Former UN Ambassador John Bolton on Obama, Israel and Iran.
I was a scrawny, dreamy kid. Schoolyard bullies sensed my weakness and beat the crap out of me on a pretty regular basis.
My Yeshiva of Flatbush teachers were less than useless.
“I don’t care who started the fight,” they said, “you’re both guilty.”
I was like, that makes no sense whatsoever.
Finally, a sensible and sympathetic teacher, Rabbi Teitelbaum, noticed that I was being used as a punching bag by a simian brute. The good rabbi took me aside and told me to fight back as hard as I could.
“I’m too little,” I whined.
“Don’t just give up,” he said, “make believe you’re Yehuda Maccabee.”
Well, that was inspiring.
I took Rabbi Teitelbaum’s advice and though I didn’t defeat the bully, I did manage to cause him enough pain—I practically ripped the kid’s ear off—that he never again picked on me.
Weakness invites aggression in the schoolyard and in geopolitics.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
13 Comments
” No wonder Israel is witholding intel from America—as Gen Scales admits. “ I have confidence in Israel making the right decision.
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I love John Bolton. He’s always saying something smart. Think if he’d shave off the moustache he’d have a shot at President? Probably not. He’s too straightforward.
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Robert
Again your post implys that the only issue is the Obama administration having the guts to stand up to the Iranian bully.
I think this clip from Fox makes clear why it is not that simple. Or perhaps you think that like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Major General Bob Scales is also an Obama stooge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds3Ra3f3p-E
Ted
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the only issue is the Obama administration having the guts to stand up to the Iranian bully.
It’s not.
It’s that the Obama administration simply doesn’t like Jews beyond tolerating those whose leftist liberal views coincide with their own, and even then , only for as long as they are ‘useful’.
Those who suggest that it is a matter of ‘guts’ are actually being kind in their judgment.
The alternatives are,
that they are either incredibly foolish, or wilfully self-destructive,
in carrying out their “Muslims First” doctrine.
(How else can the Fort Hood massacre be dismissed as merely ‘workplace violence’ ?!
How can the FBI and other law enforcement agencies be told that they must avoid any references to Muslim or Islam when assessing or trying to prevent acts of terror by indiviuals spouting the Quran, Sharia, and advocating Muslim Supremacy? )
I would love to believe that Obama is either misinformed or lacks guts.
Information can be provided to those who are willing to hear it.
Courage can be instilled in those who live by their principles, are convinced that their cause is just.
Liberals have entire ‘free pass’ options on when their principles can be silently abandoned (in Obama’s case, in deference to any Muslim agenda),
so, any talk of ‘guts’ is not applicable to people whose objective values of human rights and dignity do not apply equally to all humanity,
(including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Jews, gays, and atheists, not just reserved to be invoked for Muslims to provide privileges without accountabilty.)
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Ted:
Obama lacks wisdom. He does not understand that when Iran threatens Israel, the Little Satan, it is also threatening America, the Big Satan. When Obama hangs Israel out to dry he hangs all of America’s allies out to dry. No wonder the Gulf States are secretly working with Israel. No wonder israel is witholding intel from America—as Gen Scales admits. No wonder Iran tried to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on American soil.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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I’m not sure Obama likes America much more than he likes Israel.
There is a very high overlap between the set of strongly anti-Israel people and the set of people who spell America with a “k”.
One of Israel’s crimes, in the eyes of the Left, is the degree to which its values are similar to those of Americans.
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I think Obama and his supporters are achieving exactly what they want to achive, radical change for everyone else, which they hope will leave them unscathed. Wisdom or the lack of it doesn’t enter their picture.
