Statement by PM Netanyahu, April 12, 2014
Archive for April 2015
Statement by PM Netanyahu
April 12, 2015Could Saudi Arabia Need Israel More than Vice Versa?
April 12, 2015Could Saudi Arabia Need Israel More than Vice Versa? Israel National News, Gedalyah Reback, April 12, 2015
Israel’s status as a regional superpower is unusual for its lacking a reliable set of local allies. Even where security ties with Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia might be strong, the country is forced to keep those ties in the background. Regardless, it exerts a degree of influence just by its own strategic value. While ties are not public, they are also not available for public scrutiny, perhaps enhancing the relationship opportunities with the above mentioned countries as well as other Arab states.
“Rather than a charm offensive,” asserts Robert Kappel of the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, “Israel needs an assertive regional foreign policy” in order to gain more allies.
But is that really true?
“I don’t think that it’s either-or,” says Professor Eytan Gilboa of Bar Ilan University. “I think Israel has a regional policy. We don’t see it but it collaborates with Arab countries and the Persian Gulf, especially on Iran and much more on counter-terrorism. It has a regional policy but it’s undercover.”
Solving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is not a Condition for an Alliance
Turning back specifically to Kappel, Gilboa states “I think he means to use it to deal with the Palestinian issue; then comes the Arab Peace Initiative. The assumption is the PA is unable, unable, to reach an agreement with Israel.”
Gilboa sees an Arab desire to expand relations with Israel in spite of the conflict with the Palestinians. Thus, the Arab Peace Initiative might be evidence the Arab countries are eager to reach out with a public offer that would allow them to open the door for Jerusalem without necessarily having to seal a deal on the conflict.
“I reject one claim: that resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue is a condition for a regional alliance. The reason for this is simple – all these countries couldn’t care less about the Palestinians. They have an interest in blocking Iran and extremist Islamic organizations. They made all kinds of statements to the contrary but that is not the issue. I don’t think there’s a linkage here.”
Pressing his point, Gilboa says “There’s much less opportunity for regional pressure on the Palestinians than most people think. ‘Collaboration’ is a euphemism for security cooperation on ‘negative interests.’”
Those negative interests are opposition to common regional security challenges like the above mentioned Iran and Islamist terrorist organizations. But to create an alliance, you need much more than common enemies, says Gilboa – you need common interests.
“Turkey ambivalent to ISIS – they share an ideology but still see it as a competitor. Erdogan would like to revive the Ottoman Empire where a non-Arab country leads the Arab world. Where you see this kind of geopolitics, there are a lot of opportunities for collaboration with these countries.”
And actually, “there’s criticism of Israel for not exploiting the situation,” says Gilboa.
New Countries?
When Arutz Sheva asked if Israel’s chances for regional alliances might actually increase if Syria were to collapse into several smaller states or the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) were to become a full-fledged independent state, Gilboa sees the idea as having validity.
“I think this is a valid point. I am only hearing that Israel is collaborating with the Kurds there and you can do a little bit more, but it is a lot more than it used to be. The alliance with Turkey had prohibited close collaboration with the Kurds. But now that the relationship is bad, this condition is nonexistent. I think indeed they could do more.”
Focusing on the much more developed autonomy, infrastructure and ambitions of the Iraqi Kurds than other groups that could emerge in Syria, Gilboa says Kurdistan could definitely become a game-changer in the region’s mixture of waxing and waning alliances. Most significantly, it could be something that does not necessarily replace Arab states as a reliable ally, but actually enhances the chances of a strong alliance between those Arab countries and Israel.
“I also think there is room for a strategic alliance between Israel and pro-US Arab states. Not just potential between Israel and the non-Arab groups, but collaboration with Israel, non-Arab states and those emerging new political entities in the Middle East. It could be done on a bilateral basis first – perhaps between Israel and Kurdistan – or multilateral. Once you gain influence with a group like the Kurds, you could translate that into the other (multilateral) type of alliance.”
Israel and Kurdistan have a long history of both covert and overt relations, especially on security. Kurdistan might then be an example of an emerging country where Israel could carry more influence than the Saudis (assuming Kurdistan is able to gain more autonomy or full sovereignty). Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic and military clout is still behind that of Israel, according to Gilboa.
