We have one person to thank for the fact that President Barack Obama successfully let Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu know 'who's the boss' both at the AIPAC conference and at a meeting between the two at the White House on Monday.
Thank you, Mitt Romney.
Imagine if things had worked out the way Netanyahu wanted them to: Romney would have turned out to be an excellent candidate who crushed his opponents with dispatch. He would not only have the Republican nomination sewn up by now, but he would be the frontrunner to win in November (especially if the economy was trending down and not up).
Under those circumstances, Bibi would have treated Obama the way he treated President Clinton during the ridiculous Lewinsky brouhaha. He essentially ignored him, hanging out with then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and sending the word to his followers that Clinton was likely to be removed by Congress. For Bibi, who hated Clinton's alliance with the late Yitzhak Rabin and his commitment to Rabin's vision, it was all 'happy days are here again.'
That was how Monday was supposed to be, too. Instead, Netanyahu met with an invigorated president who, thanks to Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and the rest of the weak GOP field, looks like an almost sure bet for re-election in November. Bibi understood that any attempt to embarrass Obama or diss him in front of his AIPAC buddies would haunt him for five more years.
Even worse, it could cost him his job. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir rallied AIPAC against the first President Bush, leading Bush to all but endorse his opponent, Yitzhak Rabin and bring about Shamir's defeat. AIPAC gives ovations to Israeli leaders who challenge U.S. Presidents. But the Israeli people don't, because they live there and understand how much Israel needs the United States (no, AIPAC, it is not the other way around).
So that is why Monday was Bibi's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Start with Obama's speech to AIPAC. Netanyahu had asked that the United States redraw its "red line" from actual Iranian development of a nuclear bomb to the mere capability to do so. Should Iran cross the line, we would go to war. Obama mentioned no red lines and did not change U.S. policy. He maintains his latitude to do what he thinks is right.
Netanyahu wanted Obama to agree that the diplomatic route is dead; that sanctions can be utilized, but only to produce "crippling" pain on Iranians as a prelude to war. Instead, Obama emphasized diplomacy, mentioning it over and over again as the surest way to end the stalemate.
Netanyahu wanted Obama to make clear that if Israel attacks Iran, the United States will have its back. Obama agreed with the prime minister that "no Israeli government can tolerate" a nuclear weapon in Iranian hands, seemingly giving Netanyahu a go-ahead to bomb. But Bibi knows that means nothing unless the U.S. will join in the attack, and Obama made it clear that he is not there. Not even close. The president said:
As President and Commander-in-Chief, I have a deeply held preference for peace over war. I have sent men and women into harm's way. I've seen the consequences of those decisions in the eyes of those I meet who've come back gravely wounded, and the absence of those who don't make it home. Long after I leave this office, I will remember those moments as the most searing of my presidency. And for this reason, as part of my solemn obligation to the American people, I will only use force when the time and circumstances demand it.
In other words, he understands that Israel will do what it is going to do. But as president, he won't join in unless the U.S. is directly threatened. Vice President Biden's idea that there must be "no daylight" between Israeli and U.S. policies was noticeably absent.
It didn't get any better for Netanyahu when he met with Obama at the White House.
Netanyahu tried hard to get Obama to go the Biden "no daylight" route. But Obama wasn't buying. When Bibi came out with the outlandish and chutzpah-laden line "we are you and you are us," Obama was silent. His message was: "We believe that there is still a window that allows a diplomatic solution to this issue."
No wonder Netanyahu seemed so deflated when he delivered his much-heralded speech to AIPAC. It is enough to say that its highlight was when he justified war with Iran using a biblical story about a bad Persian tyrant who tried to destroy the Jewish people 2,500 years ago. (Pathetically, Bibi gave Obama a copy of the Bible story to use in his deliberations.)
It only got worse for Netanyahu today when Obama stated at a press conference that diplomacy remains his preferred route. Obama spoke just after the announcement that the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany would commence negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue.
Unlike last time when, at Netanyahu's insistence, the United States imposed a 3-month deadline, this time negotiations will be open-ended. According to the New York Times, the talks would "help relieve pressure from Israel to use military force against Teheran."
At his press conference, Obama at one point spoke as if he was directly addressing the neocons:
I think there's no doubt that those who are suggesting or proposing or beating the drums of war should explain clearly to the American people what they think the costs and benefits would be. I'm not one of those people.
Because what I've said is, is that we have a window through which we can resolve this issue peacefully. We have put forward an international framework that is applying unprecedented pressure. The Iranians just stated that they are willing to return to the negotiating table, and we've got the opportunity, even as we maintain that pressure, to see how it plays out.
Netanyahu returns to Israel. From the perspective of a hawk, his trip was an utter failure. He came here looking for a partner for war but leaves feeling lonely. War is much less likely.
