Earlier this week, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel compared President Obama to George H.W. Bush (also known as Bush 41 or Bush, the father) on foreign policy.Robert Kagan
Senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
I will leave it to the self-described realists to explain in greater detail the origins and meaning of "realism" and "realpolitik" to our confused journalists and politicos. But here is what realism is not: It is not a plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons through common agreement by all the world's powers. And it is not a foreign policy built on the premise that if only the United States reduces its nuclear arsenal, this will somehow persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program, or persuade China and other reluctant nations in the world to redouble their pressure on Iran to do so. That is idealism of a high order. It is a 21st-century Wilsonian vision. And it is precisely the kind of idealism that realists in the middle of the 20th century rose up to challenge. Realists would point out that the divergent interests of the great powers, not to mention those of Iran, will not be affected in the slightest by marginal cuts in American and Russian nuclear forces.
The confusion no doubt stems from the fact that President Obama is attempting to work with autocratic governments to achieve his ends. But that does not make him Henry Kissinger. When Kissinger pursued diplomacy with China, it was to gain strategic leverage over the Soviet Union. When he sought détente with the Soviets, it was to gain breathing space for the United States after Vietnam. Right or wrong, that was "realpolitik." Global nuclear disarmament may or may not be a worthy goal, but it is nothing if not idealistic.
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Danielle Pletka
Vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute
There is a certain weird irony in the Obama administration's efforts to portray the U.S. president as the successful son George H.W. Bush never had. In 2008, before Rahm Emanuel labeled his boss more "realpolitik, like Bush 41," the Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne memorably announced that in "electing Barack Obama, the country traded the foreign policy of the second President Bush for the foreign policy of the first President Bush."
Those eager to take a cheap shot would remember that among the hallmarks of George H. W. Bush's foreign policy were (hmmm) antipathy to Israel, an eagerness to kowtow to creepy dictators, and a lack of the "vision thing" that will forever relegate him to being that guy Americans elected because they couldn't give Ronald Reagan another term.
But Barack Obama isn't a realpolitician, and I fear he does indeed have a vision. Obama has embraced the foreign policy of an ideologue, a worshipper at the altar of American decline. The framework seems a simple repudiation of American global leadership, a devaluation of alliances, and a penchant for paper agreements and empty dialogue that articulate grand aims (Disarmament! Global zero! Proximity talks!) but ignore the practical threats to the United States that exist in the real world.
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Peter Feaver
Alexander F. Hehmeyer professor of political science at Duke University; contributing editor to Foreign Policy and blogger at Shadow Government
Emanuel's quote is puzzling. President Obama may be more "realpolitik" than George W. Bush in the sense that he has downgraded the place of human rights and support for democracy in his foreign policy. But it is certainly not "realpolitik" to slight the personal relationships of presidential diplomacy -- and it would be hard to identify something more unlike George H.W. Bush than this feature of the Obama approach to foreign policy. In any case, the rewards for this alleged "realpolitik" turn are still hard to measure. President Obama is significantly more popular with the general publics in the other great powers (except possibly in Asia), but if measured cold-bloodedly by American "self-interest," the last President Bush had at least as good and probably more effective and cooperative relations with the governments of those great powers (except possibly with Russia). Relations with Britain, China, France, Germany, India, and Japan were more troubled in 2009 than they were in 2008.
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Michael Lind
Policy director for the economic growth program at the New America Foundation; author of The American Way of Strategy
Rahm Emanuel is right. In many areas, ranging from his caution about escalating the war in Afghanistan to his firm approach to Israel, Barack Obama shows more affinities with the moderate Republican realist tradition of Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and the first Bush than with the Cold War liberal tradition of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson that spawned the neoconservative combination of hawkishness and crusading rhetoric. This reflects not only Obama's worldview but also the migration into the Democratic Party of many former moderate Republican voters. Their influence is seen as much in the Democratic health-care bill, which rejects New Deal-style social democracy for an approach of subsidizing private insurance that Eisenhower and Nixon pioneered, as in the Obama administration's cost-conscious, realist foreign policy.