“Saudi Arabia’s power is limited to its ability to manipulate oil markets, but their strength is precarious as major importers like the United States become self-sufficient in that realm. Even their military strength might turn out to be limited as its operation in Yemen is one of the largest it has ever undertaken. The assumption the Saudis might have strong influence over Pakistan and could persuade Islamabad to sell Riyadh a nuclear bomb to pull ahead of the Iranians has been thrown into doubt by Pakistan’s decision not to join the military operation against the Houthis.”
Ultimately, it might be Israel’s power that the Saudis need more.
Anything but a Saudi win (in Yemen) would not be good for Saudi Arabia,” emphasizes Gilboa. On the other hand, “Israel is much stronger diplomatically, militarily and its society is much more vibrant.”
Obama still believes in a nuclear deal, although Iran is skittish – even against a military option
April 12, 2015Obama still believes in a nuclear deal, although Iran is skittish – even against a military option, DEBKAfile, April 12, 2015
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter:The nuclear option is on the table
In the last two days, the Obama administration has swung between conflicting signals on the Iranian nuclear deal. Unable to wave away the tough conditions laid down by Tehran, the US president was nonetheless optimistic about a final deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program in comments he made at the Americas summit in Panama Sunday, April 12. Obama said he was not surprised at the way supreme leader Ali Khamenei had characterized the framework agreement, because “Iran has it own politics and hardliners who need to be satisfied, but there may be ways to structure the final nuclear deal that achieve core objectives while satisfying Iran’s pride.”
Just Saturday, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said: “We have the capability to shut down, set back and destroy the Iranian nuclear program.” He referred to the Massive Ordinance Penetrator-MOP, aka the “bunker buster” which is capable of penetrating fortified facilities up to 200 feet underground. “My job is among other things to make sure that the so-called military option is on the table,” he said.
Iranian media headlines screamed: “US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has threatened Tehran with war.”
This is exactly what Khamenei was aiming for when on April 9, he laid down two implacable terms for a deal: the removal of sanctions on the day a final deal is signed and a firm refusal to allow international inspections of Iran’s military sites.
Both of these provisions contradicted Washington’s presentation of its core conditions for a comprehensive accord as being gradual sanctions relief and intrusive inspections.
One of Khamenei’s objects was indeed to remove all suspicion on his home front that Iran’s negotiators had given ground to the world powers either in the overt agreement or in any secret annexes.
The Iranian media headlines achieved this purpose.
But underlying the vocal exchanges between the two capitals is Iran’s confidence that President Obama has discarded the option of military force against its nuclear sites. This confidence gave Tehran the edge in round after round of diplomacy with the US and the world powers.
Senior negotiator Foreign Minister Javad Zarif boasted on April 7, that Iran was “capable of producing an atomic bomb at any given moment,” and was contained solely by “religious Islamic injunctions.”
His boast was amply illustrated by the 20,000 centrifuges Iran had built up during the years of negotiations, plus thousands of advanced machines standing by to further accelerate uranium enrichment – even though its stockpile of 3.6 percent had soared to 10 tons – enough to build 4-6 nuclear bombs.
This edge further enabled the Iranians to bring the Arak heavy water plant capable of producing plutonium to its final stages of construction, without encountering a prohibition in Lausanne, any more than the Fordo enrichment site, stealthily installed some years ago, or its ballistic missile program were sentenced to be dismantled.
That Iran would continue to get away with its tactic of talking while enriching was borne out by Obama assurance Sunday that ways would be found “to structure the final nuclear deal that achieve core objectives while satisfying Iran’s pride.”
The negotiating tactics pursued by Secretary of State John Kerry in Lausanne and in the previous round in Geneva not only diluted America’s military option but virtually took it off the table – not only for America but for everyone else, including Israel. To put it back, much more is needed than Ashton Carter’s reference to the bunker-buster. To make it credible, the United States must rebuild its military presence in the Gulf and the Middle East – bringing back two aircraft carriers to reinforce the lone USS Carl Vinson, for starters.
This, however, would contradict the doctrine Obama expounded on April 2 when he said: “When you hear the inevitable critics of the deal sound off, ask them a simple question: Do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented and backed by the world’s powers, is a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?”
But he failed to explain the multiple versions of the Lausanne deal published in Washington, Tehran and latterly Paris, whose discrepancies can no longer be glossed over.
Speaking after his historic meeting with Cuba’s Raul Castro Sunday, Obama rebuked Republican senators for pointing this out, accusing them of “partisanship which has crossed all boundaries.”
Sen. John McCain shot back that discrepancies between US and Iranian versions of the deal extended to inspections, sanctions relief, and other key issues. ‘‘It is undeniable that the version of the nuclear agreement outlined by the Obama administration is far different from the one described by Iran’s supreme leader,’’ he said.
