The main thing I’ve learned from the WikiLeaks documents is that I was wrong about Barack Obama. I’d thought that he was putting the screws to Israel in order to appease the Arab world, particularly the Saudis. Apparently not. David Horowitz puts it very well:
The Obama administration, it is now clear for all to see, was not pressing a reluctant Netanyahu to make settlement-freeze and other concessions to the Palestinians in part because it truly believed this would be helpful in generating wider support for tackling Iran.
Not at all. The United States, we now know courtesy of WikiLeaks, was being repeatedly urged by a succession of Arab leaders to smash an Iranian nuclear program they feared would destabilize the entire region and put their regimes at risk. Their priority was, and is, battering Ahmadinejad, not bolstering Abbas.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in 2008, had not urged the US to chivvy those recalcitrant Israelis toward concessions to the Palestinians as a pre-condition for grudging Saudi support for a firmer US-led position against Iran. Anything but. Never mind the Palestinians, the king simply implored Washington to “cut off the head of the [Iranian] snake.â€
Likewise, with minor variations in the course of the following year, the rulers of Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.
We are now starting to hear, courtesy of WikiLeaks, what Jordan and Egypt had to say on the matter too.
So, one asks, if Obama was not doing the Arabs’ bidding, why did he base his entire Mideast policy on the obviously false ‘linkage’ theory that asserts that ‘solving the Palestinian problem’ is a prerequisite to stabilizing the Middle East, and in particular, to dealing with Iranian expansionism?
Apparently he honestly thinks that the world will be a better place with Israel forced back to non-defensible borders, and with yet another undemocratic, economically non-viable Arab state in the Mideast.
Indeed, given the present strategic situation of Israel, targeted by the extremely dangerous missile forces of Iranian proxies Hizballah and Syria (as well as the less significant but still deadly rockets of Hamas), a withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights would be suicidal, regardless of US ‘guarantees’. The fact that Obama wants to impose such a ‘solution’ means that Israel’s security is simply not a concern for him.
Keep in mind that a strong Israel is a deterrent to Iranian plans. So by weakening Israel and prioritizing the Palestinian issue above that of Iran, Obama is both aiding Iran’s effort to extend its regional influence through the activities of Hizballah and giving it more time and freedom to progress its nuclear program.
This is detrimental to US interests as well as those of its Arab allies.
In other words, for ideological reasons — not for oil or anything else — Obama is pushing a policy to hurt Israel and help the radical forces in the region.
Obama has shown a remarkable coolness toward Israel. As President, he hasn’t visited Israel, although he has gone to numerous Arab countries. He was particularly unfriendly to PM Netanyahu when the latter visited Washington in March, and announced a policy turn away from Israel in April. After a short respite due to the upcoming midterm elections, he quickly went back to pressing Israel for concessions. And now he has floated a trial balloon via J Street for an imposed agreement to create ‘Palestine’.
This is not the realpolitik of a George H. W. Bush or a Henry Kissinger. This is the man who insulted the British in 2009 by returning a bust of Winston Churchill, because Churchill suppressed the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya in 1952 (yes, the bust was on loan, but they offered to extend the loan and Obama said ‘no’).
My guess is that Obama’s worldview is infused with the sophomoric anti-colonialism of present-day academe, and he sees Israel — despite the fact that it was the Jews that kicked the British out of Palestine — as a colonial power, and the Palestinian Arabs as an oppressed indigenous people (despite the fact that they are not so indigenous).
This is stupid enough when you hear it from college students, but it’s downright frightening when it distorts the policy of the most powerful nation on earth!
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, WikiLeaks, Israel
Obama – along with many of his fellow travelers (e.g., Samantha Powers, who is a top advisor on matters concerning the UN) – is essentially a “Frankenstein monster” creation of the Saudi Israel-bashing propaganda machine. He is the predictable product of their well known and many lesser-known stooges, such as Edward Said, Rashid Khalidid, Khalid Al Mansour, etc., etc., etc.
From time to time, in unguarded momments, Arab leaders have admitted that there is really no such thing, in a genuine sense, as a “Palestinian” people. This is a national-ethnic group created out of whole cloth, organized around a political entity, the PLO and now the PA, whose sole purpose is to create a state at the expense of Israel. Period.
This is one of the most cynical movements in history, casting a particular Arab population in the role of cannon fodder in order to achieve an end no more enlightened than say, racist whites in the pre-civil rights U.S.A. harassing some poor black family into vacating their home if it happened to be in a white neighborhood.
Anyone with an iota of critical faculties can see what a charade this is, but in the wake of Vietnam, it has been particularly easy to fill our young people’s heads full of bullshit of this nature. That’s how Obama got elected!
And, even though many Arabs know very well this is bullshit, amazingly, a lot of their “pupils” abroad really buy this crap! Like Barack Obama!
So, this is the monster that has come to haunt them, their – like I said – “Frankenstein”. They finally got their “wish”, they managed to frighten and con the American people into electing a perfectly trained “robot” of theirs who was absolutely primed to look at the world they way THEY wanted a U.S. president to look at it….only he has bought the bullshit so, so thoroughly, that now he’s on an “autopilot crusade” to do EXACTLY what his masters have urged him to do all along. HE doesn’t know it is just a cynical game, any more than the title character of the “Manchurian Candidate” knew he was a robot! He thought he was a patriotic American!
And now, he – Obama – is out of control. He probably hates Israel even more than the Arab leaders. He’s a “true believer” in their bogus “cause”. The ultimate “useful idiot”…..AS PRESIDENT. Well, he may be president, BUT HE’S STILL AN IDIOT.
There he goes, careening out of the castle, about to wreak havoc in the town below, with Abdullah (Igor) frantically trying to stop him…
Jeez. This would be funny if it weren’t so damned frightening and dangerous.
What the hell has happened to our country?
What’s more interesting is Obama’s contempt for Arab interests is nearly as great as his disdain for Israel. The ideology driving his foreign policy is not so much Pan-Islamism as was commonly believed but the Far Leftist obsession with the Palestinians and their support for radical regimes. Its noteworthy even the Arabs are not that enamored of the Palestinians and if anything, they want Iran stopped more than Israel does! If the WL revelations have done one signal service, is that they’ve revealed how Obama screwed up his entire Middle East policy.