The Journalists' Association in Tel Aviv, which represents reporters from all the media outlets in Israel, refused on Thursday to back the Haaretz daily over the classified documents its reporter Uri Blau received from Walla website reporter Anat Kam.
Arutz Sheva has learned that Haaretz publisher Amose Shocken asked the organization to back the newspaper in its dealings with the Shabak Israel Security Agency and to help Blau, but the association refused and called on Shocken to bring the reporter back to Israel and to return the documents to the security establishment.
You will recall that earlier this week, at the press conference concluding his nuclear summit, President Obama defined a resolution of the Israeli - 'Palestinian' conflict as a 'vital national security interest' of the United States. "It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."
The true barrier to ending the Mideast conflict is the widespread Palestinian refusal to accept and to live alongside Israel as a Jewish state. While Israel continues its search for a reliable partner in peace, Palestinian terrorism is still celebrated in the West Bank and Gaza. Despite this reality, since day one the White House has applied a severe double standard that refuses to hold the Palestinians accountable for their many provocations. It makes one wonder where the responsible adults are in the administration?
The administration’s troubling policy of manufacturing fights with Israel to ingratiate itself with some in the Arab world is no way to advance the cause of Mideast peace. What kind of message is sent to the world when our country appears to turn its back on key strategic allies who share our values?
“The list of grievances supposedly stoking the hatred of Islamic terrorists is endless and evolving. Before Al Qaeda used our support for Israel against us, Bin Laden’s main grievance was the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and sanctions against Saddam’s Iraq – both of which no longer exist. The suggestion that terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan will lay down their weapons if we distance ourselves from Israel is blindingly naïve. We know this because it’s been tried before. For example, Russia has sided with Israel’s Arab enemies since the days of the Cold War, and today it condemns Israel at the U.N., sells arms to Israel’s arch-enemies Syria and Iran, and is attempting to block meaningful international sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. Did this stop Islamist suicide bombers from murdering 38 in an attack on two Moscow subway stations last month?
“With each passing day, more Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about the deteriorating state of U.S.-Israel relations. This concern was expressed succinctly by a letter today from World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder to President Obama, who wrote, ‘Our great country and the tiny State of Israel have long shared the core values of freedom and democracy. It is a bond much treasured by the Jewish people. In that spirit I submit, most respectfully, that it is time to end our public feud with Israel and to confront the real challenges that we face together.’ I couldn’t agree more.
Last month, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told Cantor that Vice President Joe Biden never told Israeli leaders that Israeli settlement activity imperils the lives of U.S. troops.
With Israel's relations with Turkey on the rocks, Israel is looking for another country in the region whose airspace it can use for IAF drills. In recent years, due to the various threats it faces, primarily from Iran, the IAF has increased its long-range training missions. Most notable was in 2008, when 100 IAF aircraft flew over Greece in an exercise that was perceived as a dress rehearsal for a strike against Iran.
Until Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter, the IAF frequently flew over Turkey, and it had participated in several annual exercises with the Turkish Air Force. Following the offensive against Hamas and the deterioration in Israeli-Turkish relations, Ankara has refused to allow Israel to deploy its fighter jets in Turkey.
“We are looking for new places where we can fly,” a senior IAF officer said recently.
As a result, the Defense Ministry is looking to continue an agreement it signed in 2006 that allows Israeli fighter jets to deploy in Romania. The IAF has sent jets to Romania for training in 2007 and plans to deploy aircraft there again later this year.
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It is possible that the flyover by two IAF Gulfstream reconnaissance aircraft in Hungary last month was also part of an air force exercise in Europe. The appearance of Israeli military aircraft in Hungarian airspace triggered a political controversy that culminated this week in the dismissal of the head of the air traffic department at Hungary’s Transportation Ministry.
“Our ties with Turkey will never return to be the way they once were,” a senior defense official said on Thursday. “It is unlikely that under the current government in Ankara we will be allowed to fly there again.”
