Israel and Iran: Obama's End Game

For any Obama supporter who had hopes that our president's "new ideas" diplomacy would lead to a solution to the Iranian problem without harming Israel much in the process, the jury is in and the verdict is not a pretty one. For those who thought that Carter, Brzezinski, Baker and MacFarlane were bad for Middle East stability generally, and for Israel specifically, wait until you see where Obama is taking this issue, particularly after the mid-term election when he will be unrestrained by US public opinion. Make no mistake abut it -- Obama intends to turn American foreign policy as it relates to Israel 180 degrees, and make the world a much more dangerous place for every American ally as a result. It is almost unbelievable.

Obama takes us back a generation in his radical views, in that he has a leftist intellectual's obsession with broader nuclear proliferation, without differentiation between allies and enemies or their respective intents, and a zero sum approach to Middle East peace -- one side must win, the other must lose (and we have become familiar enough with Obama's world view to know where Israel stands in this equation). It is not only with healthcare that he has obsessively pursued an agenda item that is at the top of his list, but not at the top of America's. Broad nuclear proliferation (i.e., not just focusing on rogue states like Iran and North Korea, but on everyone, INCLUSIVE of the U.S.) has proven to be another deeply held priority of Obama's -- his "important" UN speech on nuclear non-proliferation, his new treaty with the Russians (was THAT really a high priority?), his historic change this week in American nuclear deterrent policy, and the upcoming nuclear conference in Washington. At the same time, he has utterly failed to make any discernible progress in his attempts to control Iran's march towards a nuclear arsenal, even throwing under the proverbial bus a budding Iranian democratic velvet revolution, in the naive belief that this would increase his ability to persuade Iranian theocratic revolutionaries to abandon their nuclear program (by the way, why is it that, for all their supposed worldliness and multicultural understanding, that liberal globalists seem to have an absolute inability to listen to and understand the motives and thought processes of our enemies, instead transferring their hopeful and "rational" thought processes to our adversaries?).

Obama has been so completely unsuccessful with the Iranians that he is now changing his tone clearly to the language of containment. Our Arab Gulf allies and Saudi Arabia have lost any confidence that Obama is willing or capable of dealing with the Iranians, and they must be increasingly skeptical that we will allow Israel to do what we should do. Indeed, some theorize that the increasing demonization of Israel in official and unofficial Washington (as well as the dual nationality canards that have appeared recently on Politico.com and from Professor Walt) is partly to send the message to Israel not even to try anything in Iran -- we will not be there to protect you. Rumors have surfaced of US air force training focusing on interdicting against aircraft employing "Israeli tactics", and the most recent report that Israeli nuclear scientists have become persona non grata in the US by the Obama administration (I wonder if Pakistani nuclear scientists face similar restrictions).

So what is next? How is Obama going to turn this sow's ear of Iran policy into a purse? Perhaps a closer look at his recently revised nuclear doctrine should give a hint. The changes made not only keeps the door open to using nuclear weapons to attack Iran as a non-proliferation treaty signatory that is violating the treaty, but it also keeps the door open to using nuclear weapons to attack a non-signatory which develops nuclear weapons, like Israel. While I am not suggesting seriously that Obama would go that far, the leaking of information that Israel might be ganged up upon at the Washington nuclear proliferation conference next week is no surprise, and leads to where Obama is taking this. He was a part time law professor and likes symmetry. Quite simply, his Hail Mary pass on Iran will be to push forward the conversation, by the end of the year, of "trading" Israel's nuclear ability for Iran's, turning the Middle East into a nuclear free zone for Israel's own good (which it can do nothing else but refuse). This will allow Obama to further isolate Israel and turn it into an international pariah, which will both deflect blame from his utter failure to effectively deal with Iran and further pressure Israel to make unrequited concessions to the Palestinians.

If not exactly as described here, variants of this scenario surely await us, if concerted and effective pressure is not placed on all levels of the Obama administration. This course of events will surely result in a multitude of repercussions that are difficult to fathom. People talk about the horrible unforeseen events that could result from a military attack on Iran. Think about what could happen if we don't.