From the J-Post:
Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon voiced disappointment with the Obama administration on Sunday, saying “election-year considerations” lay behind its caution over tough Iran sanctions sought by US legislators.
While Washington has been talking tougher about Iran’s nuclear work and threat to block oil export routes out of the Gulf if hit with harsher sanctions, new US measures adopted on December 31 gave US President Barak Obama leeway on the scope of penalties on the Iranian central bank and oil exports.
The senior official contrasted the administration’s posture to that of France and Britain, which he said “are taking a very firm stand and understand sanctions must be imposed immediately.”
Sorry, Moshe. If only.
Just as Americans sometimes have difficulty parsing Israeli politics, the reverse is true. This isn’t about vote-getting for Barack Obama. This is who he is. Israelis should know that by now (probably many do). This is the same Obama who stood by heartlessly when the democracy demonstrators were in the streets of Tehran. This is the Barack Obama of the hidden Khalidi tape.
As we used to say in the sixties, “Which side are you on?” Obama is on two sides: himself and some mythological, lost-in-time anti-colonialism. Israel – and indeed Western values themselves – are not part of that.
well said Simon.
but, y’know, I get the Clintonesque feeling that Obambus *is* slowly becoming somewhat educated, hanging around the White House and all. we can only hope.
I wonder when the Israelis will finally come to understand that the man’s name is Barack Hussein Obama, not Barack Abraham Obama.
More to the point, will American voters recognize that in November? And if they do, will they care?
Everything Obama does pushes us (and Israel) closer to a very nasty, possibly global, war that nobody can win.
Obumma is a muslim sympathizer, and would sell out Israel in a heartbeat. The
man is a participent in the murder of border agent Brian Terry in league with
his Attorney General.He has tried to overthrow the duly elected democratic
president of Honduras. If this country had a congress worth anything at all,
this ass clown would have been impeached by now.His total being is in pursuit
of another term as president in order to destroy this country from within.
The sitting President of the United States sees the world through a lens of race as regards past and present exploitation and oppression which explains every example of success and failure in the world.
Since failure has its own rules, Obama will never set the boat right he wants to. It is possible he sees Iran as legitimately reacting to past U.S. interference and holds us responsible for Iran’s hatred of us in the same way his own mentor thought of 9/11 as chickens coming home to roost from a group of people that created AIDS to kill black people.
The true explanation is probably closer to a religion with an endemic disdain for non-Muslims with a mindset still in the 16th century and therefore a failure factory.
Well said Jeff…Obama,is an Anti-American Muslim/Marxist..end of story.
Ernie, you forgot anti-Semite. Look at the people around him for the past 20 years.
Can anyone think of another President where a significant portion of the public was justifiably worried about his psychological condition? He is detached from reality, moral compass and controls a nuclear arsenal. What a friggin mess.
And it was all clearly visible for anyone who cared to see it during the election campaign.
Yes, if it weren’t an election year, Obama would be even softer toward Iran.
I tremble to think what Obama’s foreign policy would be like if he were re-elected and had no “election-year considerations” at all.
Many presidents of the United States have had mild mental aberrations. Andrew Jackson’s impulsiveness, Jack Kennedy’s drug use and philandering, Nixon’s austere manner that covered his need for power, Carter’s failure to grasp the depth of the office that he held, etc. However, Obama is the first serious personality disorder to inhabit the White House. Most people who engage in psychodiagnostic procedures would prefer calling him Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but some less generous observers would see him as a full-blown Psychopath. I am among the less generous. As a matter of differential diagnosis, Narcissists become depressed upon exposure to rejection, but Psychopaths become energized in the face of opposition. Mr. Obama’s public face is no less confident after three years, though his functioning in the office of President has been weak at best or purposely incompetent at worst.
Moshe Ya’alon is the guy, as chief of staff, who made a mess of the IDF’s readiness that gave rise to the 2006 mess when, amongst other things the troops in Lebanon didn’t even have water to drink.
Families were taking food and water to the frontline.
Simon et al: Can someone do a parody of the Beach Boys’ ‘Barbara Ann’?
“Ba Ba Ba Obamiran…Obamiran…