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Chamberlain, Munich, Hitler, capitulation, these seem to be words that are associated with Obama these days. Wonder why?
If negotiations with Iran should fail because the Ayatollah's demands are untenable, even for Kerry and Obama, rest assured, Israel and Netanyahu will be blamed. Then, Obama will have more justification , in his mind, to go before the U.N and vote against Israel.
That said, a missed deadline in the Iran talks is analogous to moved goal posts. Obama will keep allowing America to be had as long as the prospects of a deal are visible, no matter how dim or distant they appear because, having accomplished little of note, having received an undeserved Peace Prize, he hungers for a legacy.
The fact that Obama's ultimate legacy will be his orchestrated decline of America, the heightened increase in racial tensions, the continued breaching of our borders, the vast increase in our debt and decline in respect for and increased trustworthiness of our nation and the slipping away of our influence will be ignored by the press and media but it cannot be hidden from the people.
The measure of Obama has already been taken and he has been found wanting and pitifully over matched by the demands of the job he fervently sought and was equally unqualified to fill.
Obama and Kerry have egg all over their face so a most Happy Easter and Passover.(See 1 and 1a below.)
Day late and a shekel short! They too have been leading from behind for decades! (See 1b below.)
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The previous article I posted by Alan Caruba, was correct but it did not appear in the Wall Street Journal. My hand was called by a very dear and learned friend and fellow memo reader: "Written by Caruba but not in the WSJ…. http://www.snopes.com/
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Dick
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1)
The Ghastly Shadow of Munich
By Victor Davis HansonThe Western capitulation to Adolf Hitler in the 1938 Munich Agreement is cited as classic appeasement that destroyed Czechoslovakia, backfired on France and Britain, and led to World War II.
All of that is true.
But there was much more that caused the Munich debacle than simple Western naiveté. The full tragedy of that ill-fated agreement should warn us on the eve of the Obama's administration's gullible agreement with Iran on nuclear proliferation.
Fable one is the idea that most people saw right through the Munich folly. True, Europeans knew that Hitler had never once told the truth and was already murdering German citizens who were Jews, communists or homosexuals. But Europeans did not care all that much.
Instead, the Western world was ecstatic over the agreement. After the carnage of World War I, Europeans would do anything to avoid even a small confrontation -- even if such appeasement all but ensured a far greater bloodbath than the one that began in 1914.
Another myth was that Hitler's Wehrmacht was strong and the democracies were weak. In fact, the combined French and British militaries were far larger than Hitler's. French Char tanks and British Spitfire fighters were as good as, or superior to, their German counterparts.
Czechoslovakia had formidable defenses and an impressive arms industry. Poland and perhaps even the Soviet Union were ready to join a coalition to stop Hitler from dissolving the Czech state.
It is also untrue that the Third Reich was united. Many of Hitler's top generals did not want war. Yet each time Hitler successfully called the Allies' bluff -- in the Rhineland or with the annexation of Austria -- the credibility of his doubters sank while his own reckless risk-taking became even more popular.
Munich was hardly a compassionate agreement. In callous fashion it immediately doomed millions of Czechs and put Poland on the target list of the Third Reich.
Munich was directly tied to the vanity of Neville Chamberlain. In the first few weeks after Munich, Chamberlain basked in adulation, posing as the humane savior of Western civilization. In contrast, loud skeptic Winston Churchill was dismissed by the media and public as an old warmonger.
Hitler failed to appreciate the magnanimity and concessions of the French and British. He later called his Munich diplomatic partners "worms." Hitler said of the obsequious Chamberlain, "I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers."
The current negotiations with the Iranians in Lausanne, Switzerland, have all the hallmarks of the Munich negotiations.
Most Westerners accept that the Iranian government funds terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. It has all but taken over Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Yet the idea of stronger sanctions, blockades or even force to stop Iranian efforts to get a bomb are considered scarier than Iran getting a bomb that it just possibly might not threaten to use.
The U.S. and its NATO partners are far stronger than Iran in every imaginable measure of military and economic strength. The Iranian economy is struggling, its government is corrupt, and its conventional military is obsolete. Iran's only chance of gaining strength is to show both its own population and the world at large that stronger Western powers backed down in fear of its threats and recklessness.
Iran is not united. It is a mishmash nation in which over a third of the population is not Persian. Millions of protestors hit the streets in 2009. An Iranian journalist covering the talks defected in Switzerland -- and said that U.S. officials at the talks are there mainly to speak on behalf of Iran.
By reaching an agreement with Iran, John Kerry and Barack Obama hope to salvage some sort of legacy -- in the vain fashion of Chamberlain -- out of a heretofore failed foreign policy.
