How Obama deceived Israel on the Iran nuclear negotiations
If you need any more reasons to hate President Hussein Obama, Professor Mike Doran gives you more in
this interview with Shmuel Rosner.
Behind the scenes in the Oman channel, Obama approved far-reaching
concessions that Israel (to say nothing of other American allies)
regarded as profoundly damaging to its security. Meanwhile, the Obama
administration continued to participate in the so-called P5+1
negotiations, in which American officials pretended to hold the line
against the concessions that Obama was making in secret. Those officials
repeatedly flew to Israel, where they briefed Netanyahu on the sham
P5+1 process, ostentatiously expressing their deep and sincere concern
for Israel’s security.
This deception had an intelligence component. When the Oman
negotiations got serious, the United States and Israel were still
cooperating on covert operations that, among other things, introduced
the destructive Stuxnet virus into the computer system servicing Iran’s
nuclear program. Fearing that these operations would scuttle his secret
diplomacy, Obama brought them to an end. However, he was in no position
to explain matters to Netanyahu, so he busied Israeli intelligence
officials with elaborate planning for the next round of covert
operations—the round that never materialized.
Obama's "special relationship" with Israel and his warm rhetoric toward
the Jewish state are intimately bound up with his deception of it.
But Doran says that Obama failed to learn the lessons from the 1950's Eisenhower administration.
Obama’s deceptions damaged America’s credibility with its major Middle
Eastern allies, all of whom share Israel’s fear of a resurgent Iran. The
importance of maintaining credibility with allies was one of the major
lessons that Eisenhower learned from his failed Egyptian gambit in the
1950s. The United States has no standing alliances in the Middle East to
guide her behavior there—no regional equivalent to NATO in Europe, or
to the series of bilateral treaties that exist in Asia. There is, that
is to say, no set of formal legal commitments that helps the president
sort friend from foe. Each president must conceive the region anew as a
conscious intellectual act. Eisenhower discovered that the wild
political crosscurrents of the Middle East make the task more complex
than it might at first sound. Friends of long standing sometimes adopt
policies that antagonize the United States, while traditionally hostile
states whisper beguilingly that they hold the solution to its problem.
Egypt beguiled Eisenhower and Iran beguiled Obama. Unlike Ike, however,
Obama never wised up. As a consequence, America’s friends do not trust
her, and her enemies do not fear her. When making policy toward the
Middle East, a president should recite often the simple motto of the
First Marine Division of the Marine Corps: “No better friend, no worse
enemy.” This is the greatest lesson that Eisenhower can teach future
American presidents. It’s too late for President Obama to change course,
but not for President Trump.
I don't believe that history will treat Hussein Obama very kindly. He has done lasting damage to the United States' relationship with a whole host of allies. Whether Donald Trump can undo some or all of that damage remains to be seen. Let's just say that I had a lot more confidence in Ronald Reagan after the Carter administration than I do in Trump, although if Trump continues to select good cabinet members, there may be hope.
Read it all.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dwight Eisenhower, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1
A 'win-win'... for Hamas
Although largely defeated militarily, Hamas has succeeded in attacking Israel and using it to drive an even
deeper wedge between the Jewish state and its 'most trusted ally.' This is David Horovitz.
It becomes ever harder to understand what the
US administration thinks it is doing in the Middle East. Its influence
is waning across the region. It appears insufficiently robust — to put
it mildly — when dealing with the region’s most dangerous regimes,
notably Iran. Its ill-judged lack of enthusiasm for Abdel-Fattah
el-Sissi — apparently blamed by Washington for ending an elected Muslim
Brotherhood presidency, even though president Mohammed Morsi would
likely have ensured no further elections — is pushing Egypt ever closer
to Russia. And now ties with the region’s only democracy are fraying.
