Jews Like People - Only More So! Arabs -Never Satified!

Contrast Kissinger, not one of my favorite people but admittedly brilliant, with Obama and what do you get - one huge capability gap? Kissinger knows he is a brilliant diplomat and is, whereas Obama thinks he is and is not.

One of the best ways to illustrate this is by posting the most recent interview by Bret Stephens, with Kissinger. In order to maintain his power and effective personal relationship vis a vis China 'K' refused to wade into areas Bret had been led to believe would be fair game. 'K' knows how to play cards, when to hold, when to fold and when to keep them discreetly close to his chest. Something Obama has yet to learn and may never.

Obama, talks too much and often does not know enough, when he does, to be effective and credible.

Netanyahu recently gave Obama a public history lesson for all the world to see. Netanyahu rejected Obama's three assertions and did so with facts and clear and passionate rational.

For argument's sake, let's assume Obama is sincere about his concern for Israel's security issues. If so, then how can one objectively explain Obama's recent and disingenuous actions? It is as if Obama seeks to pick and win a fight in which Israel cannot afford to lose. The only plausible explanation is that Obama either does not understand or does not care to comprehend because his true sympathies lie elsewhere. Is Obama's arrogance driven by an underlying sense of insecurity? Obviously, a smooth politician, based on his performance Obama is in over his head.

Yes, Obama has mouthed he is a friend of Israel, he has even stated Israel must be assured defensible borders but then Obama has proceeded with actions that undercut his every word.

The best evidence of this is why did Obamamake ' pull the rug out pronouncements' right before Netanyahu came to visit to discuss the very items Obama had just torched. This from a professed friend? With such friends who needs enemies! Ask Mubarak.

My increasing contempt for Obama is based on tracking what he does versus what he says. The Obama gulf has widened to such a degree it is hard to believe his problem does not border on the pathological.

Now Obama has appeared before AIPAC to engage in damagae control and mouth more platitudes and self-serving comments. Be forwarned - track his words not his actions. (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
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A dear and old friend responds to my comment about relativism: "I agree with your comments on relativism. Here’s a quote I found some time ago (you may have noticed that I collect quotes), by Pope Benedict XVI on the subject":

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”
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Obama's handmaidens in the print and media world have elevated Obama upon a very high pedestal in order to make him appear unreachable and unbeatable in the eyes of voters who may have legitimate concerns and doubts.

Republicans are fielding an array of talent but none have, as yet, caught fire? (See 2 below.)
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Clarice Feldman does not understand how blind liberal Jews are. The worse things get with Obama the more they are prone to defend them. Even former Mayor Koch sets up a series of rationales that will prevent him from opposing Obama even though he admits he is totally disappointed in him.

But then liberal Jews are really no different than other blind progressive mice. (See 3 below.)

It is damage control time for Obama. Be careful, Obama is about to move his mouth again. (See 3a below.)

There is an expression that says:"Jews are like people, only more so."
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Pawlenty and Herman, the best ticket for the Republicans, for conservatives, for independents and for America. Will it happen? (See 4 below)
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Cairo's view of Obama now. (See 5 below.)
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Obama has led a gifted life as an adult. The waters parted as he walked upon the land. Perhaps he does not understand that in the world of the Middle East once you give you are expected to give more. Nothing ever satisfies.. (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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1)Henry Kissinger on China. Or Not. Statesman Henry Kissinger takes a cautious view of Beijing's reaction to the Arab Spring, and U.S. relations with the world's rising power.
By BRET STEPHENS

'What I am reflecting about now is not that I don't think I know an answer to your question," says a pensive Henry Kissinger, sitting in his spacious Park Avenue corner office adorned with signed photos of former presidents and foreign leaders. "It's that I don't know whether I choose to talk about it at this moment and in this forum. . . . And I don't mind dropping the interview and I don't mind you saying that I refused to go any further and pay the price for it."

What sort of hard-hitting question should elicit such evasiveness from the former secretary of state? When it comes to Mr. Kissinger there is never a shortage of controversial topics, from the 1970 incursion into Cambodia to the 1973 coup that overthrew Salvador Allende in Chile to the turf wars he waged with his colleagues in the Nixon and Ford administrations. But my question, which comes a few minutes into our interview, is of a milder variety: "What are the historic sources of Chinese vulnerability, and what are the current ones?"

The topic of the discussion was no accident: Mr. Kissinger's 16th book, "On China," was about to hit bookstores when we sat down to talk. He had consented to our interview—the first, he says, that he granted in connection to the book—on the condition that two-thirds of my questions be about China. I had agreed, on condition that the questions be future-leaning and go beyond the book itself. (My review of the book appeared on these pages May 12, a day after our meeting.)

Mr. Kissinger, who will turn 88 later this month and remains sprightly and intellectually as sharp as ever, seems to be in a bright mood when I enter his office. But it darkens with my first question, which concerns the treatment of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who, like Mr. Kissinger, is a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

"I have not read his writings," he answers. "My impression is the Chinese are extremely sensitive to the implications of the Jasmine Revolution, and that they find themselves in a position where if demonstrations develop, they know, or think they know, that the American government might be supportive so that they are probably trying to prevent any temptation from that. That's how I interpret their general crackdown."

I press on. Does he denounce Mr. Liu's treatment? "My policy on this," he replies, "is to talk to them [Chinese leaders], but my personal view is not to denounce it publicly."

I ask a more general question: What's the right—and wrong—way of raising human rights issues with the Chinese? Mr. Kissinger addresses the subject repeatedly in his book, noting that while the U.S. cannot be silent on the matter, "experience has shown that to seek to impose them by confrontation is likely to be self-defeating—especially in a country with such a historical vision of itself as China." To me, he says that the Obama administration is "doing essentially the right thing: They are stating their general view and then they're preserving another category for their private discussions." He adds that "American statesmen can be more explicit on human rights issues than they should be on pressures or sanctions."

I ask if he can explain his point a little more fully. "I'm not sure I want, really, to engage in an extended conversation on the subject," he says. "I have intervened on specific cases, and there's no question that I prefer democratic institutions. But I have not joined public denunciations in order to preserve the possibility of maintaining influence on human rights issues."


