Drumbeats of War - The Mirrors Crack - Part 2
I said in the previous post that it is possible the recent blowup… verbal blowup… in Israel between VP Biden and Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu could be either on purpose as a charade to distance the US from Israel so that the Israelis could do a military strike on Iran and we could say they did it counter to our telling them not to.
Or the players are just incompetent.
Sadly, it might be the second one.
In an underreported Obama interview with Joe Klein in the January 21 issue of Time Magazine, our President said the most amazing thing.
And on the Israeli front … I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn’t produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted, and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high.
I’m sorry. Did Obama really believe it would just take a happy smile and a peppy speech or two, and he would solve the millennia-old struggle for Palestine?
Anyone who has actually looked at the history of Israel and the Arabs sees a gordian knot, frighteningly intricate and infused with rancor. The most brilliant of minds recoil at the eternal complexity of it.
Even the cynically talented arch-politicians who accomplished the seemingly impossible task of opening of China to the influence of United States capitalism … President Richard Nixon and his intellectual ‘enforcer’, Henry Kissinger… threw up their hands and ran away screaming gibberish after years of the world-class shuttle diplomacy that Kissinger instituted precisely for this problem.
It would be a very small mind that would think the solution was simple. And tell everyone they’d fix it in a jiffy.
After the Biden visit, Financial Times, well known for dry and unemotional reporting, was whipped up into what must be considered a verbal frenzy for them, saying that Obama has “an emasculated White House that lacks Mideast muscle.”
Netanyahu has painted himself into a corner, and is increasingly isolated within his own country. His Minister of Defense, who helps hold the consensus government of Israel together, seems to yearn for an Ultimate Cage Fight with his Prime. Is a military strike looking pretty good to regain the political capital he has suddenly lost?
Clearly, the majority opinion of the people of Israel is that the ‘existential threat’ of Iran must be taken care of swiftly. I do not think they believe that the US truly has their interest at heart. After recent events, it seems reasonable they feel very alone in the midst of a sea of troubles.
I think they believe, as they certainly did before the 1967 war, that they must do what they have to do, and then endure the verbal castigation of world opinion that recoils in horror, and then with a wink and a nod, pats them on the back for a job well done. It worked in 1967. It would work now. As long as it didn’t lead to WW III. And from a certain Israeli viewpoint… wouldn’t it be worth even that risk?
By incompetence or by design, the distancing of the US from Israel is happening. The prerequisite for Israel going it alone on a military strike within Iran is happening.
We might do well to hold onto our hats. The ride could get pretty bumpy.