Some in the administration appear to labor
under the delusion that if only Benjamin Netanyahu — described by some
US officials in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal as “reckless and
untrustworthy” — could be weakened and eased aside, Israelis might elect
a leadership more inclined to follow its thinking and consider
territorial compromise in the cause of a rejuvenated peace process with
the Palestinians. The fact is, of course, that an Israel attempting to
de-fang Hamas, concerned at the possibility of rising tensions in the
West Bank, aware that Hezbollah in Lebanon is many times more powerful
than Hamas is, and watching Iran working to outwit the West on its route
to nuclear weapons, is as likely to veer left as Hamas is to
voluntarily disarm. Far from being the most obdurate prime minister,
Netanyahu is the most moderate that Israel can be expected to choose in
the foreseeable future.
It is frankly astounding to the overwhelming
majority of Israelis that Israel is being blamed for and pressured to
end a war it manifestly sought to avoid — against a terrorist-government
sworn to its destruction that repeatedly breaches the ceasefire efforts
Israel consistently accepts. That the conflict is widely
misrepresented, and that hostile governments are critical, is bad enough
for Israel. Far, far graver is that key allies, to one degree or
another, are turning upon it.
...
Rather than criticizing Israel for seeking to
protect its civilians from Hamas, and moving now to limit its capacity
to do so, the US, UK and the rest of the international community should
be emphatically backing Israel in its struggle against the cynical Hamas
— for the sake, too, of the civilians of Gaza. They should be insisting
that Hamas disarm. And they should be making clear that they share
Israel’s and Egypt’s concern that lifting the blockade is not tenable so
long as any easing of restrictions would be exploited by Hamas.
They would thus be underlining the message to
Gazans that Hamas is not fighting for their freedom, as it claims, but
is, through its pursuit of war against Israel, denying them their
freedom.
They would also be giving Israel reason to
believe that when it finds itself in crisis — in good part, it can be
argued, because it undertook a territorial withdrawal widely urged by
the international community — the world will stand shoulder-to-shoulder
with it. Right now, the sense in Israel is quite the reverse — not
support, but abandonment.
From Hamas’s point of view, it must be a
source of immense delight to witness the strains, and practical fallout,
in the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem. It wins an
election in which the US insisted it be allowed to take part, even
though it has never renounced terrorism. It murders its way to control
of Gaza. It diverts Gaza’s resources to turn the Strip into one great
big terrorist bunker. It hits Israel, over and over and over again. It
intimidates international journalists to not report on and film its
attack methods. And the international community condemns Israel, the UN
sets up inquiries into Israeli war crimes, and Israel’s allies limit its
arms supplies.
All it needs to do, Hamas can only conclude,
is keep firing at Israel’s towns and villages, forcing Israel to
respond, confident that this will bring still more criticism down on
Israel as well as growing restrictions on Israel’s ability to defend
itself. Wow, the Hamas leaders must be thinking, the free world is just
so dumb.
John Podhoretz
adds regarding the US block on Hellfire missiles to Israel:
Simply put: It’s a gigantic hissy fit, an expression of rage against
Bibi Netanyahu, by whom the administration feels dissed. The quotes in
this article are almost beyond belief. In the annals of American foreign
policy, no ally has ever been talked about in this way.
EXAMPLE: A senior U.S. official said the U.S. and Israel clashed
mainly because the U.S. wanted a cease-fire before Mr. Netanyahu was
ready to accept one. “Now we both want one,” one of the officials said.
This is also transparently absurd. Netanyahu didn’t want this war,
and is transparently eager for any way to extricate Israel from a long
struggle. What he can’t accept is a cease-fire that leaves Hamas with
sufficient firepower and with intact tunnels—which is something you’d
think the United States would similarly support.
EXAMPLE: “It’s become very personal,” an official tells the Wall
Street Journal. Yeah, no kidding. That’s a great way to make policy.
For five and a half years now, some Israel advocates have been
attempting to make the case to others that there is something new and
dark in the Obama administration’s perspective on Israel—that there is
an animus as pronounced as the one during the administration of the
Elder George Bush, which was so self-evident the Jewish vote for Bush in
the 1992 reelection was a staggeringly low 11 percent.
This Wall Street Journal article should now leave no illusions. In
its transparent hostility—not to mention the cowardice of hiding behind
anonymity to issue its repugnant bitch-slaps—the Obama administration is
worse than the Bush 41 administration. It’s the worst since
Eisenhower. Were it not for Iron Dome, it would be the worst ever. And
given the decision to hold up weaponry during wartime, it may yet
surpass Eisenhower.