"Maintaining influence" has, of course, been the great hallmark of Mr. Kissinger's career since leaving government service in 1977. He has done it in various ways. He is the author of bestselling memoirs and treatises on diplomacy, along with countless magazine articles and op-eds. He is a confidante to senior U.S. government officials and a "carrier of messages," often private and highly sensitive, between them and their foreign counterparts. And he is the founder of an international consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, which does work for a closely held list of corporate clients.

The multiple and potentially overlapping roles have, at times, proved problematic for Mr. Kissinger: In 2002, he stepped down as chairman of the 9/11 Commission after facing calls to disclose the names of his corporate clients. At other times they have proved helpful: In 1989, he helped mediate a dispute between Washington and Beijing over the case of Fang Lizhi, a Chinese dissident who had taken refuge in the U.S. Embassy. Mr. Fang eventually made it out of China and now teaches physics at the University of Arizona.

Still, it remains an open question whether, and to what extent, Mr. Kissinger's private roles influence—or inhibit—his public pronouncements. Sensing that I have exhausted his patience with my questions on human rights, I return to the subject of the Arab Spring and its relevance to China.

"I don't think the Arab Spring is necessarily a democratic manifestation, I think it is a populist manifestation," he says. "I think the . . . challenge that China faces in the political field is the impact of the changes in its economy on its political evolution."

He then pauses for a long while. "See, I don't know whether it's useful to go much further in this interview, to tell you the truth. And if I want to express myself on human rights in China, I should . . . not do it as something in response to this sort of dialogue."

Okay. Maybe we can discuss the subject Mr. Kissinger has just raised—the impact of China's economic growth on its political evolution. I ask him if he has thoughts about the argument advanced by Carnegie Endowment scholar Minxin Pei in his widely acclaimed book, "China's Trapped Transition," which contends that an autocratic China will never fulfill the promises of genuine economic reform. Mr. Kissinger has heard of neither the author nor the book, so I summarize the argument.


Mr. Kissinger resorts to generalities. "In the next phase," he says, "[the Chinese] will have to align their political reality with what has been happening in the last 20 years under the impact of reform." I try to pursue this line of questioning by asking what he makes of evidence that Beijing has been backsliding on economic reform, using the case of Google as an example. He says, "the issue of reform, of political reform, will have to be substantially up to the next group of leaders."

Here I sense an opportunity to glean something from Mr. Kissinger's famous store of acquaintances. Has he met Xi Jinping, heir apparent to current president Hu Jintao. "I've met him, yes," he says.

"And what's your impression of him?"

"You can't form an impression of Chinese leaders on that basis," he answers, "because when they rise through their hierarchy, it serves no purpose to indicate differences or even alternative directions." He adds, however, that he thinks Mr. Xi "is a more assertive personality" than the incumbent leader, and notes that he comes from a family that was a victim of the Cultural Revolution. "This," he suggests, "produces a kind of perspective that is not necessarily the traditional Chinese perspective."

Is this new perspective more nationalistic? "Nationalism will play an important role," he says.

This prompts me to ask how the U.S. and its allies should respond to China's recent spate of aggressive moves in the South China Sea, reminiscent as it is of German behavior before World War I. Once again, Mr. Kissinger pauses for the interview-equivalent of an eternity before offering, "Not that I haven't thought about this." I observe that it's the subject of the last chapter of his book.

Another long pause. "No, it's exactly what I write about in the last chapter." He then becomes almost expansive. "I think the United States has to remain part of Asia. I think the United States has to maintain relations with a number of countries that are adequate to express this, but it has to do this . . . not on the basis of a military containment policy, [but] within the framework of a cooperative option for China. Now, is it possible to do this? That is the challenge that is before us."

Inevitably—at least from my point of view—this raises the subject of Taiwan. On the matter of arms sales to the island, Mr. Kissinger says he isn't opposed to them per se, but that "over an extended period of time it will lead to a confrontation." So what, in the long term, is Taiwan's fate? Mr. Kissinger suggests negotiations with the mainland "in which the de facto autonomy of Taiwan is preserved." On the model of Hong Kong? "Certainly beyond the Hong Kong pattern," he says.

I don't get any further.

"I really think that what you should say is that you tried to get down this road with me," he advises. "I won't do it. I've written what I have to write on the subject. Let me take my beating as a result of that, and just stop it. That's a bigger news story than anything I can possibly say in an interview. I will not now discuss a confrontational strategy with China in a formal way."

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He offers this remark at about the half-hour mark of what is supposed to be a 90-minute interview. We carry on for another desultory half-hour mainly by switching the subject to the Middle East, and Mr. Kissinger demonstrates he's perfectly capable of being lucid, discursive and incisive when he wants to be. With respect to China, however, he does make two additional noteworthy comments.

The first is personal: "I am trying to protect the option of a political relationship between the United States and China," he says.

The second is more prophetic. "Is it possible," he asks, "to achieve enough of a cooperative pattern [with China] to avoid sliding through a series of mutual misconceptions, of stepping on each other's toes, into a situation where an ultimate confrontation becomes inevitable? And looking at the fact that we have not known how to end our little wars, I have no great hope that either side would know how to end such a conflict. . . . Am I optimistic that it's going to be done? No."

The remarks hint at what may be Mr. Kissinger's fundamental view of U.S.-China relations—that they are already so fragile that it could be derailed by some candid remarks by him in a simple newspaper interview. Alternatively, he may simply have in mind his own opportunities for "maintaining influence."

One thing, at least, is clear: The day after our interview, Mr. Kissinger passed along a statement he wanted included: "I deplore the imprisonment of Liu Xiaobo and I urge that he be released."


Mr. Stephens writes "Global View," the Journal's foreign-affairs column.


1a) Dore Gold: Israel's 1967 Borders Aren't Defensible
Fair observers have never considered the old armistice line as a non-negotiable starting point for peace talks
By DORE GOLD

It's no secret that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to lobby the U.N. General Assembly this September for a resolution that will predetermine the results of any Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on borders. He made clear in a New York Times op-ed this week that he will insist that member states recognize a Palestinian state on 1967 lines, meaning Israel's boundaries before the Six Day War.

