Netanyahu shows that it’s lose-lose:
This was no partisan pitch – this was a heartfelt appeal against allowing Iran — a country that has vowed to annihilate Israel — to access nuclear weapons. The outrage is not that Mr. Netanyahu addressed Congress; the outrage is that President Obama is pushing for a deal that so alarms our allies, and that he went to such great lengths to prevent Americans from hearing the truth.
President Obama had turned Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress into a sophomoric beauty contest, complete with plaintive whines about “fairness.” With his thin-skinned resistance to the Israeli leader’s appearance, Obama created an international ruckus, which only served to publicize Netanyahu’s address. Not agreeing to meet with the Prime Minister, sending various proxies out of the country on bogus missions (Biden’s exile to Uruguay postponed by the flu?), bad-mouthing the Israeli leader and his GOP hosts; the White House even “sternly” warned Netanyahu not to divulge details of the proposed nuclear deal. Whatever Mr. Obama’s intentions, the outcome surely could not have been what he had hoped.
That happens a lot with this clown.
[Update a few minutes later]
Dennis Ross tosses Obama under the bus.
Archaeologists recently disover a communique from Athenian general Themistocles to King Leonidas of Sparta. The communique was discovered amongst a handful of buried amphorae. Archaeologists suspect the communique was never sent, due to the unworn nature of the papyrus.
King Leonidas:
Currently engaging in dialogue with Emperor Xerxes. Do not commit troops at Thermopylae. I suspect a warming of relations, and this will ensure a peace throughout the Greek lands.
Themistocles
I was following the Prime Minister’s reasoning until he brought up that not only does North Korea “have the Bomb”, in all likelihood they have a small (100 device) arsenal by now.
OK, so how is North Korea and its Dear Leader less nuts than the Iranian leadership? I am not in favor of Mr. Obama’s putative sell-out agreement, but hasn’t this train left the station, that horse left the barn? Is there a case to be made that a pair of nutty regimes having the Bomb is more dangerous than just one?
In some ways, the Iranians are less nutty than the NK’s? Iran is pretty much run by a committee, yes, a committee of Islamist Zealots according to the Prime Minister’s nomenclature, but not a lone wackjob like the current scion of the Kim family. That committee had a pretty nutty guy in place in the person of Mr. Dinnerjacket, but they turned him out because he was a little bit too nutty for their purposes.
The other thing is that the Prime Minister turned towards the nutty, no make that hate speech of the Iranian leaders towards Israel and to Jewish people in general, as evidence of the terrible intentions behind Iran getting the Bomb.
Similar utterances were spray painted on driveways and the sidewalk only a few blocks from my house. Chief Koval is taking this very seriously, and I hope the FBI is also involved. Having people express such hate this close to where I live I find deeply disquieting and unsettling.
But non-Israeli Middle Eastern leaders spouting anti-Jewish hate speech, in this Middle East this is as common as people simply breathing. It is why there is an Israel — that the entire Middle East has been depopulated of its rather ancient Jewish communities and relocated to Israel, which contra-Helen Thomas and many others makes Israel a haven for refugees not only from Europe but all of the Middle East, North Africa, and the World.
Maybe people spewing such hate should be proscribed from possessing nuclear weapons, but such speech is not unique to Iran — you can hear it all over the Middle East from people we accept as allies.
“I am not in favor of Mr. Obama’s putative sell-out agreement, but hasn’t this train left the station, that horse left the barn?”
The question is how hard Obama will work to try and stop our allies in the region from getting nukes as well. Something tells me he would be much harder on our allies than he has been with Iran.
With Iran and NK both getting nukes, non-proliferation is dead.
Obama is ushering in an age where everyone has nukes. The effects of this are unknown but the risks are high, higher than the risks of going to war to prevent proliferation.
We have very few tools to deal with this problem and the most promising one, missile defense, is always being shot down by the pro-science crowd who thinks its impossible and the threat isn’t worthy of a defense.
Obama is ushering in an age where everyone has nukes.
Not exactly. He has said that he wants to get rid of ours.
That’s the thing. If Eye-ran goes new-queue-lar, Saudi goes the same way, and they are really not an “ally” in the conventional sense — Saudi will pretty much do its thing.
The Prime Minister’s speech was largely cast in the predictable terms of “Israel and the Jewish people, good, Persian and Arab Islamic neighbors, not so good.”
