CNN's Fareed Zakaria channels the Obama view of Iran
On Tuesday, I ran a videotape of CNN's Fareed Zakaria's interview with Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren. For those who did not watch that interview, it is here. Even for those who did watch it, I'd like to suggest that you go back and re-watch the part where they discuss Iran. It runs between about 3:00 and 8:30 in the video. Once you've watched it, you will understand what's got George Jonas' dander up about the interview. The message Zakaria conveyed was: See what President Obama is up against? The problem isn't Iran developing nuclear technology; the problem is Israel being unable to tolerate it. What's causing instability in the Middle East is a paranoid Jewish state's inability to cope with Iran getting closer to having what Israel has had for a long time: the Bomb.Jonas' article opened my eyes. I've probably run the picture at the top of this post 25 times in the last two months. But until now, I didn't take it seriously. Until I read this article, my view on Iran was that they are going to go nuclear unless Israel stops them, because Obama is naive enough to believe he can convince Iran to stop and is too pacifist to take the actions required to stop them. I never truly saw Obama as a co-conspirator in Iran attaining nuclear weapons. Reading Jonas' article, and watching Zakaria again after reading it, I now understand for the first time that Obama actually doesn't see any problem in a nuclear Iran. Obama does not grasp why a nuclear Iran is different from a nuclear England or a nuclear France or a nuclear India. He doesn't believe that Iran would really use nuclear weapons on Israel (in the best case scenario - the worst case scenario is that he believes it and doesn't care, but I don't buy that because he cares too much about the 'Palestinians' who would die with us). He hasn't learned the lesson that the rest of the world learned with Nazi Germany: When someone threatens over and over again to kill you, believe that they intend to do it.
Zakaria didn't actually say, "Well, what's wrong with Iran having the bomb?" He only conveyed it with his demeanour. America isn't worried by Iran's nuclear adventure; Israel is. Why should anyone be concerned about Iran developing the means to make a weapon? Several countries have actually "weaponized" nuclear energy: Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the U. S. The world is still here. Must we measure Iran with a different yardstick just because the Israelis are having kittens?
Why all this concern about proliferation anyway? Maybe it would be nicer if only the U. S. had the Bomb, but Iran having it is only a big deal for war-mongering neo-cons who are forever trying to drag America into some conflict in the Middle East. For nuanced and sophisticated Obamericans, it's nothing to get excited about.
This is the current message of the White House and its supporting punditry. It is the cutting edge. If nuclear proliferation is too hard or ideologically uncomfortable to prevent, just say it's no problem. Yes, so old Ahmadinejad is going to have some nukes. Big deal. Kim Jong-il already has them.
In politics-as-therapy whatever you can't help becomes your achievement. Can't stop wetting the bed? Just be proud of it. Remember, it's only a problem if it bothers you. When you fall flat on your face, take a leaf out of the book of Scipio Africanus. "Land of Africa, I hold you fast," the Roman general declared as he lay sprawling after a stumble. It may not be new but it works.
But it's more than that, and Jonas gets to the other half of the equation in the last part of this article. Obama is abandoning America's friends. First and foremost he is purposefully abandoning Israel, but it goes beyond Israel. And he's changing America in ways that are likely to have long-lasting and painful effects. While we have discussed this many times before, Jonas puts it into a global context. And unfortunately for my American readers, you too are part of that context.
This goes way beyond the Middle East conflict. Some suggest that Barack Obama is just another Hugo Chavez. Be that as it may, America isn't just another Venezuela. America is the City upon the Hill -- or used to be. When Obama promised change, no one asked "what from?" or "what to?" Perhaps they should have. His change is distancing the United States from previous ideals, policies, principles and allies.I've been off line for a couple of hours again because I'm wiped out (I spent much of the day behind the wheel of a car or out in a field with my three youngest kids) and because we just had a meeting with one of our financial advisers. She asked whether I see any light at the end of the economic tunnel. I said that I don't. If this were a normal recession it would be ending now. But this is not a normal recession. I don't believe that the current rise in stock market prices reflects a real economic recovery. And although I live in Israel, the glut of lawyers in Israel (I may post an article about that before the night is out) means that most of my work comes from the United States, so I am as dependent on the US economy as most of you. It doesn't look good. And a nuclear war will only make it worse.
The world changed when the Soviet empire collapsed in 1989, bringing Eastern Europe and parts of Central Asia closer to the ideals of the free world. Twenty years later it changed again when Obama assumed the presidency of the United States. If it's not as profound as the change of 1989, it's certainly not as benevolent either.
The countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia -- nations such as Hungary, Georgia, and even Russia -- have more liberty and less government today than they had in 1989. By choosing Obama in 2009, Americans have embarked on a course that's leading them to more government and less liberty. Free enterprise and individual freedom haven't been extinguished in the United States, but the country is moving away from them. It's the former lands of Oriental despotism and applied Marxism that are inching, at least in fits and starts, towards principles and policies America is gradually discarding. Will the Statue of Liberty set sail from New York Harbour for Eastern Europe? When the world is out of joint, anything is possible.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:28 PM
2 Comments:
I now understand for the first time that Obama actually doesn't see any problem in a nuclear Iran. Obama does not grasp why a nuclear Iran is different from a nuclear England or a nuclear France or a nuclear India.
Obama is a lefist. Obama is a multi-culturalist. His attitudes stem from his multi-culturalism.
A multi-culturalist takes it as a moral duty to be "indiscriminately undiscriminating" to borrow Evan Sayet's phrase. I have had multi-culturalists proclaim to me in arguments "No exceptionalism!" as a proud badge of their morality.
"No exceptionalism" means that you must, I repeat, you MUST, treat every entity the same as every other, with no discrimination based on track record or ideology or culture. Discrimination is evil (in fact, discrimination is the ONLY evil in a multi-culturalist's moral system as far as I can make out). Apart from the evil of discrimination and the good of multi-culturalism which abjures it, there is no other good and evil; that's all relative within each culture. So it is forbidden, absolutely verboten, to call anything or anyone "evil" who is inside another culture or country or ideology.
In practice, that means only the West can be criticized: the US, Europe, and of course, Israel. It is forbidden to criticize the bad behavior of the "other". Usually multi-culturalists refuse to even notice the bad behavior since to do so would tempt them to the sin of discrimination.
That is why when you talk with a leftist about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the Palestinians are window glass, perfectly transparent. Their words, deeds and actions do not exist, except as reactions to Israeli misdeeds.
It's the same for Obama and the Iranian mullahs. The mullahs are window glass. He does not want to notice or criticize them at all and will do so only insofar as the traditions of the United States diplomacy compel him to.
Now do you understand why Obama does not see any problem with an Iranian bomb? To see a problem would be discrimination, which is forbidden. The most common argument from leftists is that it is "hypocritical" to have any problem with an Iranian bomb since we tacitly approve an Israeli bomb. To argue with them based on the likely behavior of Iran vs. Israel is as useless as it would be to argue with you that you should have a pork chop for dinner, and for the same reason: it would be a sin.
Carl - one can't enjoy earthly pleasures when one is dead. Death is the true leveler of earthly social status. Obama doesn't appear to get it - but Israeli Jews want to live... no matter how screwed up they can be at times.
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