Unfortunately, even President Barack Obama appears to have been influenced by this thinking. He asserted in a speech Thursday that Israel's future borders with a Palestinian state "should be based on the 1967 lines," a position he tried to offset by offering "mutually agreed land swaps." Mr. Abbas has said many times that any land swaps would be minuscule.

Remember that before the Six Day War, those lines in the West Bank only demarcated where five Arab armies were halted in their invasion of the nascent state of Israel 19 years earlier. Legally, they formed only an armistice line, not a recognized international border. No Palestinian state ever existed that could have claimed these prewar lines. Jordan occupied the West Bank after the Arab invasion, but its claim to sovereignty was not recognized by any U.N. members except Pakistan and the U.K. As Jordan's U.N. ambassador said before the war, the old armistice lines "did not fix boundaries." Thus the central thrust of Arab-Israeli diplomacy for more than 40 years was that Israel must negotiate an agreed border with its Arab neighbors.

The cornerstone of all postwar diplomacy was U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, passed in November 1967. It did not demand that Israel pull back completely to the pre-1967 lines. Its withdrawal clause only called on Israel to withdraw "from territories," not from all territories. Britain's foreign secretary at the time, George Brown, later underlined the distinction: "The proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied,' and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories."

Prior to the Six Day War, Jerusalem had been sliced in two, and the Jewish people were denied access to the Old City and its holy sites. Jerusalem's Christian population also faced limitations. As America's ambassador to the U.N., Arthur Goldberg, would explain, Resolution 242 did not preclude Israel's reunification of Jerusalem. In fact, Resolution 242 became the only agreed basis of all Arab-Israeli peace agreements, from the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of Peace to the 1993 Oslo Agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

How were Israel's legal rights to new boundaries justified? A good explanation came from Judge Stephen Schwebel, who would later be an adviser to the State Department and then president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Writing in the American Journal of International Law in 1970, he noted that Israel's title to West Bank territory—in the event that it sought alterations in the pre-Six Day War lines—emanated from the fact that it had acted in lawful exercise of its right to self-defense. It was not the aggressor.

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...The flexibility for creating new borders was preserved for decades. Indeed, the 1993 Oslo Agreements, signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, did not stipulate that the final borders between Israel and the Palestinians would be the 1967 lines. Borders were to be a subject for future negotiations. An April 2004 U.S. letter to Israel, backed by a bipartisan consensus in both houses of Congress, stipulated that Israel was not expected to fully withdraw, but rather was entitled to "defensible borders." U.S. secretaries of state from Henry Kissinger to Warren Christopher reiterated the same point in past letters of assurance.

If the borders between Israel and the Palestinians need to be negotiated, then what are the implications of a U.N. General Assembly resolution that states up front that those borders must be the 1967 lines? Some commentators assert that all Mr. Abbas wants to do is strengthen his hand in future negotiations with Israel, and that this does not contradict a negotiated peace. But is that really true? Why should Mr. Abbas ever negotiate with Israel if he can rely on the automatic majority of Third World countries at the U.N. General Assembly to back his positions on other points that are in dispute, like the future of Jerusalem, the refugee question, and security?


Mr. Abbas's unilateral move at the U.N. represents a massive violation of a core commitment in the Oslo Agreements in which both Israelis and Palestinians undertook that "neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of Permanent Status negotiations." Palestinian spokesmen counter that Israeli settlements violated this clause. Yet former Prime Minister Rabin was very specific while negotiating Oslo in preserving the rights of Israeli citizens to build their homes in these disputed areas, by insisting that the settlements would be one of the subjects of final status negotiations between the parties.

By turning to the U.N., Mr. Abbas wants to use the international community to change the legal status of the territories. Why should Israel rely on Mr. Abbas in the future after what is plainly a material breach of this core obligation?

The truth is that Mr. Abbas has chosen a unilateralist course instead of negotiations. For that reason he has no problem tying his fate to Hamas, the radical organization that is the antithesis of peace. Its infamous 1988 Charter calls for Israel's complete destruction and sees Islam in an historic battle with the Jewish people. In 2006, Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar, the Hamas leader who attended the recent Cairo reconciliation ceremony with Mr. Abbas's Fatah movement, stated openly that Hamas was still committed to its 1988 Charter, noting, "the movement [would] not change a single word." Hamas's jihadist orientation was reconfirmed when Ismail Haniyeh, its prime minister in Gaza, condemned the U.S. for eliminating Osama bin Laden.

All Israeli prime ministers have spoken about negotiations as a vehicle for ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. There would be an end of claims. However, Mr. Abbas has now revealed his intention of using the U.N. for perpetuating the conflict. As he wrote this week: "Palestine's admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one."

Mr. Abbas clearly is not prepared to make a historic compromise. By running to the U.N. and to Hamas, he is evading the hard choices he has to make, and he is leaving any resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict far more difficult for future generations.

Mr. Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.


1b)The 1967 Line of Fire
Obama creates a needless furor over Israel's borders.

President Obama's address Thursday on the Middle East had much to recommend it, so it's a pity that he stepped all over his own headline by diving back into the Israel-Palestinian maelstrom.

Mr. Obama went to the State Department to offer a mostly inspiring vision of U.S. policy amid the political upheavals sweeping the region. But all attention is now focused on the coda he offered about the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which he said that "the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines." Though he immediately added that those lines should be adjusted "with mutually agreed swaps" of territory "so that secure and recognized borders are established for both parties," it's the 1967 line that is sticking.

And with good reason. At its neck, the distance from the Mediterranean coast to the West Bank is nine miles. Foreign analysts may imagine that strategic depth no longer matters, but Israelis know better thanks to the thousands of short-range rockets fired at their towns from Hamas-controlled Gaza. As candidate Obama said when he toured one such Israeli town in 2008, "If someone was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

Well, exactly. Which is why it was strange to hear Mr. Obama, in a speech otherwise devoted to urging change in the nature of Arab societies, suddenly revert to the tired land-for-peace formula that has so often failed. Since the rest of Mr. Obama's speech borrowed heavily from President Bush's Freedom Agenda, he might also have taken a cue from his predecessor's June 2002 speech, which conditioned Palestinian statehood on renouncing terrorism and liberalizing politics.