This exchange took place two days before members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee plan to vote on Senator Bob Corker’s bipartisan Iran nuclear agreement review act. This would give members of Congress 60 days after a nuclear deal is reached to decide if they want to waive sanctions against Iran.
But most of all it calls into question the Obama administration’s presentation of a tentative set of disputed concepts reached in Lausanne as a finalized framework, which left just a few loose ends for resolving by the next deadline of June 30. The very real gaps have been highlighted and exploited by Tehran.
US tactics don’t work well in the Persian bazaar, where the carpet seller pretends to be unwilling to sell his merchandise to an interested customer, while putting the price up in round after round of haggling.
Khamenei falls naturally into the role of the reluctant carpet seller when he is confronted with an especially keen American customer.
US Admits N. Korea, Maybe Iran, Can Now Target it with EMP-Nukes
April 12, 2015US Admits N. Korea, Maybe Iran, Can Now Target it with EMP-Nukes, Israel National News,Mark Langfan April 12, 2015
(Please see also, Why IS the US military moving back into ‘Stargate’ base deep under the Rocky Mountains a decade after it was abandoned? — DM)
Adm. Gortney revealed that America’s anti-missile missile shield is not only configured to repulse a North Korean missile, but an Iranian ICBM as well. The Admiral explained that the current assessment is that the threat of an ICBM EMP strike comes from North Korea and not from Iran, but that the system could handle both scenarios. “Our system is designed for North Korea, and if we get our assessment wrong, for Iran. Its [the US homeland missile shield] is designed to defend the nation [the homeland] against both those particular threats today,” he said.
US President Barack Obama is currently negotiating a deal with Iran that he himself has admitted would enable it to manufacture its own nuclear weapons, 12-13 years after it is signed.
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In a blockbuster admission, Admiral Bill Gortney, Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) disclosed that the Pentagon now believes North Korea has mastered the ability to miniaturize its nuclear bombs so they can be fitted onto their latest mobile KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which are capable of reaching the continental United States.
At the news conference, Adm. Gortney flatly stated, Pyongyang has “the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the homeland [the continental United States].” He expressed confidence that the US could knock down such a missile if launched by North Korea or its ally, Iran.
He also admitted, however, that it is “very difficult” for the US to counter the threat, because its intelligence is unable to follow the mobile ICBMs and give an efficient warning before they are launched.
The admission was accompanied by the announcement that NORAD is reopening its nuclear-EMP-proof Cheyenne Mountain bunker,
The KN-08 is a road-capable, highly mobile ICBM, which can be hidden anywhere throughout the North Korea and could be fired on a short-countdown virtually undetectable by American intelligence. As Adm. Gortney further explained about the North’s KN-08 ICBM, “It’s the relocatable [highly-mobile, can go anywhere – ML] target set that really impedes our ability to find, fix, and finish the [KN-08] threat. And as the [KN-08] targets move around and if we don’t have a persistent stare [i.e., the ability to monitor its location at all times – ML] and persistent [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] that we do not have over North Korea at this time, that relocatable nature makes it very difficult for us to be able to counter it.”
Despite Adm. Gortney’s concerns, he still believes that if a KN-08 was fired at the US homeland, in the Admiral’s words – “Should one get airborne and come at us [the US homeland], I’m confident we would be able to knock it down.”
Even if this is true, it is not clear if the US ballistic defense could knock down an incoming North Korean ICBM in time, if the nuke is intended as an EMP weapon, which explodes soon after re-entering the atmosphere.
System can defend against Iran strike, too
In another dramatic revelation, Adm. Gortney revealed that America’s anti-missile missile shield is not only configured to repulse a North Korean missile, but an Iranian ICBM as well. The Admiral explained that the current assessment is that the threat of an ICBM EMP strike comes from North Korea and not from Iran, but that the system could handle both scenarios. “Our system is designed for North Korea, and if we get our assessment wrong, for Iran. Its [the US homeland missile shield] is designed to defend the nation [the homeland] against both those particular threats today,” he said.
Experts have estimated that the KN-08 has a range of 5,600 miles and would be capable of hitting the US’s west coast if launched from North Korea. Experts also believe the missile is not accurate.
However, Adm. Gortney’s statement about North Korea’s nuke-capable KN-08 ICBM must be taken in the context of his simultaneous announcement of the Pentagon’s concern about an EMP-missile strikeon the United States homeland.