Well played, Mr. President. And, Mitt, thank you.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Well it works both ways you see.
right that the President's dangerous dance with the neocon's
on attacking Iran is a little less likely than we thought.
I hope so as we can not even afford to have
a relatively small and short lived conflict,
as they always promise.
We can not and should not stick our nose into
every country around the world, we need to
concentrate on rebuilding the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther
into a Syrian conflict...
If Assad is overthrown, he will be replaced by Islamic extremists linked with the theocratic Gulf countries, Islamic Turkey and other Islamists in the Middle East and North Africa. With Turkish power and GULF money, Turkey will be tempted to retrun to its Otttoman Empire linking the Middle Eastern Arab lands with North Africa. Only one country is on its way. I don't think Netanyahu noticed that, because all he wants is to get rid of Iran and he cannot attack Iran without finding first a new route for the oil. This route is to be a huge pipeline passing by the city of Homs, but not with Assad in power in Damascus, being allied to Iran and Russia who both would be hurt by this pipeline.
If It is a long civil and confessional war, all the Middle East will be hurt because all countries fron Iran to Lebanon will be drawn in the conflioct, even Israel.
The best way to solve the problem is helping the Syrians build a democracy a real one and then help the Israelis and the Arabs have peace together.
This what Obama wanted to do. But Netanyahu was on his way. Gideon Levy wrote in haaretz about the visit of Netranyahu: It will be the meeting of the cricket and the elephant but who is the cricket and whpo is the elepant?
Even if I were Mrs.Michelle Obama I would still say that the above statement is nonsensical.
Mr. Obama was elected on a platform of change and reform. What we got was more of the same (often sleezy) business as usual. The voters in general are not happy. What this means is that even traditional Democrats (like myself) will not be voting for Mr. Obama again. He had his shot and blew it. We (the people) want the power to discharge our leaders. Otherwise we are their pawns--and chumps.
At this time the Republicans have pummelled one another into a weak collective position. This phaqse will pass and while some of the damage will remain in November,not remotely enough to over shadow the economic decline of the United States, et al.
Especially so when one considers the broad canvass that has to cast over the respective Democratic and Republican Parties. Getting either one to vote as a disciplined party block is like trying to herd cats.
The health debate is the perfect example of that. Which is a change that Obama successfully brought in. Now if you are going to argue that you do not support that socialist change, since it was part of Obama's election campaign, i would suspect that you were being less than honest when you claimed to have voted for him.
So now you claim to know what I did in a private voting booth 3.5 years ago. Why am I not surprised? As it turns out, I supported Obama so long ago that most of my black friends had not yet even heard of him. When he became more well known, the issue was still not over. Because I am from the North East where Hillary was staking her hometown claim. I had to convince my black friends to vote for Obama. I am not sure I was entirely successful, particularly among African-American women.
So much for your oracle abilities. Please stick to misrepresenting things you know about. Example:
What Mr. Obama did with health care was merely to charge everyone more to get more services for everyone. So, why not? Because what we got was only a chump fraction of the extra we paid. The corporations got the lion's share of the excess revenues. There is no provision allowing citizens to purchase their health insurance across state borders. Why? Price fixing. With these rules, large employers like McDonald's buy their insurance below provider cost and small parties have to subsidize the largest corporations by making up the difference.
(More)
My parents were commies and my father is mentioned by name in a few historical references. My grandfather was 60 days away from being appointed the FIRST president of the ILGWU, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILGWU when he died under mysterious circumstances. There was yet no Israel but he was an avowed 'Zionist'. My parents were both strong supporters of Israel, as was Jane Fonda, Ralph Nader and Eugene McCarthy. On many issues I am clearly to Mr. Obama's LEFT. In a few examples I agree with the right. But that does not make me any sort of Republican, as I have never voted for an "R" CEO in my entire life. All that means is that I analyze each issue on its specific merits. Something that most people should be doing, especially now that we are into the 'age of information'. Sadly, as you have repeatedly proven (here and before) we are also now into the age of 'disinformation'.
Even if, hypothetically, Romney had secured the nomination by now, this would be totally irrelevant to the way Israel would deal with the person who will DEFINITELY be president of the USA until at least January 2013.
This article is based on a false premise.
Also, I note that Mr Rosenberg's weekly articles are all close to identical - an unsubstantiated AIPAC and Israel bash.
But if Mr. Rosenberg (who clearly has a personal vendetta against Netanyahu and AIPAC) wants to spin this as horrible for israel's leadership, he can happily do so.