That concept is all the more appropriate now that Hamas has joined the Palestinian government, a point Mr. Obama acknowledged in his speech. Most Israelis would not object to a Palestinian state, even on the 1967 lines, if its politics resembled those of, say, Canada. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's problem is that political trends among the Palestinians lean more in the direction of Iran, despite some recent promising economic trends.

Nor does it help that Mr. Obama wants Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territory even before the two sides resolve the issues of the status of Jerusalem and of the 1948 Palestinian refugees, recently in the news with their attempt to force their way through Israel's borders. No Israeli leader is going to give up the West Bank without resolving those existential issues, since it would merely allow the Palestinians to pocket the territorial gains while perpetuating the conflict.

The President's team is explaining the speech as an attempt to restart the moribund Israeli-Palestinian talks, but it will accomplish no such thing. It's more accurate to say he obscured the important substance of his speech by needlessly raising an irrelevant and neuralgic subject. He provided Palestinian hardliners with a negotiating line that will become totemic to them and their sympathizers in the years ahead, no matter what happens on the ground.

He also alienated the leader of a key U.S. ally, as yesterday's chilly photo-op of the President with Prime Minister Netanyahu made clear. If this is what Hillary Clinton likes to call "smart diplomacy," we'd hate to see what qualifies as dumb.
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2)Waiting for Mitch
By Cheri Jacobus

Mitch.

A potential political rock star in the making, he is close to being known by a first name only, much like Cher, Madonna, Mitt or Newt.


Or not. At least not yet.

But potential GOP presidential candidate and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels could swiftly become a household name if he jumps into the race for the party’s nod. For now, he seems content to keep us all waiting. Many of us cheerfully do so, complete with bated breath. My early take is that Mitch Daniels is the rare political candidate who looks better and better the more he comes into focus, rather than forcing us to reluctantly accept major flaws upon closer inspection. I think — I hope — I’ve got the prognosticator chops to make this call even before the hat gets tossed into the ring.

To be clear, this is not an endorsement. Texas Gov. Rick Perry may well join the race and be equally intriguing, and there are other stars. While pretend candidates like Donald Trump have been lapping up press attention, it was due only to the dearth of serious grown-ups in the race or in the wings. The media needed cartoons with which to entertain themselves while waiting for the marquee names. But now the serious candidates are, one by one, claiming or relinquishing their spots on the GOP bench. June 13 is a date to circle on the calendar — the GOP debate in New Hampshire. June 16 is the all-important Republican Leadership Conference, and on July 23 the Iowa GOP will finalize the ballot for the Aug. 13 straw poll.

Mitch Daniels has a legislative record that sings to Republicans and independents. As governor of Indiana, he has slashed spending, balanced budgets and cut the rate of growth of the budget by more than half. He capped property taxes, enacted a school voucher program, defunded Planned Parenthood, lowered corporate tax rates and removed the requirement that forces state employees to pay union dues. He also limited collective bargaining for teachers, saving more precious tax dollars, instituted merit pay for teachers and cracked down on employers hiring illegal aliens. As Office of Management and Budget chief under President George W. Bush, he gained foreign policy credentials as a member of the National Security Council, in addition to his experience as top adviser to Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and former President Reagan.

Despite a somewhat moderate persona, he ventured into the belly of the beast in February and delivered a well-received, substantive speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Heavy on substance, Daniels has already proven he can fix a broken government. If the country is ready to pay attention to this clear contrast to President Obama and establish more serious criteria for political rock stars, Mitch Daniels will gain momentum.

Ironically, his so-called “marital woes” might lend a degree of depth and texture to his image that could prove valuable and humanizing. Indeed, while most candidates with his low-ish level of name ID seem flat and one-dimensional, Daniels is a multi-dimensional man. Those with near-100 percent name ID have accumulated personal baggage that’s nearly impossible to shed. That Daniels’s wife took an apparent three-year “sabbatical” from the marriage in the early 1990s to marry another man while Mitch Daniels raised their four daughters is an uncomfortable fact. But they reunited and remarried, thus preserving the family. An embarrassing talking point for Mrs. Daniels, but a positive point for the governor, who, like so many in government, sports a bio page that reads more like the U.S. tax code than a Harlequin romance. However, once those personal life blanks are filled in, Mitch Daniels is romantic, strong, Father of the Year material, all rolled into one. While he doesn’t have the leading-man features of a Romney, Perry or Pawlenty, Daniels’s story more resembles a Lifetime Movie Channel offering than the life of a Midwestern politician.

Most notably a wonkish, somewhat boring but solid, milquetoast-esque public servant, but with a spot-on résumé, Mitch Daniels now has some color woven in with the beiges and the grays — and not in the Arnold Schwarzenegger-, John Edwards-sleazy, stomach-turning kind of way. The “ick” factor appears to be absent.

If Daniels decides to enter the contest, he will bring a serious focus to the issues where he has proven successes, and where Obama has failed. It would be a good fight.

Jacobus, president of Capitol Strategies PR, has managed congressional campaigns, worked on Capitol Hill and is an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. She appears on CNN, MSNBC and FOX News as a GOP strategist.
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3)Clarice's Pieces: Obama and the 'Teutonic Shift' in the Middle East
By Clarice Feldman

One wonders if this is finally the week that the scales fall from the eyes of those Jews who voted for and supported Obama, not to mention these and other voters who hoodwinked themselves into believing that this man was some sort of brilliant new leader.

The preamble to this week's Obama epic foreign policy blunder was the president's comment on May 10 in Austin that there was a "Teutonic shift" taking place in the Middle East. To me, the grandiose albeit risibly erroneous description signaled that Obama's narcissistic needs needed stoking with some bold new initiative which no one but such a genius as he is could imagine. The following day, someone in the White House brain trust corrected the transcript to read "tectonic shift," but the writing on the wall was clear, even though White House spokesman Jay Carney denied it.

Obama intended to and, in fact, did go on to make a stupid but dramatic call that Israel return to the indefensible 1967 borders.

