by David P. Goldman
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's regrets to Obama's nuclear disarmament summit next week marks a new phase in the Obamalypse. In fact, it isn't as new as it seems, for the Obama administration placed an embargo on the export of nuclear reactor parts to Israel from the beginning. This we learn from a dispatch last night in the Israeli daily Maariv.
The United States has begun denying visas to Israel's nuclear scientists, according to the Hebrew-language daily Maariv. Workers at the reactor in Dimona told the paper that they had been treated poorly by US representatives, and had been told they could not travel to the States....
A former Dimona worker told Maariv that the problems between Israel and America went beyond denied visas. The US has also created a “de-facto embargo” on equipment needed in the Dimona reactor, he said.
The refusal to sell Israel certain parts began after current US President Barack Obama took office, he said. When it comes to certain other pieces of equipment, he added, the US now permits sales only if Israeli officials explain exactly what the part will be used for.
"And yet, when it comes to those who manufacture nuclear terrorism, we hear a lenient approach, even though the entire world can see that Iran's leaders are making a joke out of the US,” he said.
As I wrote in The Tablet last week, the remnants of the Bush administration, along with many prominent conservative Jews, are still fighting the 2008 elections, and in a way that plays directly into Obama's hands. The deployment of 200,000 American soldiers amid civilian populations who are riddled with terrorists turns American "nation-building" forces into hostages. The Gates-Brzezinski argument of 2004 that Iran is the exit strategy from Iraq and Afghanistan is operating policy in the White House.
Meanwhile the Republicans do not seem to understand that they already are in quicksand. On Wednesday, I heard Liz Cheney, the former Vice-President's daughter, tell a Hudson Institute luncheon that Obama shouldn't be attacking our "vital ally" President Karzai of Afghanistan. Jennifer Rubin at the Commentary blog wrote this up with enthusiasm. Karzai decided months ago to hitch his wagon to Iran for leverage against Pakistan, which continues to support the Taliban, as M.K. Bhadrakumar reported in Asia Times Online March 30. The Great Game has moved to an entirely different level of Afghanistan; Mrs. Cheney and Ms. Rubin are living in a fantasy world.
Obama wants to remove Israel's nuclear capability while permitting Iran to acquire one. He told George Stephanopolous April 9 that the sanctions may fail to change Iranian behavior, just as they failed in the case of North Korea:
If the question is do we have a guarantee as to the sanctions we are able to institute at this stage are automatically going to change Iranian behavior, of course we don't. The history of the Iranian regime, like the North Korean regime is that, you know, you apply international pressure on these countries, sometimes they choose to change behavior, sometimes they don't.
We end up with a nuclear-armed Iran to which both Afghanistan and Iraq orient. It's astonishing. Why did America care about central Asian Muslims to begin with? We had an interest in Persian Gulf oil. Then we decided to "democratize" Iraq and Afghanistan and deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Now we supposedly have to appease Iran in order to protect the soldiers who were there to democratize Iraq because we had an interest in the oil -- and we end up with Iranian nuclear weapons controlling the Persian Gulf! It is as insane a progression as ever has been presented in political logic.
I've been screaming about this for more than two years: Obama is the loyal son of a left-wing anthropologist mother who sought to expiate her white guilt by going to bed with Muslim Third World men. He is a Third World anthropologist studying us, learning our culture and our customs the better to neutralize what he considers to be a malignant American influence in world affairs.
