I see that Iran is putting out peace-talk feelers again. Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator has stated the regime’s willingness to reopen discussions with the US and Europe over Iran’s fast-track Manhattan project. For Iran, this can only mean three things. First, sanctions are hurting. Second, their bomb development needs more time. And third, they think Obama will stupidly fall for this “Rope-a-Dope” routine again.
They may be wrong about Obama. He may not be the sucker they think he is. He may be something much worse: a co-conspirator.
In the words of Jonathan Tobin in a well-titled Commentary article “Down the Garden Path with Iran Again” ,
“If President Obama is prepared to engage in a repeat of last year’s P5+1 fiasco that took up the better part of a year doing nothing but allowing the Iranians to get that much closer to their nuclear goal, then it will be difficult to argue that he is not doing the same thing as the Iranians: stalling until it is too late to do anything about an Iranian bomb.”
This is a terrible thing to consider. The successor to Harry Truman and John Kennedy selling out our closest and most faithful ally, the only freedom-loving, democratic state in a region seething with fanatical haters of America? An American president siding with an apocalyptic regime as anti-Semitic as Hitler’s, against a nation willing to live in peace with its neighbors?
It is hard to believe. But how else to explain the President even considering putting Chuck Hagel in charge of the free world’s defense? Hagel, an anti-Israel, Iran-appeasing politician of the pure Pat Buchanan, Walt-Mearsheimer breed, as Secretary of Defense?
The president is clearly an isolationist, who believes that the main reason we have enemies is because we have bad friends. Left isolationists believe that we are imperialists, who cause damage whenever we use force. Hagel is of the right isolationists, believing that our “friends” are just using us for suckers. The difference is one of rhetoric, not of result.
(Hypothetical question: Is it possible to be an isolationist today without blaming our problems on Israel and abandoning them to deal with their sea of enemies alone?)
As for Iran, Israel, and Obama, we must wait (not long) to see what happens. If Obama accepts a new round of Iranian talks, or if he nominates Hagel for Defense Secretary, then Israel will know beyond a doubt that it will have to deal with Iran alone. Once again, the Zionist truth will be proven: no one but a Jewish state will defend Jews.