Life in the Middle East is more “complicated than that.” For all of our liberal friends who say “Israel and especially Mr. Netanyahu have warts, too” I may add that on one hand is the sole Western-style democracy in the region and on the other hand, Israel is a Middle Eastern country with Middle-Eastern ways of doing things. Much like every other “playa” in the Middle East. If Israel is “rough”, they live in a “rough neighborhood”, heck, half of the people living in Israel “came from the projects” (Jewish ghettos in Middle Eastern countries).
The problem with Iran-with-nukes is a bigger issue than the problem Persians and Arabs have with Israel; it is the problem they have with each other, and I thought the Prime Minister could have done a better job laying out the bigger picture.
“The problem with Iran-with-nukes is a bigger issue than the problem Persians and Arabs have with Israel; it is the problem they have with each other”
This ^^
Everyone will want to have their own nukes and there is no guarantee that the USA will aide you if you agree not to seek them or that the USA wont invade you if you give them up. And like you said there are other animosities than Israel vs everyone else as we are seeing now all over the Middle East and North Africa.
Non-proliferation is a lot like the Pax Americana. They both take active management to maintain and even though both are peaceful ideals, they are only possible with dirty hands.
Obama has been saying lately that this is one of the most peaceful times in human history. He does this to deflect away from the atrocities of ISIS but he doesn’t understand why it is one of the most peaceful times.
“The effects of this are unknown….”
I will predict two effects:
1) Freedom of diplomatic maneuver will be severely restricted because any rinky-dink thugocracy with nukes will threaten to use them. And thugocracies, like the islamo-fascists, will be far far less inhibited in their use.
2) Therefore the nuclear genie will come out of the bottle.
“Is there a case to be made that a pair of nutty regimes having the Bomb is more dangerous than just one?”
…yes. Exactly twice as dangerous, in actual fact. And when ISIS and the Caliphate get nuclear weapons this will be three times as dangerous.
Is there a case to be made that America’s safety or security are enhanced by allowing genocidal maniacs to come into possession of nuclear technology?
Site looks good. Works better on PC than tablet. Still having issues seeing comments :*(
I’m seeing the gray sidebar on the left overlapping onto the first letter of text in each line in the center column. I’m using Windows 8.1, viewing in Firefox, and my screen resolution is 1366×768.
You guys assume that North Korea and Iran getting the bomb is something that is easily preventable.
The fact is North Korea has had the bomb for a long time now. The only question is how small can they make those plutonium warheads. They also have enough plutonium to make a couple of bombs.
As for Iran ever since they got the uranium centrifuges they have had the capability to do a uranium bomb. It would not be surprising if they had centrifuge facilities in some remote well hidden place and these facilities do not require a lot of power to operate. Iran might have the plutonium to make a plutonium bomb or not. So in that regard bombing their small research reactor might have an impact in their plutonium production capabilities.
ISIS was actually a blessing for Iran. Had it not been for ISIS spilling into Iraq then Obama could easily have ordered the destruction of their nuclear reactor as a token gesture. It would not have prevented the Iranians from getting a nuclear bomb, only delayed it, but it might have placated the Israelis a bit. The Israelis have the capability to bomb Iran with SLBMs and IRBMs if they want to anyway. The problem is they don’t want Iran to retaliate against their attack so they would rather prefer the USA did it for them. Of course if the USA did it then USA military personnel fighting ISIS in Iraq and Afghanistan might be attacked directly and then the USA would be fighting a multiple front war on Iraq. Oh and good luck convincing the current Shiite Iraqi leadership to fight Iran AND ISIS for you.
You guys assume that North Korea and Iran getting the bomb is something that is easily preventable.
More accurately, the problems of nuclear proliferation haven’t yet attained an urgency that justifies the easy solutions. If you’re willing to go CoDominium, then there’s an easy solution. Anyone aside from the US and Russia who keeps any nukes, gets nuked with the full force of the US-Russian arsenals, no excuses.
From the Dennis Ross article:
“Obviously, detection is only part of the equation. We cannot wait to determine what we will do about violations when they happen. Iran must know in advance what the consequences are for violations, particularly if we want to deter them in the first place. This clearly goes to the heart of Netanyahu’s concerns: If he had high confidence that we would impose harsh consequences in response to Iranian violations, including the use of force if we caught Iran dashing toward a weapon, he would be less fearful of the agreement he believes is going to emerge.”
Consequences? From Obama?
Hahahahahahahahhaah oh please – he of the evaporating Red Line?
Everyone except sychophant Obama bootlickers knows – from direct experience – that there is no fear of consequences from Obama on this.
Iran knows this; Netanyahu knows this.
The only people that have to fear consequences from Obama are ones who want to run their own lives, be left alone and who love liberty.
Oh and video makers….