Most pro-Israel president evuh:
“We’re trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel,” said an administration official… he suggested that any Israeli strike on Iran before international oil and gas sanctions take effect this summer would undermine the tenuous unity the United States and its allies have built to oppose Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Privately, White House officials say the coalition would explode with the first Israeli airstrike.
The Europeans have been ahead of Obama on the need to take a hard line against Iran, with French President Sarkozy fuming even during the election that Obama was “utterly immature” and spouting “formulations empty of all content.” So it strains credibility that the White House would actually be unable to hold together “the United States and its allies” in the aftermath of an Israeli strike. What does seem likely is that the administration will pretend to be unable to hold together the coalition, simultaneously selling out our Israeli allies and scapegoating them for the sell out. Neat trick.
It’s probably true that Russia would use the attack as an excuse to make mischief, and perhaps more than a little bit of mischief. Putin has repeatedly warned against military intervention in either Syria or Iran. But the Russians are engaged in broad preparations to militarize their border and protect their allies in Syria and Iran, with Putin taking to the pages of Foreign Policy to blandly explain why. That’s one of the many reasons why the reset is functionally over, and why blaming Israel for fracturing a global front seems a little churlish. Not that the White House won’t do it anyway (“make the decision to attack as hard as possible” and so on). But it just all seems a little bit churlish.
Abandoning Israel in the aftermath of a preemptive strike on Iran would be a purely internal decision. It wouldn’t be forced by external diplomatic or military necessities. It’s just something the Obama people are signaling they intend to do. And if you criticize them, then the president and his water carriers on the Jewish left will blame you for everything from eroding the U.S./Israeli relationship to high gas prices.
The IAEA – just this morning – declared that Iran has tripled its monthly production of higher-grade enriched uranium, and that the “agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.” Tick tock.
God will remember Obama on the earth. A Harvest is brought forth not of Man's opinions or desires, but on the Seed that is planted. The Harvest is only in Kind.
Omri, just to carry on your argument, the Obama administration was claiming 3 years ago that they couldn't get the Arab states on board to oppose Iran's nuke program unless Israel made concessions to the PLO/Palestinian Authority. Then along came wikileaks and showed that several Arab states were quite concerned about the Iranian bomb project for their own reasons and that it was an urgent matter for them ["cut off the head of the snake"] independent of their stance on Israel. And further, we learned that several Arab leaders were upset that the Obama administration was not taking a more forceful role in oppose Iran's nuke efforts. So alleged Arab reluctance to oppose Iran's nuke project was an Obama administration red herring.
"would undermine the tenuous unity the United States and its allies have built to oppose Iran’s nuclear ambitions." Who cares? This is utter nonsense and everyone knows it. The only bigger perception of weakness than the US is what our allies project. nEveryone knows this (Iranian Nukes), and the larger problem of Islam strutting its radical-ness will not go away with out a massive-collective action on the part of western enlightened man. How far down the rat hole will we go…who knows? It will not be a brave new elected leader, it will be who-ever is in office when the next 9/11 occurs somewhere. It is totally depressing to see the absense of courage in civilised man.
Perhaps the French will take the initiative. Watching the Obama reaction from the Peanut nGallery, three months after the fact of course, would be most entertaining.
Omri is an expert in rhetoric and recognizes smack talk for what it is. n nMoreover, Obama is a natural born gutter fighter, a POTUS who OPENLY boasted, you don't bring a knife to a gunfight! In other words, it is precisely within his churlish inner self to smack down Israel-the only western outpost in the region-just because he's pissed. n nYes, tick tock. Those of us sitting in the eye of the storm hear its chimes. n nAdina Kutnicki, Israel