And Eisenhower
came around to
support Israel in his second term.
Labels: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dwight Eisenhower, Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Mohammed Morsy, Muslim Brotherhood
David Ben Gurion puts John Foster Dulles in his place
Received by email:
In 1954, when Ben Gurion was Prime Minister, he traveled to the USA to
meet with President Eisenhower to request his assistance and support in
the early and difficult days of the State of Israel.
John Foster Dulles, who was the then secretary of state, confronted Ben Gurion and challenged him as follows:
"Tell
me, Mr. Prime Minister - who do you and your state represent? Does it
represent the Jews of Poland, perhaps Yemen, Romania,Morocco, Iraq,
Russia or perhaps Brazil? After 2000 years of exile can you honestly
speak about a single nation, a single culture? Can you speak about a
single heritage or perhaps a single Jewish tradition?"
Ben Gurion answered him as follows:
"Look, Mr. Secretary of State - approximately 300 years ago the
Mayflower set sail from England and on it were the first settlers who
settled in what would become the largest demo-cratic superpower known as
the United States of America. Now, do me a favor - go out into the
streets and find 10 American children and ask them the following:
What was the name of the Captain of the Mayflower?
How long did the voyage take?
What did the people who were on the ship eat?
What were the conditions of sailing during the voyage?
I'm sure you would agree with me that there is a good chance that you won't get a good answer to these questions.
Now in contrast - not 300 but more than 3000 years ago, the Jews left the land of Egypt.
I
would kindly request from you Mr. Secretary that on one of your trips
around the world, try and meet 10 Jewish children in different
countries. And ask them:
'What was the name of the leader who took the Jews out of Egypt?'
'How long did it take them before they got to the land of Israel?
'What did they eat during the period when they were wandering in the desert?'
'And what happened to the sea when they encountered it?'
'Once you get the answers to these questions, please carefully reconsider the question that you have just asked me!"
Heh.
UPDATE MONDAY 7:49 PM
For those wondering about the authenticity of this story, the Ben Gurion quote is
apparently accurate, the connection to Dulles is not.
Labels: David Ben Gurion, Dwight Eisenhower, Jews
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Wednesday, February 6.
1) Implicating Hezbollah
The New York Times reports Bulgaria Implicates Hezbollah in July Attack on Israelis. (more via memeorandum)
The announcement could force the European Union to reconsider
designating the Lebanon-based group as a terrorist organization and
cracking down on its fund-raising. That would upend Europe’s policy of
quiet tolerance of the group, which, in addition to operating schools
and social services, is an influential force in Middle East politics,
considers Israel an enemy and has extensive links with Iran.
...
The United States, too, urged the European Union to condemn Hezbollah.
John O. Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser and
his nominee to run the C.I.A., responded in a statement Tuesday: “We
call on our European partners as well as other members of the
international community to take proactive action to uncover Hezbollah’s
infrastructure and disrupt the group’s financing schemes and operational
networks in order to prevent future attacks.”
But countries including France and Germany have been wary of taking that
step, which could force confrontations with large numbers of Hezbollah
supporters living within their borders.
Last August the New York Times reported Despite Alarm by U.S., Europe Lets Hezbollah Operate Openly:
While the group is believed to operate all over the Continent,
Germany is a center of activity, with 950 members and supporters last
year, up from 900 in 2010, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said
in its annual threat report. On Saturday, Hezbollah supporters and
others will march here for the annual Jerusalem Day event, a protest
against Israeli control of that city. Organizers told the Berlin police
that the event would attract 1,000 marchers, and that two
counterdemonstrations were also likely.
Hezbollah has maintained a low profile in Europe since the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001, quietly holding meetings and raising money that goes to
Lebanon, where officials use it for an array of activities — building
schools and clinics, delivering social services and, Western
intelligence agencies say, carrying out terrorist attacks.
