The further to the left or the right you move, the more your lens on life distorts.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Peter Pan, Al Sharpton, and Frank Underwood

As we move into the run-up to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's March 3rd speech to a joint session of Congress, reports indicate that Barack Obama (through the actions of his administration) is behaving like a petulant child who doesn't like the idea that someone of stature might disagree with him. The AP (via ABC News) reports:
In what is becoming an increasingly nasty grudge match, the White House is mulling ways to undercut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming trip to Washington and blunt his message that a potential nuclear deal with Iran is bad for Israel and the world.
Obama's trained hamsters in the media are working overtime to help Obama demonize Bibi and undercut his message when it is delivered.

At the same time, reports that leaders of Arab nations have exactly the same concerns as Bibi and have communicated them forcefully, yet privately, to the White House. The Wall Street Journal reports:
WASHINGTON—Arab governments are privately expressing their concern to Washington about the emerging terms of a potential deal aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program, according to Arab and U.S. officials involved in the deliberations.

The direction of U.S. diplomacy with Tehran has added fuel to fears in some Arab states of a nuclear-arms race in the region, as well as reviving talk about possibly extending a U.S. nuclear umbrella to Middle East allies to counter any Iranian threat.

The major Sunni states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, have said that a final agreement could allow Shiite-dominated Iran, their regional rival, to keep the technologies needed to produce nuclear weapons, according to these officials, while removing many of the sanctions that have crippled its economy in recent years.

Arab officials said a deal would likely drive Saudi Arabia, for one, to try to quickly match Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“At this stage, we prefer a collapse of the diplomatic process to a bad deal,” said an Arab official who has discussed Iran with the Obama administration and Saudi Arabia in recent weeks.
So ... we have enemies—Israel and the Arabs—who reside in the same region immediately threatened by Iran, agreeing without reservation that Barack Obama's attempts at cutting a deal with no teeth is dangerous; that it will lead to a nuclear arms race, and that it is a threat not only to the region, but to the world.

But Obama and his Team of 2s know better. After all, their string of foreign policy successes ... oh wait, they have had no foreign policy successes in his six years of office. No matter, they're the smartest kids in the room, so we just have to trust them -- just like we trusted them when Obama withdrew from Iraq and ISIS was spawned, or how we trusted them when Obama deposed Mohammar Kaddafi and turned Libya into a failed state that is now the home of many different radical Islamic groups, or when we "reset" relations with Russia, only to have Vlad Putin annex Crimea and invade the Ukraine.

Barack Obama has the aggressiveness of Peter Pan, the insight of Al Sharpton, and the ethics of Frank Underwood (the iconic fictional politician in Netflix' House of Cards).

Obama projects an aura of supreme confidence, yet underneath it all, there must be feelings of grave insecurity. Why? Because if this president was certain he was doing the right thing for the United States and its allies, why would he be afraid of a simple speech by Bibi Netanyahu?

A complete answer is complex and will be left to another time. But here's a preview. Throughout his term, Obama—in both words and actions—has demonstrated a dislike not only for Bibi the man, but Israel the country. He and his Team of 2s, not to put to fine a point on it, are anti-Israel. But that's not all. In order to burnish a foreign policy record that is in tatters, Obama needs a foreign policy "win." He perceives a weak, dangerous deal with Iran as a "win." His media hamsters will characterize it as a "win." So he's going for it, even if it's a very, very bad deal for the United Sates and for the Middle East. Think: Peter Pan, crossed with Al Sharpton, crossed with Frank Underwood.

There, that wasn't so complicated, was it?