This morning, I was going to write about the unfortunate if not dangerous comments made by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey regarding Israel and Iran’s nuclear program. General Dempsey, it should be noted, has been drafted as a spokesman for Obama’s reelection campiagn. His remarks are stunning in their strategic foolishness and make clear—as if further clarification were needed—that the Obama administration is actively hostile to the Jewish State.
As I said, I was going to write about this grave situation but this morning the Wall Street Journal published an editorial that perfectly expresses Seraphic Secret’s opinions.
Is the Obama Administration more concerned that Iran may get a nuclear weapon, or that Israel may use military force to prevent Iran from doing so? The answer is the latter, judging from comments on Sunday by Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey.
Appearing on CNN, General Dempsey sent precisely the wrong message if the main U.S. strategic goal is convincing Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. He said the U.S. is urging Israel not to attack Iran—because Iran hasn’t decided to build a bomb, because an Israeli attack probably wouldn’t set back Iran by more than a couple of years, and because it would invite retaliation and be “destabilizing” throughout the Middle East.
“That’s the question with which we all wrestle. And the reason we think that it’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran,” the General said, referring to a possible Iranian response to an attack. “That’s been our counsel to our allies, the Israelis. And we also know or believe we know that the Iranian regime has not decided that they will embark on the capability—or the effort to weaponize their nuclear capability.”
In a single sound bite, General Dempsey managed to tell the Iranians they can breathe easier because Israel’s main ally is opposed to an attack on Iran, such attack isn’t likely to work in any case, and the U.S. fears Iran’s retaliation. It’s as if General Dempsey wanted to ratify Iran’s rhetoric that the regime is a fearsome global military threat.
If the U.S. really wanted its diplomacy to work in lieu of force, it would say and do whatever it can to increase Iran’s fear of an attack. It would say publicly that Israel must be able to protect itself and that it has the means to do so. America’s top military officer in particular should say that if Iran escalates in response to an Israeli attack, the U.S. would have no choice but to intervene on behalf of its ally. The point of coercive diplomacy is to make an adversary understand that the costs of its bad behavior will be very, very high.
The general is not a free-lancer, so his message was almost certainly guided by the White House. His remarks only make strategic sense if President Obama’s real priority is to contain Israel first—especially before the November election.
This might also explain General Dempsey’s comments that the U.S. doesn’t believe Iran’s regime has decided to build an atomic bomb and that it is a “rational” actor, like, say, the Dutch. This would be the same rational Iran that refuses to compromise on its nuclear plans despite increasingly damaging global sanctions, and the same prudent actor that has sent agents around the world to bomb Israeli and Saudi targets, allegedly including in a Washington, D.C. restaurant.
Iran doesn’t need to explode a bomb, or even declare that it has one, to win its nuclear standoff. All it needs to do is get to the brink and make everyone believe it can build a bomb when it wants to. Then the costs of deterring Iran go up exponentially, and the regime’s leverage multiplies in the Middle East and against American interests. General Dempsey’s assurances obscure that military and political reality.
Like most of Mr. Obama’s Iran policy, General Dempsey’s comments will have the effect of making war more likely, not less. They will increase Israel’s anxiety about U.S. support, especially if Mr. Obama is re-elected and he has a freer political hand. This may drive Israel’s leadership to strike sooner. Weakness invites war, and General Dempsey has helped the Administration send a message of weakness to Israel and Iran.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
12 Comments
Ever read Ulsterman’s (of The Ulsterman Report) interviews with the “White House Insider?” Today’s installment says it all concerning Obama’s attitude about Israel: “President Obama Says (bleep) Israel.”
See article here:http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/02/22/white-house-insider-president-obama-says-fk-israel/
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There is information related to Cruz Construction and the American petroleum industry that posits US reserves equal to all reserves in the world, but we are not harvesting our riches. Rather we are buying from our putative friends at inflated prices. Is this a bribe…? Are the lunatics in the enviromental lobby so powerful…? And this isn’t Democrat or Republican, this is our representative democracy at work.
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McGovern was a decent man. I saw things differently but that wasn’t a character issue. I think what we are watching unfold is negative because it isn’t smart. A smart guy sees something in front of him and responds accordingly. A liberal sees the same thing and debates geneology, a place in the cosmos, and the history of the world. Then the snake, if that’s what it is, strikes him dead. That is not smart.
