President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke briefly to the press before their meeting at the White House today. The points they each chose to emphasize were telling and provide insight into their mindsets going into the high-pressure Iran discussion.
Obama spoke first, and stressed the bond between Israel and the U.S., as well as its close military coordination.
I know that both the prime minister and I prefer to resolve this diplomatically. We understand the costs of any military action. And I want to assure both the American people and the Israeli people that we are in constant and close consultation. I think the levels of coordination and consultation between our militaries and our intelligence not just on this issue but on a broad range of issues has been unprecedented. And I intend to make sure that that continues during what will be a series of difficult months, I suspect, in 2012.
While the military cooperation between the two countries does remain close, there have been more communication breakdowns in recent months than the president chose to acknowledge. Israel has declined to share specifics about when it would strike Iran, and the U.S. has withheld sensitive intelligence information that would assist Israel’s covert sabotage campaign, The Daily Beast reported last month.
But Obama is obviously trying to repair – or at least publicly downplay – the trust deficit between his administration and Netanyahu’s.
Meanwhile, the Israeli prime minister spoke about the unbreakable U.S.-Israeli relationship, without specifically mentioning the military partnership. He indicated that Israel would not ask Obama’s permission if it decides to use force against Iran’s nuclear program. And he reiterated that Israel reserves the right to defend itself, even if it’s done unilaterally:
I think that above and beyond that are two principles, longstanding principles of American policy that you reiterated yesterday in your speech — that Israel must have the ability always to defend itself by itself against any threat; and that when it comes to Israel’s security, Israel has the right, the sovereign right to make its own decisions. I believe that’s why you appreciate, Mr. President, that Israel must reserve the right to defend itself.
And after all, that’s the very purpose of the Jewish state — to restore to the Jewish people control over our destiny. And that’s why my supreme responsibility as prime minister of Israel is to ensure that Israel remains the master of its fate.
Based on these comments, it doesn’t sound like either leader is willing to cede his current position. Obama still expects Israel to cooperate with the U.S. timeline on Iran, and Netanyahu is clearly committed to taking action with or without the U.S.
In November 1936, Winston Churchill delivered a speech before the House of Commons complaining of the time the British government had wasted in their refusal to recognize the extent of Germany's re-armament in the three years that Hitler had been in power. He described them using the biblical phrase, "years that the locusts have eaten." n nChurchill's prophetic words haunt me as I think of all the time Barack Obama has wasted in his attempts to court the Iranian mullahs and somehow charm them out of their nuclear ambitions. Now he has turned his persuasive powers on the Israelis, trying to convince them that their survival should take a back seat to his re-election. n nJanuary 2009 to the present. More years that the locusts have eaten.
I more keep thinking about Churchill's book _While England Slept_ and between the asteroid coming so close next February that it stands the chance of causing major earthquakes even if it doesn't hit us (thank you NASA for paying attention — amateur astronomers have been tracking this for 3 years now), and all the stuff in the Middle East, I am starting to have some really bad concerns about the future of the world. n nI keep hearing fissionable bomb — yes that is cool if you want to go to embassy parties and pick up girls, but if your goal is to kill other people and you don't care how many of your own you send on one-way missions to accomplish this — either willing to die themselves or tricked into not knowing what they are dealing with and that it will kill them too (a "vaccine" of injected saline water and some large sugar pills would accomplish the latter) — you don't need a bomb that goes 'bang." n nAll you need is some highly radioactive dust and the means of spreading it. A suicidal or unknowing individual driving through traffic and throwing handfulls of it out the window comes to mind as an exceedingly effective way to do this. Israel is relatively dry, right? It won't wash this dust away, if you have ever used a dry chemical fire extinguisher, remember how hard it is to get all that powder cleaned up if you don't get it wet? Look at the problem that Japan is having cleaning up just the radioactive cesium that leaked out of the damaged nuke plant — that is like the difference between beer and 198 proof grain alcohol. John Bolton had a good point — the Iranians aren't going to satisfy themselves with merely destroying the "Little Satan" — they will come after us too. n nObama could have toppled that government when they were all protesting the stolen election. nHe chose not to, I wonder why. And now this: we live in scary times.