European security services keep tabs on the group’s political
supporters, but experts say they are ineffective when it comes to
tracking the sleeper cells that pose the most danger. “They have real,
trained operatives in Europe that have not been used in a long time, but
if they wanted them to become active, they could,” said Alexander
Ritzmann, a policy adviser at the European Foundation for Democracy in
Brussels, who has testified before Congress on Hezbollah.
Benjamin Weinthal reports in the Jerusalem Post, Bulgaria: Hezbollah behind Burgas attack:
Hezbollah’s number 2 leader Naim Qassem rejected the British
separation of his organization into political and military wings. He
told the LA Times in 2009, “The same leadership that directs the
parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the
struggle against Israel.”
This is an important admission because a lot of commentary will attempt
to differentiate between Hezbollah's "military" and "political" wings.
The Washington Post calls for the European Union to respond to Hezbollah’s attack in Bulgaria:
Since then the Quds Force has, among other things, plotted to kill
the Saudi ambassador to the United States in Washington and the U.S.
ambassador to Azerbaijan, and it has attacked an Israeli diplomat’s wife
in India. Hezbollah has attempted attacks on Israeli tourists in
Cyprus, Greece and Thailand as well as in Bulgaria. Mr. Levitt says that
more than 20 terror attacks by Hezbollah or the Iranian force were
detected between May 2011 and July 2012; fortunately, almost all failed
or were disrupted.
...
The United States, which long ago designated Hezbollah as a terrorist
organization, has been pressing European leaders to do the same so that
the group’s funds in European banks and other financial assets can be
targeted. Several governments, led by France, have resisted; they worry
that sanctions could further destabilize Lebanon or subject European
peacekeepers in the south of that country to reprisals. Bulgaria’s
findings should end the debate. Inaction would mean accepting that
Europe can be a free-fire zone for Iran and its proxies.
Unfortunately, the editorial implies that Israel has been killing Iranian scientists, a supposition that's disputed by Michael Ledeen. On the positive side, the editorial cites Matthew Levitt's HIZBALLAH and the QODS FORCE
in IRAN’S SHADOW WAR with the WEST. (.pdf)
IN JANUARY 2010, the Qods Force—the elite unit of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)— decided that it and Hizballah, its
primary terrorist proxy, would embark on a new campaign of violence
targeting not only Israel but U.S. and other Western targets as well.
Since then, the two organizations have been cooperating but also
competing to launch attacks across the globe. What is particularly
striking is how amateurish the actions of both organizations have been:
targets were poorly chosen and assaults carried out with gross
incompetence. But as the groups brush off the cobwebs and
professionalize their operations, this sloppy tradecraft could quickly
be replaced by operational success. Indeed, one particularly odd effort
might have succeeded were it not for the fortuitous placement of an
undercover U.S. government informant: the case of an Iranian-American
used-car salesman who pleaded guilty in October 2012 to conspiring with
Iranian agents to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States.
Related commentary and details from Honest Reporting, This Ongoing War, Israel Matzav, Elder of Ziyon, Eugene Kontorovich and The Lid.
2) Not liking Hagel
Time Magazine features an ugly article Just who do they representAt Hagel Hearing, Concern for Israel Tops U.S. Troops in Combat by Brandon Friedman (via memeorandum):
It’s difficult to interpret this message any other way: the Senate
Armed Services Committee—particularly its Republican membership—is more
concerned with the apparent American defense secretary’s relationship
with Israel than with the future of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the fate
of U.S. troops engaged in both locations.
We are approaching a host of critical and delicate decisions on how many
— and how fast — U.S. troops should be pulled out of Afghanistan. Yet,
after more than a decade at war there — and nearly 2,100 U.S. lives lost
— the people charged with overseeing the operation seem no longer
interested.
While Israel is a strategic ally in a precarious situation (the
committee also frequently brought up Iran), at best, this sends a
disheartening message to the American men and women serving down range,
under hostile fire. After 11 years of fighting, committee members seem
to have little concern for what the likely incoming defense secretary
thinks of the situation.
If Hagel had acquitted himself well, maybe there'd be an argument here.
And surely how Hagel would deal with Iran is important to know too.