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Barry…”A liberal sees the same thing and debates geneology, a place in the cosmos, and the history of the world.”
I think that is indeed the case with a certain kind of liberal intellectual, but I don’t think that’s the case with Obama. He is not a dreamy academic; he is a power-hungry ideologue.
A common pattern in revolutionary movements is that they start out with the dreamy intellectuals and end up with the hard-eyed apparatcheks.
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David, what you have written is fair enough but is even worse than my musings. Wish neither to be so, but if they are something must be done.
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Johnny…I don’t think McGovern had the kind of visceral dislike for the U.S. and for Israel that Obama has.
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David – few know it but McGovern was a hero in WW2 – saving his crew in a crippled B24 – plagiarism and all Steven Ambrose’s book The Wild Blue details the flight.
I wonder why George kept mum on this aspect of his service –
Also when he left the Senate and started a B & B (in New England I think) he said – after being a small businessman – that if he had known some things in the Senate that he did later some of his votes would have been different.
George McGovern – closet Conservative?
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I think this is what a Gene McCarthy or George McGovern administration would have looked like or how the Carter presidency really did look like. If we let our enemies know we are nice they will understand and lay down their weapons. What’s next on Obama’s to-do list – get everyone around a campfire and sing Kumbaya?
I’m reading a book by a former special forces and CIA operative that fought in Vietnam and caught Carlos the Jackal. When he talks about the what Carter and Turner did in the 70′s it sounds like it could have been written today. NEWS ALERT to Obama – there are people that hate us, always have hated us and always will hate us and they don’t give a rat’s a– if you just want everyone to get along. What good is it to be the biggest guy on the block if you are going to act like a pussycat?
I don’t care how many Jews in Congress say Obama is Israel’s greatest supporter. The only sentient being that actually believes it just fell off the turnip truck.
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Shalom to all.
I heard General Dempsey speak. It was hard not to scream at the television screen. Was this Neville Chamberlain speaking? Was this Jimmy Carter speaking? What happened to “peace through superior firepower” or “………. and carry a big stick”? Yes, General Dempsey is a mouthpiece for his C-in-C. This does not bode well.
I can just see the Charlie Rose round table discussing this picture. They, whoever Mr. Rose’s esteemed guests usually are, would sit around the table, seemingly using high level logic, wisdom, a profound sense of history and understanding of human nature, and supposed reasonableness, and procede to denigrate such a picture. They would not be able (or want ) to see a creature walk like a duck, look like a duck, and quack like a duck, and then declare that it is a duck. This picture is such a duck, and they would mock it as utter nonsense.
But facts are facts. Everything Mr. Obama has done, on multiple levels, points to a picture like this becoming a reality. So much for the Charlie Rose rountable!
This picture is frightening, but must be contemplated by all who love freedom, and believe that Israel is truly the canary in the mine. If “Israel goes”, so goes humanity. The light to all that is good and decent would also go out.
Perhaps we should post another strong captioned picture. One that has “Our work is done” at the bottom, and above it a picture of the Temple Mount, with NO dome of the rock or mosque, or wafk running about. Instead, there would an Israeli flag flying high, and rabbis restoring righteousness to that sacred place. And, referring to yesterday’s post, lots of Jews around it carrying, you guessed it, guns! That would be a wonderful sight.
The Mussar teaches that imagery is extremely important in guiding our innermost subconscious mind and soul. What if that also appies to collective imagery? I say let’s give it a try. Keep this suggested picture in your mind!
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I’m sorry the ink I posted below doesn’t seem to work. You can access the article by going to http://www.jihadwatch.org and scrolling down until you find the article “Harvard Hosting Conference Calling for the Destruction of Israel”.
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Not exactly on point but related.
Harvard hosting conference calling for destruction of Israel.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/02/harvard-hosting-conference-calling-for-destruction-of-israel.html
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“…That’s been our counsel to our allies, the Israelis. And we also know or believe we know that the Iranian regime has not decided that they will embark on the capability—or the effort to weaponize their nuclear capability.”
To quote a line in a recent action movie “assumption is the mother of all foul ups”
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[...] the original post: The Obama Doctrine: Containing Israel Posted by admin at 8:52 pm Tagged with: administration, answer, chairman, comments, [...]
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