Hope diplomacy works, but I fear people like MJ Rosenberg would rather be "right" and have nuclear armed Iran (and watch what that would do to middle east diplomacy and oil prices - a nuclear armed Iran could easily close the straights of Hormuz) than "wrong" about this stuff and see Iran halted.
This IS NOT an Israeli-Iran issue. It is a WORLD-Iran issue. The world has so much at stake here, Israel is merely on the front lines as the only western style democracy in the region (and as the country Iran's leaders openly want to see eliminated).
Even those against military action have to understand that. And military threats must be on the table or Iran will clearly ignore diplomatic efforts.
I hope Iran makes the right choice. And I hope people like MJ Rosenberg stop trying to spin everything based on personal vendettas and anti-anything Israel bias.
The fact that Obama is doing something for the benefit of Israel, and indirectly Netanyahu, seems to have sent Rosenberg over the edge. Rosenberg was probably hoping that Obama would do everything that Netanyahu demanded, then Rosenberg could write one of his classic 'AIPAC controls the world" columns, or Rosenberg was hoping that Obama would humiliate Netanyahu, allowing Rosenberg to gloat.
You can just feel it: many of same newspapers and TV stations we saw leading the charge in the Bush years have gone back to the attic and are dusting off their war pom-poms. CNN’s house blockhead, the Goldman-trained ex-finance professional Erin Burnett, came out with doozie of a broadcast yesterday, a Rumsfeldian jeremiad against the Iranian threat would have fit beautifully in Saddam’s-sending-drones-at-New-York halcyon days of late 2002. Here’s how the excellent Glenn Greenwald described Burnett’s rant:
It’s the sort of thing you would produce if you set out to create a mean-spirited parody of mindless, war-hungry, fear-mongering media stars, but you wouldn’t dare go this far because you’d want parody to have a feel of realism to it, and this would be way too extreme to be believable. She really hauled it all out: WMDs! Terrorist sleeper cells in U.S. controlled by Tehran! Iran’s long-range nuclear missiles reaching our homeland!!!! She almost made the anti-Muslim war-mongering fanatic she brought on to interview, Rep. Peter King, appear sober and reasonable by comparison.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/another-march-to-war-20120217#ixzz1oXlzzXVx
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It would still be a profound national-security interest of the United States to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
GOLDBERG: Why, then, is this issue so often seen as binary, always defined as Israel versus Iran?
I want to make clear that when we travel around the world and make presentations about this issue, that's not how we frame it. We frame it as: this is something in the national-security interests of the United States and in the interests of the world community. And I assure you that Europe would not have gone forward with sanctions on Iranian oil imports -- which are very difficult for them to carry out, because they get a lot of oil from Iran -- had it not been for their understanding that it is in the world's interest, to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/obama-to-iran-and-israel-as-president-of-the-united-states-i-dont-bluff/253875/
It's not as if its going to hurt Israel tactically. Everyone already knows they have nukes, and roughly how many. Inspections wont change that. If anything, it might assuage some ego issues among the Iranians and pave the way for inspections, negotiations, some sort of dialogue...
Ultimately, we have to ask whether the point of all this is to prevent Iran from getting weaponized nukes, or is it simply to rile them up to war so that Bibi can win another election...
Israel may be the only nation in the entire world who actually NEEDS such weapons.
As you will recall North Korea is also not a signatory, and pressure through sanctions were applied to get it to sign and comply with the treaty. Technically the U.S and The U.N. would have to do the same thing to Israel if it's nukes were actually confirmed (Nudge wink)
The problem here being that Iran has not actually done anything other than to progress through the process of building a nuclear generator to produce power. This it is allowed to do under the NNPT. While going through the process of producing nuclear electricity it will gain the ability to build a Nuclear bomb.
Remember the NNPT does not preclude attaining knowledge and ability, it precludes building bombs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/18/israel-strike-iran-martin-dempsey_n_1286961.html?ref=israel
"American intelligence assessments say that Iran would have the capability to build a nuclear bomb in the coming years, but it has not yet decided whether to do so."
Israel does not just fear the actual construction of a bomb it fears the knowledge needed to construct it.
Second, I have no interest.
Third, from just that exchange is representative of the reason why?
Fourth, Goldberg's response should have been, "Well tell us Mr. President, how is it in the interest of the U.S. for Iran not to have nuclear weapons, as oppose to Israel, Pakistan and Indian?
Because the follow up didn't happen explains the pro-jewish biases reflected in the American media as exemplified by a dissenting article by Walt and Mearsheimer appeared in the Financial Times of London not the U.S. media.
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/08/washingtons_new_antiwar_movement/
Most Americans do not want war with Iran, and most Israelis don't, only Avigdor LIeberman and the settler gang do.
Obama should say to Netanyahu, make peace with Palestine before you start another war, Obama should teach Netanyahu who is boss.