Tag Archives: foreign policy

Obama, Israel, and Iran

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The Blaze reported on a meeting in Israel several days ago that involved Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R, MI) wherein this apparently happened [emphasis mine]:

At the start of the meeting, [Netanyahu] opened with a sharp attack on the Obama administration which according to him has not done enough on the Iranian issue.  “Instead of effectively pressuring Iran, Obama and his people are pressuring us not to attack the nuclear facilities,” he said, and then moved on to a harsh criticism of the administration’s pronouncements indicating there is still room for diplomacy.  “The time has run out,” he said resolutely.

At one point, an anomalous thing occurred in the office, which is very unacceptable in diplomatic code.  Shapiro who was appointed by President Obama and for years was among his closest advisers decided he’d had enough.  Enough is enough.  He spoke and answered Netanyahu politely but in a manner that left no room for doubt.

The ambassador in fact accused Netanyahu of distorting Obama’s position.  He quoted the president, who promised he would not allow a nuclear Iran and said that all options – including a military strike – are on the table […]

It’s dismaying—and frightening, because it’s so dangerous—that all Shapiro could do was quote Obama’s words—he could cite only Obamatalk.  Shapiro could name no actual deeds as Iran, which has sworn to wipe Israel from the map, moves at an accelerating pace to achieve a nuclear bomb.

In fact, Obama actively is refusing to take concrete action, despite the “promises” of his Obamatalk.  He said, through his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey (who finds it “not useful” for ex-military to express their opinions when those opinions run counter to Party dogma), while speaking to reporters in London,

I don’t want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it [execute their own military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities].

“Complicit?”  You’re “complicit” when you go along with illegal activities….

Obama also pretended, through Dempsey, not to know Iran’s intentions.  The Guardian cited Dempsey as making this claim in those same remarks.  Apparently, the Iranian leadership with whom Obama is so desperate to engage is not to be taken at its word when those words are inconvenient:

Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury.
–Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Our dear Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement.
–Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

 

I regard supporting the plan for independence of Israel and its recognition a tragedy for the Muslims and an explosion for the Islamic governments.
–Ayatollah Khomeini

Israel must be eradicated from the page of history.
–Ayatollah Khomeini

And the routine invocation during Friday prayers in Tehran:

Death to Israel

 

h/t Power Line

Why Did the PRC Buy These Businesses?

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The Wall Street Journal‘s Joseph Sternberg ran an op-ed the other day wondering whether the People’s Republic of China might be playing a risky game of “greater fool” in buying up failed or failing companies in the expectation of finding a greater fool to whom to sell these, later.

Mr Sternberg makes some interesting points, and his piece should be read in its entirety.  But I think he may be misreading the PRC on this; I think he’s making the same mistake here that the Obama administration is making about Iran and the usefulness of sanctions: each thinks these others—the PRC and Iran—think like we do.

They do not.  Their pain buttons are not the same as ours, their goals are not the same as ours, and so their motivations cannot possibly be like ours.  Sternberg cites two of the PRC purchases—the car battery maker, A123, and the Canadian oil and gas company, Nexen, for each of which the PRC paid large premiums, as his examples of the potential for the PRC finding itself at the end of the greater fool chain.

These are, indeed, useful examples for Sternberg’s points; consider, though, an alternative set of goals for the PRC’s acquisitions.  The PRC bought a controlling stake in A123 not for the car battery technology, but for the battery technology.  The PRC has, for instance, a burgeoning space program.  They have a desire to expand, generally and massively, into the solar power realm for a variety of reasons, and power storage is critical to both.

The PRC bought a controlling stake in Nexen, not because they think they can manage the company better than the incumbents but for Nexen’s Canadian oil and gas assets.  Recall that the PRC also has a burgeoning physical industry and transportation functionality that need copious quantities of oil.  Also, oil that the PRC controls is oil that the US does not.  Hormuz need not be the only bottleneck in our access to oil.

Pax Obama

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The Wall Street Journal‘s Monday op-ed likened Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s actions on the world stage—in particular vis-à-vis Syria—to a Samuel Beckett play.  After all, all the Syrians have to do is simply to hang in, and wait upon Obama’s convenience.

But the cost of that is enormous.  Aside from the 20,000 Syrian murders that have resulted from Obama’s dithering, aside from Iranian near-nuclear bomb achievement (to broaden the scope and result of his waffle), we’ve gone in these last three years from what was Pax Americana to a disastrous Pax Obama:

…thanks in part to Mr. Obama’s calculated abdication, Middle East tension and turmoil are rising.

And everywhere else in the world, especially including Europe and North America, if the Syrian butchery is allowed to continue apace and Iran is allowed to get nuclear weapons.

Iran Warns Arab States Over Syria

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With apologies to The Wall Street Journal, from whose article I took the title of my post.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned Sunni-led Arab states and Turkey, who are supporting Syria’s opposition in its battle with Tehran’s ally President Bashar al-Assad, that their insistence on toppling the Syrian regime will destabilize their own countries and the entire region.

“If they continue moving in the wrong direction then let them rest assured that the consequences of this will affect them too,” said Mr. Salehi in a joint news conference with his Syrian counterpart, Walid Moallem, who was visiting Tehran Sunday.

And this is the nation our administration is so timid with regarding its nuclear weapons program.

But that’s OK—if that misunderstood al-Assad or those bad Iranians continue to misbehave, we’ll talk even more, and we’ll shake our fingers especially firmly at…someone.

Let’s See, Now….

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Spiegel Online International has some remarks about Governor Mitt Romney’s first day with the press in London last week, as the Republican Presidential Candidate began his European trip.

SOI didn’t much like him.  They also cited England’s Daily Mail running a generally negative article.

If the liberal European press doesn’t like Romney, he can’t be bad.  Especially after the way it so favored Presidential Candidate Barack Obama.