Could it be that for many of my fellow Jews in the US, yarad ha'asimon (the token dropped) at last? A new survey shows that a plurality of US Jews would consider voting for someone other than Barack Hussein Obama in 2012. In 2008, 78% of American Jews voted for the Democratic candidate (Hat Tip: Mona Charen). I. A plurality of Jewish voters would consider someone else for President.
According to the 2008 exit polls, Barack Obama won 78% to 21% among Jewish voters. Now, in the second year of Obama’s presidency, only 42% of voters would re-elect him, while the plurality (46%) would consider voting for someone else.
Would you vote to re-elect Barack Obama as President or would you consider voting for someone else?
Total
Re-Elect 42
Someone Else 46
Don’t Know/Refused 12
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III. Jewish voters do not support President Obama’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state
The majority of voters (52%) disapproves of the Obama Administration supporting a plan to recognize a Palestinian state within two years. The majority of voters (64%) says that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel, while only 13% say that the United States should force Israel to give up parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Six in ten voters (62%) say that the Palestinians would continue their campaign of terror to destroy Israel if they were given a Palestinian state, while only 19% say they would live peacefully with Israel. More than seven in ten voters (73%) say Israel is right to insist upon the Palestinians accepting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state before there are any negotiations about a Palestinian state.
McLaughlin & Associates conducted a national survey of 600 likely Jewish voters on
April 7th and 8th, 2010. All interviews were conducted via telephone by professional
interviewers. Respondents were randomly selected within predetermined geographic
units structured to correlate with actual voter turnout. The survey of 600 likely Jewish voters has an accuracy of +/- 4.0% at a 95% confidence interval.
Given the sentiments about the components of Obama’s approach to Israel, it is still remarkable that a full 50 percent approve of his handling of relations with Israel. This suggests, as did the AJC poll, that Jews still can’t quite break the habit of agreeing with whatever Obama is up to. But this is a sign, a significant one, I think, that the Jews’ views are not fixed and that the policies and tone of the administration do impact Jewish support. The movement in Jewish public opinion may in turn spur Jewish leaders to step forward, as Lauder did. After all, they wouldn’t want to be seen as lagging behind their members, or worse yet, as irrelevant.
This week's transfer of long-range Scud missiles from Syria to Hezbullah is just the latest installment in a long list of weapons transfers from Syria to the terror organization. Here are some other recent transfers.Weapons have been flowing from Syria to Lebanon for decades. However, in recent months, reports have indicated that the sophistication of the weapons systems provided to Hezbollah has grown. In October 2009, the British military magazine Jane's Defence Weekly reported that Syria had supplied Hezbollah with M-600 rockets, a Syrian variant of the Iranian Fatah 110, whose rudimentary guidance system can carry a 500-kilogram payload to a target 250 kilometers away.
In early March, the head of the research division of the Israel Defense Forces' Military Intelligence, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, that Syria had recently provided Hezbollah with the Igla-S man-portable air defense systems. The shoulder-fired weapon can bring down the Israeli drones, helicopter gunships, and low-flying fighter aircraft that routinely fly over Lebanon to gather intelligence.
Reports of increased weapons transfers surfaced again following Ford's nomination hearing on March 16. Rumors circulated around Capitol Hill that Syria had delivered Scud-D missiles to Lebanon. These reports did not specify whether the missiles were Russian Scud-Ds or Syrian varieties of Scud-Ds, which are upgraded versions of older Scud models that Syria reportedly began producing in mass quantities during the last year. Both missiles have a range of up to 700 kilometers, which means they could hit most, if not all, Israeli cities even if fired from northern Lebanon. Both can carry chemical or biological warheads.
Less than a week after a Feb. 17 visit by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns -- the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Damascus in more than five years -- Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah at a banquet in Damascus. During the visit, Assad openly mocked U.S. efforts to distance Syria from Iran and stated that his government is "preparing ourselves for any Israeli aggression."