In my public high school, when I was beaten by a bully, the teacher took the position that like wars fights can only occur if there are two sides and I was at fault for being the other side. the bully was justified because he was poor from a divorced family, and didn’t study while I was damned for being well off in comparison, having both parents and scoring too many A’s. She really believed WWII would not have happened if only the Allies had had no military and had never been in place to be attacked. That teacher and the mentality she taught drives Obama and his supporters, they believe the US and Israel are the enemy because they are the other side and that Iran, because of, not despite, its poverty and failures is morally superior. Being leftists they feel unattached to the US and thus fear no consequences if the US is treated as the enemy. In this liberalism is like a religion, all the red neck republicans around them ought to suffer, but they will not be harmed despite standing among their enemies because their ideals make them elect and sacrosanct.
It is hard not to be discouraged about the future these days.
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Ted: Scales speaks convincingly about the difficulty of the mission, yes. But about the Obama administration’s reasons for openly attacking Israel now, no. In fact, all he really said is that the administration wants more time. Yes, we know. The question is: Why are they undermining an ally? He said nothing in response. I don’t see what you saw there to counter Robert’s analysis.
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We are at the point Ted, where this in fact does come down to whether Obama is going to stand up with Israel and against Iran. I happen to like Gen. Scales, and indeed, everything he said in the youtube interview seems spot on. I am not sure what you thought you heard from him.
There is no question that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is going to be very difficult. It will become much less complicated if the U.S. fully supports it.
The reality is that stopping Iran’s drive for a nuclear arsenal is, as Scale’s makes clear in the last minute of the clip you post, in the best and, indeed, existential interest of the U.S. and the free world. Thus, it shouldn’t be Israel making the threats, it should be every free nation between Australia and Germany doing the standing up and saying this ends now. The reality is that most of the West simply is too corrupted and would happily just let Israel go on its own. I can assure you that if the entire West drew a line in the sand and convincingly threatened force, you would see the Iranians fold. I say that based on the history of the regime from 1979 forward. When threatened with real force, they fold like a cheap deck of cards. So, yes, Robert is precisely right on that.
We in the West have wasted a decade while Iran has built up their nuclear program. To Bush’s credit, he did try to impose a significant sanctions regime – Europe did not cooperate. Now the hold up has been Obama. Britain and France are actually leading on freezing Iran out of the world financial markets. Obama, who has wasted three years offering to have tea with the mullahs, is the one standing in the way truly crushing sanctions today. It was the Obama administration that watered down a law within the past month that would have seen the U.S. match the actions of Britain and France. Why – because Obama is far more concerned about how the price of gas is going to effect his reelection bit than he is about the long term ramifications of a nuclear armed Iran.
On a final note, there are several real problems with allowing Israel to go it alone against Iran. The only solution to the problem of the mad mullahs is regime change, and that is simply not possible for Israel. If Israel’s raid is successful, they will, at best, set the Iranian nuclear program back by one to three years. They will leave in place a wounded, bloody regime that would be even more dangerous to the world in the long run.
The problem of Iran is in the long run, as Gen. Scales points out, an existential threat to us and the West every bit as much as it is to Israel today. This problem could have been solved long ago had the left wing Congress allowed Bush to make a realistic show of force, or had Obama done it. We now have few options left, and the only thing Obama is leading on is his reelction bid. Carter graced us the problem of Iran; Obama, at a critical moment, seems about to make it exponentially worse.
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it is amazing to me that the lesson has to be continually relearned. But each new generating thinks things are different, and they have a better understanding.
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Bill, I think there are people in every generation never learn the lesson much less relearn it. The kumbaya crowd have access to history books and some of them probably read above a 3rd grade level. But like a stubborn mule that won’t budge no matter how many times you smack him with a 2 x 4 some people refuse to believe the history of appeasement.
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Obama is now planning to cut funding for the Federal Flight Deck Officer program, aka the armed-pilot program.
It is difficult to imagine any motivation for this which is not more sinister than simply stupidity.
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You are absolutely right. Obama’s policies and actions toward Israel are utterly appalling and supremely dangerous. It keeps me awake at night.
What do we expect from an American President who would bow to a king? (I often wonder what John Adams would have thought of that)
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