Israel Matzav

Krauthammer on India

Here's Charles Krauthammer on American efforts to pressure India on cap and tax. Reading this, I have to wonder why Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is currently in Brazil and not in India cozying up to the Indian government.

On India rebuffing U.S. pressure to cap carbon emissions

This is real amateur hour. It's one thing to go around the world apologizing over and over for a country that is the most benign and beneficent and generous in the history of the world. It is an affront to our dignity.

But more than that, in the context of India, it makes no sense at all. Our logic is that we say to the Indians: "Yes, for the last 100 years, we have polluted the atmosphere in order to attain a high level of standard of living and become rich. And our demand is you, at the beginning of your development—with hundreds of millions still in poverty—stop all this, give up the idea of using cheap fuels as we did and stay poor." Now, that is a hell of an argument. It makes no sense at all.

And this administration that prides itself for its realism and not ideology—because of its ideology about the climate change (which is almost a religion) it is, as we saw, disrupting our relations with our natural ally in the region.

India is the prize. It's democratic, English-speaking, rule of law, threatened by Islamic radicalism, a natural ally in the U.S., [India is] the strongest nation in the region with a real navy, army, a real military.

If we had a strong alliance with it—and not disrupted because of these absurd [environmental] demands on them, which we know will not be met—we would be in a geopolitical position of great strength.

Someone has to step into that vacuum. Why not Israel?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:08 PM