There are more Munich parallels. The Iranian agreement will force rich Sunni nations to get their own bombs to ensure a nuclear Middle East standoff. A deal with Iran shows callous disagreed for our close ally Israel, which is serially threatened by Iran's mullahs. The United States is distant from Iran. But our allies in the Middle East and Europe are within its missile range.
Supporters of the Obama administration deride skeptics such as Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as if they were doubting old Churchills.
Finally, the Iranians, like Hitler, have only contempt for the administration that has treated them so fawningly. During the negotiations in Switzerland, the Iranians blew up a mock U.S. aircraft carrier. Their supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, did his usual "death to America" shtick before adoring crowds.
Our dishonor in Lausanne, as with Munich, may avoid a confrontation in the present, but our shame will guarantee a war in the near future.
1a) In the Iran Talks, Does a Missed Deadline Matter?
The Obama administration has slipped past self-imposed deadlines and minced words over red lines before. Although certainly an embarrassment for the White House, another missed deadline in the seemingly never-ending Iran nuclear negotiations — which stretched beyond the latest deadline of March 31 — may not matter much in the end.
From Iran's point of view, it was a deadline to be exploited, not one to fret over. Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, had expressed misgivings about a framework agreement, insisting that the deal is not done until all core issues are resolved in a final deal. The White House imposed the March deadline to prove to Congress that enough progress was being made to hold off on sanctions. Still, a dodged deadline and a diluted progress report are unlikely to calm dissenters in Congress. Even if a bill calling for additional sanctions in the event of a violation of an agreement makes its way through Congress, it will be vetoed in the Oval Office. Congress overturning that veto is a less likely prospect.
Ironically, the U.S. congressmen vehemently threatening more sanctions are working in Iran's favor in this stage of the negotiating process. The more effort the U.S. negotiating team has to put into keeping Iran at the table, the more leverage Iran has in the talks. So, as the plethora of leaks on Monday all pointed toward the drafting of an agreement, Tehran strategically dropped a bombshell at the last minute. It said that while it would agree to reduce the number of operational centrifuges to 6,000 — going against the supreme leader's earlier demand for at least 10,000 centrifuges to remain in operation — it would pull back on an earlier concession to ship its low-enriched nuclear fuel to Russia.
This is a classic negotiating tactic: One party throws up a flare, panic ensues and once all sides return to the table, any further concessions from the instigator appear that much more generous. The next three months will be filled with such twists as the window for negotiations narrows.
In Iran's neighborhood, states like Saudi Arabia do not have the luxury of betting against the United States and Iran and have to prepare for the worst. The developing U.S.-Iranian relationship is what has driven Saudi Arabia into action in leading its Sunni allies against Iran across multiple fronts, with Yemen now in the spotlight.
Israel may also be upset at the United States for negotiating what it considers a bad deal with Iran, but it cannot deny that the upsurge in Sunni determination to contain Iran is a good thing. For example, Sudan's recruitment into the Saudi-led alliance had been months in the making, but the end result is that Iran has lost a critical conduit to supply arms to militant groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad through supply routes that run from Port Sudan up through the Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip. So long as Hamas struggles to replenish its weapons, including long-range rocket components, Israel has less to worry about.
Egypt is another beneficiary of the Saudi-led "Decisive Storm" operation. The White House never abandoned its close relationship with Cairo, but it became entangled politically by branding the deposal of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi a coup and demanding steps toward democracy before resuming aid. While the United States was trying to maintain its political correctness, Russia took the opportunity to court Egypt with military and energy deals, trying to broadcast the message that Washington's role had been filled in the Middle East.
Cairo simply used the attention from Moscow to bargain with Washington, waiting for the politics to become conducive enough to normalize relations with the United States with the understanding that a relationship with Washington would matter much more than one with Moscow. Egypt has yet to reschedule its elections, yet its participation in the Yemen operation gave the White House the justification it needed to show that Cairo is still a key Arab ally worthy of a dozen F-16 fighter jets that are now being delivered.
Much will be made of a missed deadline in Lausanne. Doubts will be cast over a potential agreement. But it is important to keep some perspective. This deadline over an interim agreement did not mean much to Iran in the first place. Progress, however uneven, is being made in the nuclear negotiations, and a U.S.-Iranian understanding is already having reverberations across the region.
1b)
1b)
Jewish Leaders Are Turning Against Obama on Israel
Abraham Foxman. Photo: Justin Hoch.
American Jewish leaders who supported the Oslo Accords or have criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are now strongly challenging the Obama Administration’s policy toward Israel. It’s the latest sign of a growing consensus in the Jewish community that the President’s vindictive approach toward Israel is unfair and overreaching.
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, head of the Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue and the Ramaz Day School in Manhattan, was an early supporter of the left-leaning Israeli party Meimad, and its American equivalent, Shvil Hazahav, which supported the Oslo Accords.