First, of course, he patted himself on the back for imaginary achievements, indicating that he had supported democracy in the Middle East from the moment of his Cairo speech. Actually, for those who paid attention, he did no such thing. He ignored the popular revolts in Iran and Syria, and he was slow to respond to the events in Egypt and Tunisia. Of Syria, in fact, he said this week, "The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition or get out of the way." I'm not sure Assad or his people heard the clarion call. At the moment it was made, Assad's forces were firing at and killing peaceful civilians gathered in pro-democracy demonstrations in Banias and Homs.

As bad as the misstatements about the Middle East generally were, the call to return to untenable 1967 borders is far worse. If the president sticks to this, it means that he is reneging on the promise Bush made to Israel, the second time a Democrat president has gone back on the word of his predecessor to Israel's great disadvantage. For Democrats, the word of the U.S. is certainly not our bond -- at least not to allies.

Citing with approval Charles Krauthammer, David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy explains why the Israelis have no reason to put their trust in us:


He says exactly what I was thinking [link in original]: Israel necessarily gives up tangible assets (land) for promises of peace. Israel is willing to do only if her government trusts the U.S. When President Obama ignores promises made to Ariel Sharon by Obama's predecessor in exchange for withdrawal from Gaza-that American policy started from the premise that Israel would keep the settlement blocs-that trust evaporates.

In 1956, Israel withdrew from Sinai in exchange for an American promise that it would use military force, if necessary, to keep the Suez Canal open to Israeli shipping. When Nasser closed the Canal in 1967, Johnson reneged on this promise. Backed into a corner, Israel preemptively struck at Egypt and Syria, and Jordan, too, when it chose to involve itself in the conflict.

Contrary to received wisdom, an insecure Israel is a belligerent Israel. U.S. policy for the last forty-plus years has been to try to ensure that Israel feels secure so that its peacemaking instincts prevail. I think that if Obama has indeed tossed out Bush's promises from only seven years ago, the cause of peace is being harmed.


One could safely assume that this will go nowhere -- after all, there are no negotiations scheduled, and there are unlikely to be any. There's not even a U.S. "facilitator," George Mitchell having pulled out a week ago, when it was clear that Obama's mucking about had destroyed the possibility of any meaningful talks. He didn't even suggest a next move in this Opus. So why was this blunder so significant?

Because the president's comment lends support to the anticipated effort to get the U.N. Security Council to mandate an Israeli return to the 1967 borders, the Obama plan is more than silly and faithless -- it would mean Israel's destruction. And any suggestion that some international peacekeepers could protect Israel after a massive shift of its population to forty-year-old boundaries is beneath consideration.

My friend Jimmyk says it even more succinctly:


Aren't UN "Peacekeeping" troops stationed expressly at the pleasure of the local despot, meaning that it's official policy that they can be dismissed for any or no reason at any time? If so, that's more or less like having fire insurance that is void in the event of, you know, a real fire. (That's quite aside from the child sex abuse scandals and other corruption.)


After making his swan dive into the abyss, Obama preceded with a White House chat with Prime Minister Netanyahu followed by a press opportunity and a scheduled state dinner.

One assumes that Obama anticipated that his own position would remain unchallenged in this formal setting -- rather like his attacks on Congressman Ryan in a "seminar"-type setting in which he controlled the mic, or the unprecedented attack on the Supreme Court justices at the State of the Union address, at which the justices do not get to speak.

If so, he was mistaken, as even an illiterate could tell from the body language of the two men.

In a controlled but respectful address to the press while seated alongside the president, Bibi argued that "peace based on illusions will crash on the rocks of reality" and used the opportunity to school the president on the facts on the ground. Bibi flatly stated that Israel could not be secure with a return to the 1967 borders, that it could not negotiate with a state that is partnered with Hamas, and it could not agree to an Arab right of return, which would destroy Israel entirely.

Both Mark Steyn and I consider the president's enormous miscalculation a result of his academic background. To my mind, so much of the liberal arts and social science class college work rewards the "original, creative, non-conventional" approach over a well-thought-out solid one, which explains why Obama frequently reaches for the former approach as evidence of his own intellectual prodigy. In fact, as in this case, it shows he doesn't know the facts and has a sloppily constructed, unsupportable thesis.

In a similar vein, Mark Steyn sees this as a product of the "faculty lounge" thinking.


[I]f you have the western faculty lounge attitude, which is the sewer Obama has been marinated in his entire adult life, then 1967 matters far more than 1973, or 1948, or 1922, because 1967 is as the faculty lounge left see it, the moment when the Israeli occupation began[.] [...] Why by the way did it begin? It began because Israel's neighbors launched another disaster war on them. The enemy, Egypt - Israel's enemies are incompetent at fighting conventional war and they discovered that actually instead of sending your troops into battle and keep losing your wars, why not play western public opinion like a fiddle and eventually the pressure - you start with the low-hanging fruit, your average European foreign minister, but eventually if you keep the pressure up you will land an American president who basically is not prepared to stand by the state of Israel and that's what they got right now.

[...]

By the way, this I think is the pansy left's view of the world [emphasis in original] that if you take -- if you have two parties to a negotiation, one party wants to kill the other party[.] [...] That's why there was no peace in 1948, no peace under the British mandate in the 1930s, no peace at the time of the 1922 partition because one party to the dispute wants to kill the other. So, if they are wedded to that, then you got to put pressure on the party that doesn't want to kill each other, to make concession - to keep throwing concessions in the face of the beast that wants to devour it and I think that's - if you look at where he's applying the pressure, I think that tells you a lot about the fundamental fraudulence of these negotiations.


You need only compare pictures of Netanyahu and Obama as young men to see the difference. One is a serious person, the other a jive-ass (h/t:Janet).

Like Obama, Netanyahu has fine educational credentials, with degrees from Harvard and MIT, but Netanyahu has been personally tested in battle, where rash, unconsidered actions have immediate, fatal consequences. Obama until now has been pontificating and swanning about. His only real battles to date have been with straw men of his own making.