Barry Rubin recounts how the question about containing Iran went:
Here’s the primary example — Hagel said: “I support the president’s
strong position on containment.” Now, the truth is that there’s nothing
wrong with that. He did not say the president’s position advocating
containment of Iran. Contrary to the way that many writers are
portraying it, what he said wasn’t incorrect, just ambiguous. He could
easily have recovered. Then, some of his handlers asked him to clarify.
What did he do?
I was just handed a note that I misspoke … that I said I supported
the president’s position on containment. If I said that, I meant to say
that we don’t have a position on containment.
Now this management alone is enough to bar him from handling one of
the most important and complex jobs in the world. Let’s count the ways:
– Never admit that you’ve just been told you were wrong! He should
have pocketed the note without mentioning it and simply added to his
statement (see below). What he did instead is on the level of stupidity
of a television host being shown a cue card reading: “Wrap up the show,
moron!”, and then reading that aloud to the live audience. — He should
have said something like this: “I do not want any ambiguity in my clear
statements of support for the president and for a tough policy on Iran. I
support the president’s position of asserting that containment is
insufficient and that our goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear
weapons, leaving all options open for doing so.”
He doesn’t just not know the facts, he doesn’t know how to be a
high-level official. He doesn’t just not know the details of
international affairs, his thought is simply not coherent. And unlike
Obama and Kerry, he doesn’t know how to hide his radicalism behind
smooth phrases.
Dorothy Rabinowitz made similar observations about Senator Hagel in the Wall Street Journal.
While the critics of Hagel's critics claim that the campaign against
Hagel is primarily about Israel and often go as far as Friedman in
suggesting that there is an unseemly aspect to Hagel's critics on this
count. On the other hand Hagel's critics seem to like largely because of
his past statements about Israel! It certainly isn't due to his savvy.
But are Hagel's (pre-confirmation coversion) views on Israel correct?
Did his views on Israel show that he put American interests first?
Michael Doran writes in Hagel’s misreading of how to treat an ally that the answer to both questions is "no."
Realists in the Hagel mold find this episode exhilarating.
Eisenhower, they say, pursued the national interest without concern for
“sentimental” attachments, to say nothing of domestic lobbies. When
applied to the present, the analogy calls for dealing sharply with
Israel. The United States, the implication goes, must not allow its
client to drag it into conflict with Iran. Instead, Obama must treat
Benjamin Netanyahu with the same grit that Ike flashed at Eden.
But this analogy omits a key fact: Ike came to regret those policies.
“Years later,” Richard Nixon wrote in the 1980s, “I talked to Eisenhower
about Suez; he told me it was his major foreign policy mistake.” By
1958, Ike himself had realized his error and reversed course.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Bulgaria, Chuck Hagel, designated terror organization, Dwight Eisenhower, European Union, Hezbullah, Middle East Media Sampler, Soccer Dad
Chuck and Upchuck got Eisenhower very, very wrong
In an earlier post, I noted Chuck Hagel's admiration for the 34th President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, specifically for Eisenhower's handling of what's known in Israel as the Sinai campaign (the 1956 war between Israel, Britain and France on one side and Egypt on the other). I also reported that Hagel had it all wrong, because Eisenhower later believed that making Israel withdraw from Sinai was the
biggest mistake of his Presidency.
Lee Smith has a lot more details about
Eisenhower's regrets over the Sinai campaign.
In fact, Eisenhower came to believe
that Suez had been the “biggest foreign-policy blunder of his
administration.” In hindsight, it’s not hard to see why. He ruined the
position of two longtime allies, effectively driving Britain out of the
Middle East once and for all, and without any benefit to American
interests. If Eisenhower expected Nasser to be grateful, he was sorely
mistaken.
“From Nasser’s perspective, he played the superpowers against each
other and came out the winner,” says Michael Doran, a senior fellow at
the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “What
Ike thought he was doing was laying the groundwork for a new order in
the Middle East, a third course between the re-imposition of European
colonialism and the Soviet Union. But all Eisenhower did was strengthen
Nasser and destabilize the region.”