But last week, in an email to his Upper East Side congregants, Lookstein criticized President Obama’s plan for “reassessing the Israel/United States relationship.” Rabbi Lookstein then strongly endorsed an article by syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, who wrote that “there is zero chance” that a peaceful Palestinian state could be established “now or even soon.” Krauthammer derided “the crushing disappointment of the Obama administration and its media poodles at the spectacular success of the foreign leader they loathe more than any other on the planet. The consequent seething and sputtering are understandable, if unseemly. Blaming Netanyahu for banishing peace, however, is mindless.”
Rabbi Lookstein wrote that the Krauthammer column “presents with utmost clarity an assessment of the reassessment. It deserves the attention of all of us.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, was outspoken in his criticism of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plan to address Congress. But this week, Foxman said he was “even more troubled” by the “statements now coming out of the White House calling for a reassessment of policy toward Israel.” While disagreeing with some of the prime minister’s statements and actions, Foxman emphasized that “none of this, however, justifies what we are hearing from the Obama Administration. Their reactions raise deeper questions about their intentions and perspectives.”
In a similar turnabout, American Jewish Committee leader David Harris, who has often criticized the policies of the Netanyahu government, told the Jerusalem Post that “The fact that the outcome of a Democratic election in Israel seems to be of great concern” to the Obama Administration “is cause for deep anxiety and puzzlement.”
“Whatever the failings of the prime minister, the way this is unfolding runs completely contrary to the spirit of U.S.-Israel relations,” Harris added. “The U.S. appears to have a reasoned interest in prolonging the crisis.”
New York Jewish Week editor Gary Rosenblatt, who is certainly no hawk on Israel, wrote in his post-election editorial that while Prime Minister Netanyahu “has much to be accountable for” in the current state of U.S.-Israel relations, “President Obama is to blame as well.” In a pointed jab at the Obama Administration, Rosenblatt expressed concern that “Jerusalem will come under increasing U.S. and international pressure…while the Palestinian Authority, which has consistently rejected every Israeli offer of compromise for decades, gets a free pass.” Rosenblatt concluded that in assessing the choice that Israel’s voters made, “we have to appreciate and respect the decision of those who put their lives on the line. That’s democracy.”
Some mainstream Jewish leaders are even invoking memories of pre-World War II appeasement. In an email discussion group on March 2, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, a staunch Democrat and former chairman of the United States Holocaust Museum, wrote that the Obama Administration’s deal with Iran “appeases Iran and enables it to arrive at nuclear breakout status. This is a disaster for the Middle East and an existential threat to Israel’s existence.”
Greenberg added: “Imagine if the U.S. Congress or the British Parliament had allowed Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia to speak out against adopting the Munich pact.”
Rabbi Greenberg, who in the past has expressed support for extensive Israeli territorial concessions, wrote that “a lot of the damage” to U.S.-Israel relations is the result of the fact “that the Administration has chosen to blow this up.They have spoken more harshly and delegitimatingly of Netanyahu and Israel than of Iran, a government which is tyrannical, persecutes religious minorities and gays, underwrites terror, crushes and jails opposition and whose two top leaders openly called for destruction of Israel… The President is showing extremely bad and naive judgement.”
Perhaps the strongest words have come from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, a former American rabbinical superstar who is now chief rabbi of the Israeli city of Efrat. Over the years, Riskin has on various occasions expressed support for Israeli territorial withdrawals.
In remarks at the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem last week, Rabbi Riskin said: “The President of the United States is lashing out at Israel just like Haman lashed out at the Jews.” He compared Prime Minister Netanyahu to the biblical figure Mordechai, who strove to rescue the Jews of Persia from destruction at the wicked Haman’s hand. When a member of the audience accused Rabbi Riskin of being “disrespectful” to President Obama, he replied: “I am being disrespectful because the President of the United States was disrespectful to my prime minister, to my country, to my future and to the future of the world.” He said he was proud of Prime Minister Netanyahu for addressing Congress, “even if it angered Obama.”
The Obama Administration’s policy toward Israel has always been anchored in the ability of the president and his advisers to persuade mainstream Jewish leaders that he is genuinely concerned about Israel’s security. This helped ensure Jewish votes for Obama, and a willingness of most Jewish leaders to go along with the Administration’s policies – or at least not protest those policies too vigorously.
But the latest statements by both rabbinical and secular Jewish leaders, all of them doves or dovish-leaning centrists, are evidence of a sea change in Jewish opinion. President Obama has gone too far this time, as the growing chorus of protests from the Jewish leadership shows.
Moshe Phillips is president and Benyamin Korn is chairman of the Religious Zionists of Philadelphia, and both are candidates on the Religious Zionist slate (www.VoteTorah.org) in the World Zionist Congress elections.
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