In a must-read critique of the Obama approach to Israel, Elliott Abrams attempts to piece together how we got from the warmest relationship with Israel in recent memory to the most hostile. Yes, part of it is the perceived desire by Obama to affect regime change in Israel. But it’s worse than that:
The deeper problem — and the more complex explanation of bilateral tensions — is that the Obama administration, while claiming to separate itself from the “ideologues” of the Bush administration in favor of a more balanced and realistic Middle East policy, is in fact following a highly ideological policy path. Its ability to cope with, indeed even to see clearly, the realities of life in Israel and the West Bank and the challenge of Iran to the region is compromised by the prism through which it analyzes events.
While Israel faces an existential threat, Obama wants to engage a regime that shows no sign of willingness to engage with us. Stall maybe; engage no. Obama obsesses over the settlements but ignores the very real progress made economically on the West Bank. (Ironically, this was the very sort of progress Dennis Ross, after absorbing the lessons of Camp David’s failures, declared was the only reasonable road forward in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.) Abrams writes:
It is, once again, about the subordination of reality to pre-existing theories. In this case, the theory is that every problem in the Middle East is related to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The administration takes the view that “merely” improving life for Palestinians and doing the hard work needed to prepare them for eventual independence isn’t enough. Nor is it daunted by the minor detail that half of the eventual Palestine is controlled by the terrorist group Hamas.
The takeaway here is deeply sobering. Ideologues don’t accept new evidence or recognize that their theories aren’t bearing fruit. Failures are always attributed to a lack of time or effort. We simply have to keep at it, we will be told. That does not bode well for a course correction. They have their worldview, and they are sticking with it.
So don’t expect much to change so long as the Obama team “attributes every problem in the region to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while all who live there can see that developments in Iran are in fact the linchpin of the region’s future.” And don’t expect the Obama team to admit error or reverse course. For people who have decried, as Hillary Clinton put it, “rigid ideologies and old formulas,” they are, for the foreseeable future, sticking with theirs.
I have no doubt that Obama’s people will find the appropriate tactics to get what they want from this Congress. Think Chicago.
I agree with you, Jennifer. It wouldn’t take much for Republicans in Congress to support Obama. Most are sufficiently lacking in principle and intestinal fortitude that they would support much of his big government plans. But they can’t quite go that far left.
The pre-January 21st Obama would have been able to get much of his agenda passed. A little give and take on his part would have brought enough Republicans on board to give him cover. What I’m afraid of is he will come to this realization before the 2010 elections and the GOP will contribute to his socialist drift, thereby losing even more seats in the election.
He’ll probably have Kent Conrad around and that’s part of BHO’s problem. To the entrenched Senators and Representatives of even his own party, Obama is a transitory phenomenon, they were in D.C. long before he arrived and will be there long after he’s gone, unless they alienate their constituents. While Conrad’s position on any given issue might be unpredictable, on the budget it isn’t. He, like the thrifty North Dakotans that sent him to Washington, are flabbergasted by the immensity of the numbers being bandied about. He knows his place in the Congressional menagerie and will use it to put the brakes on this budgetary runaway as much as he can.
It is a disgrace if democrats (big ego hurts..really!) dominance is shortlive, they got an idiot and cheaters on the White House leading them.
The POTUS replaced his telepromter with BS TV. Environmentalist must be heartbroken.
Its amazing to me how fast Obama revealed his true intentions. I thought he would act centrist for 6-12 months, win everyone’s love, and then turn on the socialist faucet. Yet, from day 1, we had the trillion dollar stimulus, with the AIG shakedown bonus scam, and a Chas Freeman pick.
However, the truth is that Obama can only do 1 thing. He talks moderate, acts radical. That’s it, his entire life is rooted in that strategy. This is why he needs a teleprompter and millions of “ums” and “you knows” He thinks as a socialist, and needs time and coaching to edit those thoughts into a moderate, American capitalists language.
#5,
The underlying cause for our socialism,
“In the aftermath of this financial catastrophe, as we sort out causes and assign blame, with experts offering various solutions — More regulation! Less complex financial instruments! — let’s not lose sight of the most fundamental component of finance. No credit-default swap, no exotic derivative, can be structured without stipulating the monetary unit of account in which its value is calculated. Money is the medium of exchange — the measure, the standard, the store of value — which defines the very substance of the economic contract between buyer and seller. It is the basic element, the atom of financial matter.
It is the money that is broken”
If capitalism depends on designating a person of godlike abilities to manage demand and supply for all forms of money and credit — currency, demand deposits, money-market funds, repurchase agreements, equities, mortgages, corporate debt — we are as doomed as those wretched citizens who relied on central planning for their economic salvation.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122273029076687929.html
#6- RCAR, great post, excellent point, great article, thank you.
It is puzzling to me, how Greenspan, as a one time student of Rand, became the head of the Central Bank! I wonder when his conversion away from Objectivism took place.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on Objectivism and the role of Greenspan.
Forget the “line by line” line…he knows that’s impossible, and John McCain knew it but let him get away with saying it. Without the line item veto, that is all pure b.s. Obama knows it, and every congressman in Washington knows it.
It’s cheap stuff like that that Obama has gotten away with ever since he began running for President, and no one calls him on the outright bald-faced lies. I guess “hope” and “change” papers over everything else.
#7,All I know about Greenspan’s background is what I read in the Wikki. I’ll only point out one thing about Rand,she was a hard core Atheist,not much different from “Mad” Murray O’Hare,and that was the weak link that turned many Conservatives in the WFB Jr. generation against her philosophy.