PrintAugust 29, 2009
Obama's Nuclear Blackmail of Israel -- and of the World
Given the campaign rhetoric of a year ago - that once the One is anointed to US Presidency all ills of this world will be healed and humanity will start breathing in a clear air of post-Bush bliss, it is rather astonishing that some of the gravest problems facing humanity have not only remained unsolved, but have not yet even been tackled.
Consider this: for the full eight months that the dream of dreams became a reality and the blessed O occupies the Oval office, Iran keeps spinning its uranium-enrichment centrifuges as if nothing happened.
It does so, because indeed nothing happened vis-à-vis Iran. The talk about sanctions remains just talk, as is a talk about talks with Iran. A thought of an A-bomb in the hands of the mullahs should have urged action in any leader, let alone the savior of the world, and one expected that Obama would have worked from day one to unite the world against nuclear threat from Iran, and at least slapped debilitating sanctions on it if not from day two, than from day three of his administration. But, contrary to expectations, he did not.
Yes he could -- but what would that have achieved except stalling Iran's ambitions of dominance, blocking Iran from threatening Israel, Arab states, and Europe, and preventing a next nuclear proliferation spiral? That's a rather petty return on investment, that's allowing a really nice crisis to go to waste. Do that, and the world is just as it is now, still full of imperfections. But imagine the result of Iran's enrichment program being allowed to continue! Who's most afraid of nuclear Iran? Israel? The very Israel that is hated by Arabs and Moslems -- the very Arabs and Moslems that Obama is so enthralled by? So why not kill three birds with one stone -- coerce Israel, please the Arabs, and stop the Iranians -- instead of just doing the latter? Centrifuges are spinning? Let them spin!
This appears to be Obama's logic -- blackmailing Israel into unconscionable concessions to the Arabs that are unlikely to solve the conflict anyway -- as precondition for US' involvement in resolving Iran's nuclear issue. That Obama is engaged in what should be plainly called "nuclear blackmail of Israel" is the gist of the recent reports and analyses - one in Britain's Guardian , another in Israel's Haaretz.
This sounds like a legitimately Machiavellian game plan -- after all, arm-twisting is largely what politics is all about. But nuclear blackmail is a very dangerous game that, if it goes wrong, would cause frightful and irreversible consequences.
Perhaps, Obama reasons, those consequences would be limited just to devastation of Israel and Iran -- as if that alone were not a hell of a price to pay for a well-meant political ploy. But it may very well spread farther -- as far, in fact, as Iranian delivery systems would allow. Their missiles now seem to put Europe within reach; and what if the mullahs get the missiles that can reach the US?
In using nuclear blackmail in a vain hope of solving Middle East conflict, Obama engages in political brinksmanship that is so risky that it just can not fail; he puts not only Israel, but the entire Western civilization on the brink.
Is that his message of bright and shining future? Is that the message of hope?