Doran, a former George W. Bush Administration National Security
Council staffer in charge of the Middle East, is finishing a book about
Eisenhower and the Middle East that looks at how Eisenhower’s
understanding of the region changed over time. “Eisenhower slammed his
allies and aided his enemies at Suez,” Doran explains, “because his
policy was based on certain key assumptions of how the Arab world
worked. The most important of these was the notion of Arab unity. He
believed they would respond as a bloc to certain stimuli.”
Chief among them, Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles believed, was the Arab-Israeli conflict. They saw the role of the
United States then as playing the honest broker, mediating between
Israel on one side and the Arab world on the other. If this conceit is
still popular today with American policymakers, says Doran, “it’s partly
because some Arab officials continue to talk this way. The idea is, to
win over the Arabs we have to stop being so sympathetic to Israel.”
But in the wake of Suez, Eisenhower came to see the region through a
different lens. He paid more attention to what Arab leaders actually
did, rather than what they said. “Between March 1957 and July 1958,
Eisenhower got the equivalent of the Arab spring,” says Doran. “It was a
revolutionary wave around the region and for Ike a tutorial on Arab
politics. There was upheaval after upheaval, in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, and then the Iraqi revolution of 1958 that toppled an
American ally. All of them were internal conflicts, tantamount to Arab
civil wars, and had nothing to do with Israel. With this, Eisenhower
recognized that the image he had of the Arab world had nothing to do
with the political realities of the Middle East.”
Read the whole thing.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Obama has the same mistaken conception of the Middle East that Eisenhower had in 1956. Today's
it's known as
linkage.
By 1958, Eisenhower had dismissed it as a policy strategy. Don't bet on Obama doing the same.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Chuck Hagel, Dwight Eisenhower, Sinai
Hagel gets Eisenhower all wrong
WaPo's David Ignatius reports that Chuck Hagel is a big fan of Dwight Eisenhower, and particularly of
Eisenhower's handling of the 1956 Suez crisis (known here as the Sinai campaign).
The British, French and Israelis — unbeknown to Eisenhower and his
advisers — were secretly plotting to roll back Nasser’s control of Suez.
Their tripartite alliance, code-named “Operation Musketeer,” was
formalized in an Oct. 24 secret protocol that specified that Israel
would invade the Sinai Peninsula five days later. The three
collaborators designed what Nichols calls “smoke screens” to conceal
their plans from the United States.
When the Israeli invasion came
on Oct. 29, a week before the U.S. election, Eisenhower was irate. He
told Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: “Foster, you tell ’em,
goddamn it, that we’re going to apply sanctions, we’re going to the
United Nations, we’re going to do everything that there is so we can
stop this thing.” The United States did, indeed, win a cease-fire
resolution at the United Nations, despite opposition from Britain,
France and Israel.
Eisenhower took a political risk. He was
blasted by his Democratic rival, Adlai Stevenson, who charged on Nov. 1
that if the United States had acted more forcefully to support Israel,
it might have avoided war. But Ike prevailed, winning reelection,
forcing the attackers to withdraw from the canal and enunciating a
strategy for U.S.-led security in the region that came to be known as
the “Eisenhower Doctrine.”
How does this story apply to
modern-day Israel and America — especially for an Obama administration
that, while committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons,
devoutly hopes to avoid military action? The parallels are impossible
to draw precisely, but it matters that the cautious and fiercely
independent Eisenhower is a role model for the prospective future
defense secretary.
There's just one catch: Eisenhower later
regretted forcing Israel to withdraw from the Sinai.
Peter Golden in his "authorized biography" of Max M. Fisher "Quiet Diplomat"
(1992) relates that in October 1965 Fisher met with President Eisenhower in Gettysburg to get agreement to accept the U.J.A. medal for his role in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps twenty years earlier. French General Pierre Keonig leader of the French Resistance and British Field
Marshall Alexander were also to be honored.
Golden reports that toward the end of the visit Eisenhower "wistfully
commented 'You know, Max, looking back at Suez, I regret what I did. I never should have pressured Israel to evacuate the Sinai'" (all references are to pages xvii and xvix). Eisenhower's remark astonished Fisher.
Fisher was not the only one who was told of Eisenhower's change of mind.