3a)Obama to address AIPAC in wake of tense meeting with Netanyahu at White House
Obama is scheduled to speak Sunday at the AIPAC conference in Washington, where he is expected to try to stave off deterioration in U.S.-Israeli relations.
By Natasha Mozgovaya and Barak Ravid

WASHINGTON - The seventh meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday ended with a televised confrontation that showed the entire world the depth of the disagreement between the two leaders on the Palestinian question.

Senior officials in both the U.S. administration and the prime minister's delegation expressed a sense of great tension and profound mutual insult following the meeting.


Obama is scheduled to speak today at the AIPAC conference in Washington, where he is expected to try to stave off further deterioration in U.S.-Israeli relations.

A few hours after the tense meeting with Obama, Netanyahu and his aides held a Shabbat dinner at the official state guest house, the Blair House. Netanyahu told his advisers that he foresees difficult times ahead as well as the possibility of future confrontations and disagreements with the United States, "but that the truth must be told."

A clash between the prime minister and Obama seemed imminent when Netanyahu arrived at the White House on Friday, a day after the U.S. president said in a major address that the basis for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority should be the 1967 borders with land swaps.

Rumors about the content of the speech reached Netanyahu as early as Wednesday, Haaretz has learned, and he immediately instructed the embassy in Washington to find out whether the 1967 borders would be mentioned explicitly. A few hours before the speech, Netanyahu received a phone call from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, confirming that this was the case. Netanyahu protested, but Clinton told him it was the president's decision and nothing could be changed.

Netanyahu was infuriated and felt he had been ambushed, a source close to the prime minister told Haaretz. "He felt under attack," the source said. "It was a real insult, especially coming from such a close ally." The reason Netanyahu was so outraged was that he felt there should have been prior coordination on an issue Israel sees as so extremely sensitive. As far as Netanyahu was concerned, the Americans presented a position on Israel's borders without even consulting with him about what he thought.

The White House also felt insulted. On the morning of the meeting with Netanyahu, the New York Times reported that Obama had told his advisers he does not believe Netanyahu will ever compromise for peace. Netanyahu's sharp response to Obama's speech left the administration feeling that the prime minister was trying to create a negative spin on the speech despite the fact it contained many elements that were favorable to Israel.

Sources in the prime minister's entourage told Haaretz that the 90-minute-long conversation between the two leaders was even "harsher and franker" than the public confrontation that followed. Netanyahu told his associates that he had expressed his opposition to the 1967 line in order to prevent it from becoming the official U.S. position, especially considering that all of Obama's predecessors had refrained from voicing such support.

The prime minister left the meeting more satisfied than he went in. One reason was that Obama had promised to further strengthen the Israeli army in light of the recent turmoil in the Arab world and had reiterated that all security understandings between the United States and Israel were still valid.

Following the meeting and a prolonged consultation with their respective aides, the two leaders went out to the media and tried to play down the crisis, describing it as a confrontation between friends. Obama began by praising the warm relationship between Israel and the United States, noting that "the frequency of these meetings is an indication of the extraordinary bonds between our two countries," and that Netanyahu's speech to the Congress, an event the administration awaits with unease, is "an honor that's reserved for those who have always shown themselves to be a great friend of the United States."

He went on to stress that true peace can only happen if the final agreement allows Israel to defend itself. In this context, he posed tough questions to the Palestinians regarding the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas, in particular Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel.

Netanyahu started out in a conciliatory tone but quickly launched into a passionate speech against the U.S. administration's policy on the Palestinian issue. "I think for there to be peace, the Palestinians will have to accept some basic realities," he said. "The first is that while Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines - because these lines are indefensible."

The prime minister then offered Obama a historic overview of 4,000 years of Jewish history. "And now it falls on my shoulders as the prime minister of Israel, at a time of extraordinary instability and uncertainty in the Middle East, to work with you to fashion a peace that will ensure Israel's security and will not jeopardize its survival," he said.

The president is scheduled to address 10,000 participants at the annual AIPAC conference today. He is expected to reiterate the importance he attaches to ties with Israel and to try and reverse the negative impressions created after his meeting with Netanyahu on Friday. Republican and several Democrat leaders have already condemned Obama for his remarks on the 1967 borders.

Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat from Florida, said that "Israel cannot be expected to make any territorial concessions that do not acknowledge the reality on the ground. The 1967 borders are indefensible." Independent Senator Joe Lieberman said that Obama's remark were "unhelpful and surprising," while Republican majority leader Eric Cantor said over the weekend that Obama's approach was damaging to the special relationship with Israel and was weakening the ability of an ally to defend itself.
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4) Rock You Like a Herman-Cain
By C. Edmund Wright

In the shadow of the CNN complex and totally ignored by much of Atlanta's local drive- by media, Herman Cain officially divulged a very poorly kept secret Saturday: that he is running for the Republican nomination for President. And in case anyone is not sure exactly what Mr. Cain's intentions are, he clearly said that he is running with only one thing in mind -- which is to finish number one.


So while that idea may seem fanciful to the pundits and the mainstream media (and of course beltway bubbled conservatives like Charles Krauthammer), the impressive size and staggering energy of the 15 thousand folks at Olympic Centennial Park gave the rally the feel of a winning movement. Sure, I am hardly objective. However, as a veteran of political rallies and campaigns off and on since 1980 -- and a sometimes operative since 1992 -- I do not reach that conclusion lightly. Frankly, I've never been to a political event that had this energy. The closest thing I can think of to describe it was the televised introduction of Sarah Palin in September of 2008 and a Reagan rally I attended in 1980 in Columbia, S.C.


It is no coincidence that the feel of Cain events has been compared to Palin events and Reagan events. They have that same unmistakable energy and Cain has an "it" factor that is simply undeniable. He is a happy but intense warrior like Reagan, and can even pull off the cowboy hat look. (Memo to Mitch Daniels, don't try this at home).


Moreover, I cannot separate what I experienced Saturday from the knowledge that Cain has routed the current and expected GOP fields in several Iowa Caucus polls and has been second and first in respective Zogby Polls. Gallup, in a poll that managed to find Republican voters who had not heard of either Palin or Mitt Romney, showed Cain with a low name recognition but higher favorables than any other announced or expected candidate.


