In Roger’s post asking the question in the headline, the subject was the Obama administration leaking sensitive intelligence to make Israel’s job of striking Iran’s nuclear facilities more difficult. Israel is still rightly fuming about that. In this edition, the president is blaming Israel for the rise in gas prices.
A leading U.S. analyst who returned from talks with the Israeli leadership reported that the Obama administration was accused of staging a campaign to undermine Israel. The analyst, Robert Satloff, said Washington was also blaming Israel for the rise in global crude oil prices, deemed as harming the U.S. economy.
Iran’s leadership has repeatedly threatened to close off the Strait of Hormuz, and it has repeatedly pledged to annihilate Israel. It has used both Syria and Hizballah as proxies to wage war on Israel. Yet it’s Israel that the Obama administration is blaming for the tensions which are contributing to the gas price spike. The only things Israel has done throughout the growing crisis with Iran are to a) exist, and b) defend itself when attacked by the likes of Hizballah. Which of these things is a bridge too far for Obama and his foreign policy team?
We should also be straight about why Obama objects to the high gas prices. He doesn’t object to those high prices themselves, in fact he and his Energy Secretary are bothon the record as favoring higher gas prices than we currently have. Obama objects to the damage those high gas prices are doing to his chances of re-election. Supposing he is re-elected this year, high gas prices will be among the issues on which Obama would enjoy greater flexibility.
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