Nixon told Golden: "Eisenhower...in the 1960s told me -- and I am sure he told others -- that he thought the action that was taken (at Suez) was one he regretted. He thought it was a mistake."
Although Fisher knew this for 27 years before publication of his "authorized
biography" he evidently never sought to give it publicity beyond the biography. It is still essentially unknown. Had Eisenhower's rethought
position been known in 1965, it might well have been helpful to Israel. After reading the biography, I wrote Fisher asking why he hadn't publicized
this change in Eisenhower's thinking. Unfortunately, he canceled our scheduled meeting in Jerusalem.
The Gettysburg visit brought a change in Fisher's life aspirations. Golden
relates that Eisenhower "almost as an afterthought" as they started to depart said: "Max, if I had a Jewish advisor working for me, I doubt I would
have handled the situation the same way. I would not have forced the Israelis back." Fisher was "struck...with the impact of epiphany. If Fisher
had been unsure of the of the extent of power an unofficial advisor could wield with a president, he now had his answer, and from an unimpeachable source: the influence exerted could be decisive. It was exactly the role Fisher hoped to play."
Hmmm.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Chuck Hagel, Dwight Eisenhower
The history of US relations with the Muslim Brotherhood
With all the optimism that the Muslim Brotherhood will cooperate with the West in forming a new government in Egypt, there's a lot of history that's being ignored. The US in particular has tried cooperation with the Brotherhood before, and I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that the only party that has benefited from that cooperation has been the
Muslim Brotherhood.
If this discussion evokes a sense of déjà vu, this is because over the past sixty years we have had it many times before, with almost identical outcomes. Since the 1950s, the United States has secretly struck up alliances with the Brotherhood or its offshoots on issues as diverse as fighting communism and calming tensions among European Muslims. And if we look to history, we can see a familiar pattern: each time, US leaders have decided that the Brotherhood could be useful and tried to bend it to America’s goals, and each time, maybe not surprisingly, the only party that clearly has benefited has been the Brotherhood.
How can Americans be unaware of this history? Credit a mixture of wishful thinking and a national obsession with secrecy, which has shrouded the US government’s extensive dealings with the Brotherhood.
Consider President Eisenhower. In 1953, the year before the Brotherhood was outlawed by Nasser, a covert US propaganda program headed by the US Information Agency brought over three dozen Islamic scholars and civic leaders mostly from Muslim countries for what officially was an academic conference at Princeton University. The real reason behind the meeting was an effort to impress the visitors with America’s spiritual and moral strength, since it was thought that they could influence Muslims’ popular opinion better than their ossified rulers. The ultimate goal was to promote an anti-Communist agenda in these newly independent countries, many of which had Muslim majorities.
One of the leaders, according to Eisenhower’s appointment book, was “The Honorable Saeed Ramahdan, Delegate of the Muslim Brothers.”* The person in question (in more standard romanization, Said Ramadan), was the son-in-law of the Brotherhood’s founder and at the time widely described as the group’s “foreign minister.” (He was also the father of the controversial Swiss scholar of Islam, Tariq Ramadan.)
Eisenhower officials knew what they were doing. In the battle against communism, they figured that religion was a force that US could make use of—the Soviet Union was atheist, while the United States supported religious freedom. Central Intelligence Agency analyses of Said Ramadan were quite blunt, calling him a “Phalangist” and a “fascist interested in the grouping of individuals for power.” But the White House went ahead and invited him anyway.
By the end of the decade, the CIA was overtly backing Ramadan. While it’s too simple to call him a US agent, in the 1950s and 1960s the United States supported him as he took over a mosque in Munich, kicking out local Muslims to build what would become one of the Brotherhood’s most important centers—a refuge for the beleaguered group during its decades in the wilderness. In the end, the US didn’t reap much for its efforts, as Ramadan was more interested in spreading his Islamist agenda than fighting communism. In later years, he supported the Iranian revolution and likely aided the flight of a pro-Teheran activist who murdered one of the Shah’s diplomats in Washington.
There's more
here.
Labels: Dwight Eisenhower, Egyptian regime change, Muslim Brotherhood