Knowing this, the atmosphere was super charged with the passion and newness of an insurgent campaign, plus the confidence gained by a remarkable few weeks that started with the South Carolina debate "win" and ended with Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee declining to run, and Newt Gingrich imploding about four times in 72 hours. The Cain campaign advanced six months in those 22 days.


In addition, in a more intimate setting I was able to find out how Cain has meticulously picked a team and implemented a plan that is extraordinarily well conceived. With the same focus and planning that one would expect from a CEO with business turnaround experience, he has launched a campaign from nothing that has now some 200 thousand internet based volunteers and a donor base growing by leaps and bounds.


Cain handpicked his internet guru for the campaign that put this plan in place, but also sports a computer science degree himself. Cain was a techie before techie was cool, one of the many impressive things about his resume lost in the "pizza man" jazz. At 65, he has a very modern campaign structure around the internet and social networking.


Working the tea party grass roots game plan, Cain hired Mark Jon Block as his chief of staff. Block, along with Reince Preibus, masterminded the tea party take over of Wisconsin, which not only turned out of office liberal Senator Russ Feingold and put Scott Walker into the governor's mansion, but also turned over both houses in the Wisconsin legislature. When you couple this with the fact that Cain became a tea party favorite with his many speeches over the last two years, there are the makings of a brush fire ground up campaign.


(That Preibus, a tea party type guy, is now in charge of the RNC is also encouraging).


Thus, when announcement day in Atlanta drew larger crowds than anyone expected and the atmosphere was electric, I was not that surprised. There is more to the Cain Train than most know. And there was not just a festive atmosphere and a lot of cheering, those cheers came from many cheeks moist with tears that a Cain candidacy is actually what real hope and change should feel like for America.


I am confident that were there operatives involved with the Romney or Gingrich or Pawlenty campaigns in attendance, it is very likely that they were busy tapping out frantic emails or texts to their headquarters. In spite of the heat, the combination of white country music performers and black clergy juxtaposed with a super charged audience that was quintessential "tea party plus" was a scene unfamiliar to most of American politics. Any political veteran would instantly recognize the "scent of a winner." It's hard to describe, but if you're around this game for any length of time, you know it when you are around it. And you also know it's contagious.


Certainly, anything can happen in politics and with a fledgling campaign, the next 22 days might be as bad for Cain as the last 22 have been good. But I don't think that will happen. In 2012, there is not the need for a massive TV advertising budget and certainly the elections of 2006, 08 and 10 have shown us that highly paid "Republican strategists" are not only not needed, but usually a detriment and a waste of money.


But the main reason I think Cain's candidacy will continue to develop is Cain himself, combined with the times we are in. Herman Cain is a meticulous CEO whose life story is the essence of the American dream. His campaign, like his life, will be the sum of his focused planning plus his irrepressible personality and persona. He has a connection with people that is amazing, and for some reason, he just looks and sounds exactly as a man with his experiences should. And having stared stage 4 cancer in the eye and beaten it, he is fearless -- and his "give a damn" is broke.


All of which makes him refreshingly bold and honest. You get the idea that a Cain-Obama debate would be the wise grandfather taking the arrogant silly whippersnapper to the wood shed. That thought alone will likely bring supporters Cain's way and keep his campaign relevant for a long time to come.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5)Obama's Middle East speech missed ‘historic opportunity,’ say many Arabs
By Kristen Chick

The view from Cairo is revealing


President Obama pledged American support for pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East Thursday, trying to put the US on the right side of history as he laid out his vision for US involvement in the region after the Arab Spring.

Those from nations where opposition movements are fighting brutal crackdowns welcomed the president's messages of support. But what was billed as a major speech left some in the region nonplussed. They said that the speech didn't cover new ground, was short on policy prescriptions, and that the president missed a chance to apologize for America's history of supporting the dictators people revolted against.

"Obama really had an opportunity to reshape and reframe the debate and ... he gave it away," says Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, adding that there was nothing distinctive or imaginative about the address. "This speech was an opportunity to say to Arabs, 'We as Americans made mistakes, we did not support democratic aspirations as much as we should have, but we're going to do better.' Obama didn't say that."

MARKED DIFFERENCE FROM OBAMA'S 2009 CAIRO SPEECH
The muted response to the speech differed markedly from the widespread interest and pockets of hope generated by Obama's landmark speech to the Muslim world from Cairo two years ago. Many felt that Obama has failed to follow through on the promises he made in 2009, and declined to give him another chance.

The protests that began six months ago have imparted to Arabs a strengthened sense of independence, even as subsequent uprisings have stalled with a bloody conflict in Libya, prolonged and brutal crackdowns in Syriaand Yemen, and the near-total crushing of a protest movement in Bahrain. Obama said that the US aimed to throw its full weight behind supporting those uprisings.


"It will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy," he said, calling this moment a "historic opportunity" after years of accepting the status quo. "We have embraced the chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator. There must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity."

Still, his words rang hollow to some in the region who see that US support for uprisings is not consistent across the region. But regarding Bahrain, where US criticism of the regime's crackdown on protesters has been muted, he spoke more forcefully than any US official has since the uprising began in February. He specifically criticized mass arrests and the use of "brute force."

"The only way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can't have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail," he said. Later, he added, "Shia must never have their mosques destroyed in Bahrain."

"I'm shocked because this is the first time we've seen such clear remarks about Bahrain," says Mohammed Al Maskati, head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights in the country's capital, Manama.

Yet Mr. Maskati said there was much left to be desired from the speech as well. Obama did not mention Saudi Arabia's intervention in Bahrain, where more than 1,000 Saudi troops remain who helped quell the uprising, or make clear how the government could be compelled to talk with the opposition when its actions imply that it is decidedly opposed to negotiations.

'HE CAN'T SAY NOW THAT HE WAS WITH THE REVOLUTION'
In Egypt, where the US strongly supported former President Hosni Mubarak for 30 years, and resentment of that support still runs high, relatively few people paid attention to the speech. Some who did were critical.

