egypt, with the kingdoms of Trans-Jordan and Saudi Arabia, with a coming Kurdish Federation, with Greece and other Orthodox Christian countries of the Balkans, with Azerbaijan, and with the Eurasian great powers. HaShem willing yet again, the future need not necessarily be permanently dark, for the Jewish nation and state, for the Middle East, and for the world.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Saul Alinsky’s 12 Rules for Radicals and more of the same with Hilary and other democrats.