Happy St. Patty's Day. A penetrating column here to pore over with your corned beef and cabbage, from former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. A choice excerpt (from the New York Post):
Why would America subject a close ally to this dynamic, playing with the security of an unvarying supporter in world affairs? For America, Israel's intelligence-sharing, military cooperation and significant bilateral economic ties, among many others, are important national-security assets that should not lightly be put at risk.
The only understandable answer is that the Obama administration believes that Israel is as much or more of a problem as it is an ally, at least until Israel's disagreements with its neighbors are resolved. Instead of seeing Israel as a national-security asset, the administration likely sees a relationship complicating its broader policy of diplomatic "outreach."
No one will say so publicly, but this is the root cause of Obama's "Arab-Israeli issues first" approach to the region.
This approach is exactly backward. All the other regional problems would still exist even if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got his fondest wish and Israel disappeared from the map: Iran's nuclear-weapons program, its role as the world's central banker for terrorism, the Sunni-Shiite conflict within Islam, Sunni terrorist groups like al Qaeda and other regional ethnic, national and political animosities would continue as threats and risks for decades to come.
Instead, the US focus should be on Iran and the manifold threats it poses to Israel, to Arab states friendly to Washington and to the United States itself - but that is not to be.
President Obama argues that he will deal comprehensively with the entire region. Rhetoric is certainly his specialty, but in the Middle East rhetoric only lasts so long. Performance is the real measure - and the administration's performance to date points in only one direction: pressuring Israel while wooing Iran.
Others in the world - friend and foe alike - will draw their own conclusions.
Read it all. And to think, I'm still trying to recover from the insane Chas Freeman nomination.