"He gave a speech as if he was with the revolutions from the beginning," says Emad Gad, an analyst at the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "But we know his administration was with Mubarak totally. He can't say now that he was with the revolution."

Mr. Obama did say that "for decades, the United States has pursued a set of core interests in the region," adding later, "but if America is to be credible, we must acknowledge that at times our friends in the region have not all reacted to the demands for consistent change - with change that's consistent with the principles that I've outlined today."

But, says Mr. Hamid, "If you heard this speech in isolation, you would have thought that America had always naturally supported democracy. There was no acknowledgment of America's very complex and sometimes tragic history in the Middle East."

PRAISE FOR ECONOMIC AID TO EGYPT, SUPPORT FOR LIBYA
On most topics, there were points that generated both criticism and praise. Some Egyptians welcomed the announcement of a multibillion-dollar economic assistance plan for Egypt, whose economy has struggled since the uprising as tourism and foreign investment have dried up. It will include up to $1 billion in debt relief, with the freed-up funds to be used for investment in growth and entrepreneurship. The US will guarantee $1 billion in borrowing for infrastructure and job creation, said Obama, and a $2 billion fund will be set up for investment in the private sector.

"That's excellent news," said taxi driver Mohamed Salem when he learned of the plan for debt relief. "Egypt is suffering. We welcome this. And I hope they will also bring all the money that Mubarak and his sons hid abroad." Others were more skeptical, however, wondering about strings attached to the aid. Egypt was the No. 2 recipient of US aid for years after making peace with Israel. On Libya, where the US along with NATO has undertaken military action, Obama made clear that he expected Col. Muammar Qaddafi to be removed from power, although he did not make clear how that would be accomplished.

"That reinforces in their mind that 'America is not going to leave you,' " says Mansour el-Kikhia, chairman of political science at the University of Texas, San Antonio, who has just returned from two weeks in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in eastern Libya. "Libyans ... know they want freedom and don't need Obama to tell them that ... [but] it is good they see that the United States is supporting what they are doing, that the US is not going to let them down with regard to Qaddafi."

And on Syria, some had hoped the president would come down hard on President Bashar al-Assad for his bloody crackdown on protesters. The president did so, condemning the Syrian crackdown, but he left the door open for Assad, saying, "The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way."

'THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT DOESN'T NEED SPEECHES'
Obama, who is set to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today at the White House, spent a fifth of the speech discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He called for a two-phased negotiation process, in which Israeli security and Palestinian sovereignty would be agreed upon in a first round of talks using the 1967 borders as a starting point, with the stickier issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees to be decided later.

He criticized both Israel and the Palestinian leadership, laying out a number of issues that need to be addressed.

But more rhetoric will not be helpful in solving the impasse, says Gad. "I think the Arab-Israeli conflict doesn't need speeches. It needs steps on the ground. If Obama wants to be effective, put pressure on all sides to resume negotiations."
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6)Hold That Tiger
By Richard Fernandez

The Arab reaction to the president’s Middle East speech as reported by the Christian Science Monitor is reminiscent of the responses to the failing Mubarak: they’ve seen Obama give, now they want to see him give some more. “While those involved in Arab uprisings welcomed Obama’s support, others were disappointed with his failure to apologize for US support for Middle East dictators.” Once you start giving to the crowd, you can’t stop giving.

In giving his speech the president may have done three things, none of which he quite intended. First, he has essentially denounced as evil and misguided, though in a lukewarm fashion, decades of American policy in the Middle East. Second, he has delegitimized Israel, at least within the context of its current borders. Third, he has by implication suggested that the rule of many of his allies is undemocratic and, in consequence, declared himself King of Arabia. He has assumed ultimate responsibility for the political development of the region now. He’s declared it broken. Now he owns it.


When a regime of long standing makes unprecedented admissions of culpability and promises reform, the first reaction of revolutionaries is to assume that ancien regime is doomed. Those who listened to Obama’s speech may not be convinced of his new beginning, but they most assuredly scent the coming of an end.

What some Arabs will be looking for now is street cred. The Los Angeles Times reported from Cairo that listeners to the president’s speech said it went far, but didn’t go far enough. “People seem to have lost confidence in the good words Obama said when he was here,” said Aziz. “I think it was us Egyptians, Tunisians and Arabs who forced Obama to finally start reaching out to the region and support freedoms and peoples’ will. He knows that it is a reality now and that he will lose the whole region’s support if he doesn’t do so.”

Having declared himself on the side of the demonstrators and no longer the defender of the status quo, many of the participants in the Arab Street will ask Obama to make his bones. And the only way President Obama can prove that he’s on their side is to throw one or two dictators their way. The Bush plan would be to throw Khamenei and Assad to the crowds first. But that appears to be off the table, because he wants to talk to them, so in the Obama variation the alternative appears to be giving only America’s allies in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, the heave-ho. When it is too hard to ditch your enemies, ditch those who trusted you.

It’s a potential recipe for disaster, not in the least because it can backfire on the president. In a region where losing means winding up on the end of the hangman’s rope, you can bet your bottom dollar that regimes will fight for survival. That means anything can happen. Will the president be ready to finish what he started? He had better be because once fairly begun it is hard to stop. An old Chinese proverb said: “He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.” John Kennedy added his own embellishment to the theme: “In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside.”

That advice has lost none of its relevance today. President Obama’s words are not just speeches. They communicate policy. They set wheels in motion, if not in American bureaucracies, then elsewhere in the world where listeners react to them and make plans of their own. They can create a momentum that must either be seen through or lead to bust. He may be gone from office in several years, but the consequences of his words will outlive his term. Will there be a new Middle East, with all its minorities and confessions living in relative harmony? Or will it be bust?

I think the president believes he can achieve a nuanced outcome by taking both sides of history in the Middle East; to preserve U.S. security interests while spreading democracy — all largely achieved by the State Department. Maybe he will succeed. But the worst case scenario is that this will lead to a complete unraveling of the U.S. position in the region coupled with an unwillingness and inability to defend any red line whatsoever. Consider: if Plan A fails, what on earth is Plan B?

There was a young lady of Riga,
Who rode with a smile on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.


Sometimes the tiger thinks differently
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