Israel Matzav

Good news and bad news on the Jones resignation

Barry Rubin reports good news and bad news about the departure of James Jones (pictured) are President Obama's National Security Adviser.

The good news is that with the departure of Jones, a Leftist ideologue, it is far less likely that the White House will attempt to impose a 'two-state solution' on Israel. The bad news is that Jones' replacement, Thomas Donilon, is an Obama yes-man with NO foreign policy experience. When you add to that the fact that Obama himself is clueless about foreign policy, you're left with a recipe for disaster.

Having a top foreign policy team that is in heated antagonism plus a president who is ignorant on foreign affairs (sorry, but that's very true of Obama) is a formula for disaster. Add to that the lack of any strong advisor who is a junior partner of the president as happened in the relationship between President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor/Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

That doesn't mean it was a love fest before, where do you think the long delays and uncertainty over Afghanistan came from?

Instead, the secretary of state isn't trusted because she's a former (bitter) political rival, who has her own (more accurate and moderate) views. The secretary of defense is a holdover from the Bush Administration and is not trusted by the White House insiders. And now the national security advisor, while not holding actively silly views, is a yes-man.

Thus, Obama is more likely to come up with his own ideas to an even greater extent. Uh-oh!

Clinton and Gates are relatively good, especially compared to the likely alternatives. Up until now, there has been a debate in which Obama could choose some compromise view between them, on one hand, and Jones plus the more ideological White House staff, on the other. But what if Obama doesnt want to listen to the advice of Clinton and Gates, then operates through Donilon to put through his unadulterated first opinion? Imagine these people meeting to decide how to respond to a nuclear Iran, an aggressive Russia, some big foreign policy crisis.

What happened to Joe Biden being selected because he had more foreign policy experience than Obama? Why isn't he playing more of a role in foreign policy (note my prophetic words at the end of that post)? Maybe because he's too pro-Israel? (Think back to last March when Biden was easily mollified after the Ramat Shlomo blowup and Obama insisted on re-fanning the flames by having Hillary Clinton call to chew out Netanyahu).

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:15 AM