These weapons transfers appear to mark a continuation of Assad's belligerent stance. While Lebanon has long been the battlefield between Syria and Israel, the transfer of these weapons may indicate that the Syrian president is calculating that the next war with Israel could involve strikes on Syrian territory. Conversely, others have postulated that the transfers could also be designed to put pressure on the United States to get Israel back to the negotiating table -- a bizarre tactic that is clearly not working.
Assad shill Josh Landis claims not to know whether Syria delivered long-range scud missiles to Hezbullah this week (despite Hezbullah's admission that it did). He dismisses the scuds as 'wobbly rockets' and claims that the Mossad's data about them was 'worthless.' And then he comes up with this: The larger question, however, is not whether Syria has delivered Scuds to Hezbollah. Syria has been rebuilding Hezbollah's missile supplies ever since they were largely exhausted during Israel's 2006 incursion into Lebanon. It will continue to do so as long as Israel refuses to trade land for peace. Syria says it will no longer have any reason to arm Hezbollah once it gets the Golan back and can sign a peace agreement with Israel.
Syria understands that the reason Israel will not return the Golan Heights is because of the terrible imbalance in power between the two countries. So long as there is no peace, Syria will feel compelled to arm itself and its allies. Only this week at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, we were reminded that Israel has hundreds of atomic warheads that can be delivered by missile, plane, and submarine. What's more, Washington continues to supply Israel with large amounts of military aid and cutting-edge military technology. Israel accuses Syria of trying to change the balance of power by introducing Scuds to Lebanon, but from Syria's point of view, it is Israel that has skewed the regional balance.
The 'Palestinian Authority' keeps telling us how they have 'ended incitement' against Israel and that therefore they are ready to live in 'peace.' Not quite. Amaryeh, who previously has accused the United States of being in cohorts with the Palestinian Authority, also says it and Israel are in an unholy alliance.
Attacking Koch for criticizing President Obama’s demands that Israel stop building for Jews in united Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Amaryeh wrote, “For Koch and like-minded Zionists, asking Israel to rein in Nazi-minded Jewish settlers, stop stealing occupied Arab land and freeze the expansion of Jewish-only colonies on land belonging to another people is tantamount to throwing Israel under the bus, according to these arrogant dogs and sick thugs.”
Besides calling Koch “an aggregate Zionist racist and liar," he termed former U.S. President George W. Bush “another pathological liar, former President Bush who claimed that Muslims and Arabs hated the U.S. because of our freedoms and liberties’ not because of America’s dark embrace of Israeli Nazism….
“One can argue rather candidly that Koch is either an irredeemable, willful ignoramus…or a pornographically odious liar that lies as often as he breathes oxygen, which is the more likely probability.”
The article was disseminated on the "Palestine Free Voice" website despite the PA commitment to cease incitement against Israel.
David Hazony has a brief piece on the Anat Kam case in London's Jewish Chronicle. While I don't agree with everything he writes there, this paragraph is spot-on: Because you can’t have journalism without security. Secrets should be uncovered, but not at any price. Freedom of the press is a minimum condition for a healthy society, but security is a minimum condition for life itself. A watchdog that bites its master will end up hungry indeed.
Fifteen months into the Obama administration, Victor Davis Hanson suggests some things to ponder. In each case, the question to be answered is "have things improved?" Here are the items that are connected with our region: In other words, are Palestinians and Israelis, and the region at large, closer to peace or further from it? And is there a greater or lesser chance for another war involving Hezbollah and Hamas? Is Syria more or less likely to fuel regional tension? Is Lebanon more likely to erupt in sectarian violence or stay tranquil? Is Iran closer or more distant to getting the bomb, and is its behavior more conciliatory or provocative? Has Turkey warmed to the U.S., or is it continuing its Islamic distancing? Is Israel more or less secure?
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Did all the new euphemisms, the serial promises to close down Guantanamo, the envisioned civilian trial of KSM, the Middle East interviews, the Cairo-like speechmaking, and general reach-out to the Muslim world result in 2009 in fewer efforts on the part of Islamic extremists to kill Americans here at home, relative to the annual average since 2001, or more?
Has the United States gained greater good will with our immediate northern and southern neighbors, and is the Clinton diplomatic team more or less likely to commit diplomatic gaffes than was the team of Secretary of State Rice?
And are Chinese, Russian, and Middle East leaders more or less likely now, than in the past, to test an American president? Fifteen months is still early, but answers to these questions are becoming clearer. Not all of these issues involve the United States, but the Obama administration in one manner or another has addressed all of them — usually on the premise that America's prior eight years were the problem and the next four are the solution. Such exultation only makes the contrast more stark.
Shmuel Rosner comes up with this observation. I warned you this will not be a surprise, but look how the Jewish Orthodox answer the questions on Obama's handling of Israel: 17% approve (compared to 55% of Jews generally), 74% disapprove (37% for Jews generally). Interestingly, when it comes to Netanyahu's handling of the relations the Orthodox aren't as forgiving as one might assume: 30% of American Orthodox Jews disapprove of the way Netanyahu is handling his relations with Obama and the US. In fact, the number of Orthodox approving of Netanyahu (57%) is lower (!) than the number of Conservatives (61%) and identical to the number of Reform who think Netanyahu handles the relations properly (also 57% - 31% of Reform disapprove).
Hezbullah admitted on Thursday that it did receive long-range scud missiles from Syria. Syria is still denying it. Hizbullah sources confirmed Thursday that the terror group received a shipment of Scud missiles from Syria, the Kuwaiti paper Al-Rai reported.
According to the report, the missiles were claimed to be old and unusable. Hizbullah also accused Israel of blowing the incident out of proportion in order to provoke a media ruckus.
The sources added, "Our organization has many surface-to-surface missiles spread across all of Lebanon, in case Israel attacks the country again.”
In spite of this confirmation, the Syrian Foreign Ministry denied the reports, saying Israel was trying to stoke tensions in the Middle East and could be setting the stage for a possible Israeli "aggression" to avoid Middle East peace requirements.
At the same time, according to the Wall Street Journal, the IDF came very close recently to attacking a convoy carrying weapons from Syria to Lebanon, but at the last moment decided against it.
In related news, Col. Ronen Cohen, former head of the Northern Front in Military Intelligence and the current chief intelligence officer for the IDF’s Central Command, said in a research paper that an Israeli bombing of Lebanese national infrastructure would likely unite the Lebanese people behind Hizbullah and its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.
Here is part of what Hillary Clinton said yesterday at the dedication of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace:
Is this the thinking of the Secretary of State of the United States? That the reason peace is possible is because "it has to happen??" |
From AP:
It seems that Cartwright is saying that Iran is 3-5 years away from having the ability to deliver a nuclear bomb on a missile. (The idea that Iran is not working on a delivery system in concert with building the bomb appears dangerously shortsighted to me as well. Why on earth would the systems have to be developed serially?)
It already has missiles that can reach much of Europe, as well as most of the Arab world. While I'm not a rocket expert, the fact that Iran has sent satellites into space seems to me to be an indication that they already have the know-how to build an ICBM even without outside help. |
A Hamas politician, Khalil al-Hayya, has said that the executions of two "collaborators" yesterday is only the beginning. |
Once again, intrepid and unnamed Palestinian Arab sources have revealed in great detail the evil plans of the Zionists to further Judaize Jerusalem. |
PalTimes reports that a math textbook in Saudi Arabia is causing a furor. |
I saw variants of this article in a few Palestinian Arab publications over the past few days; this one is from PalTimes. |
Every week, Egypt's English-language edition of Al Ahram Weekly has a sampling of lengthy, virulently anti-Zionist articles, usually written in impeccable English.
Good thing that we Elders created no less than sixteen layers of obfuscation around our real plans for world domination, and Galal has only penetrated to number two. (Kudos for making up a nice Condi Rice quote, though.) |
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