South Korean intelligence has long believed that North Korea has been developing an EMP-nuclear device. As early as June 2009, Kim Myong Chol, who was an “unofficial” spokesperson of the then-Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il, openly threatened use of a “high-altitude detonation of hydrogen bombs that would create a powerful electromagnetic pulse” bomb.” And, in November of 2013, South Korea’s intelligence service (NIS) issued a report to the South Korean parliament that North Korea had “purchased Russian electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weaponry to develop its own version” of a nuclear EMP device.
EMP strike on South Korea?
In 2005, then-USAF Major Colin Miller posited, in a public-domain US Air Force University thesis, that the North Koreans could tactically use a nuclear-EMP weapon on the Korean Peninsula to “level-the playing field” against the electronic dependent forces of the United States and South Korea.
The tactical North Korean EMP “decapitation” attack would likely bag as POWs the 40,000 living US marines now guarding South Koreabecause an EMP doesn’t kill human beings, only electronics.
A tactical nuclear-EMP aimed at South Korea would not need an ICBM to reach the 30-50 km level above the earth to explode. Rather, it would only need a much smaller short-range missile to achieve its suitable EMP-location above the Korean peninsula for an effective EMP detonation.
Given the degree of cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and North Korea, it is highly likely that any nuclear-EMP-technology mastered by North Korea has already been shared with Iran. Therefore, the EMP-proliferation danger from North Korea to Iran is a catastrophic danger.
North Korea has been threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US for two years, as explained in this ABC News report from 2013. At the time of the report, North Korea was said to be “years away” from a developing a missile that could hit the US: These “years” have apparently passed.
And yet, inexplicably, US President Barack Obama is currently negotiating a deal with Iran that he himself has admitted would enable it to manufacture its own nuclear weapons, 12-13 years after it is signed.
US Sec. Defense on Iran nuclear facilities: Bunker buster bombs ‘ready to go’
April 11, 2015US Sec. Defense on Iran nuclear facilities: Bunker buster bombs ‘ready to go’ Jerusalem Post, April 11, 2015
Ashton Carter (C), US President Barack Obama (L) and US Vice President Joseph Biden (R).. (photo credit:REUTERS)
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter addressed the possibility of a military option against Iran, saying that bunker busting bombs, meant to penetrate Iran’s underground facilities, are “ready to go.”
Speaking to CNN in an interview aired Saturday morning, Carter said that the deal between Iran and the P5+1, the basics of which were recently laid out in during negotiations in Switzerland, will hinge not on “trust but rather on “verification.”
“We have the capability to shut down, set back and destroy the Iranian nuclear program and I believe the Iranians know that and understand that,” Carter said, indicating the US’s willingness to utilize high-powered bombs if Tehran does not abide by the deal reached in the Swiss resort town where the various delegations were hosted during the eight day marathon negotiations.
The reference to the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, or MOPS, whose reach extends 200 feet below ground, is the first that any American figure has made concerning substantive military planning against the Islamic Republic’s fortified subterranean facilities.
One such facility is Fordow, near the city of Qom, where Iran maintains a facility dedicated to producing 20% enriched medium-grade uranium. Tehran insists that this would only be used for civilian purposes, a claim that has failed to assuage fears that it could then be further enriched to 90%, the necessary amount needed to produce weaponized material.
While he voiced a more hawkish tone than the White House, Carter echoed Washington’s preference for a diplomatic solution, explaining that negotiations would actually be a more long-lasting method of ensuring a nuclear-bomb free Iran since “military action is reversible overtime.”
Asked about another key factor affecting US interests int the Middle East, namely the White Houses’ willingness to deploy ground troops against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, Carter suggested that the administration has not yet reached that conclusion, but that he “would not hesitate to give that advice.”
Iran Sitting on Nuclear Weapons and ICBMs Makes Our World Safer According to the Administration
April 10, 2015Iran Sitting on Nuclear Weapons and ICBMs Makes Our World Safer According to the Administration
by Sara Noble April 10, 2015 Via the Independent Sentinel
(An ICBM breakout this year? I imagine the payload is not far behind. – LS)
The so-called nuclear agreement told Tehran they could: keep their underground Fordow fuel enrichment plant; they didn’t have to dismantle their Arak plutonium facility; they had the right to enrich uranium; and the centrifuges spinning are fine as well. Iran is now insisting that sanctions must be immediately canceled and the inspections are to be limited with no oversight of military dimensions.
The nuclear agreement is not an agreement at all.
One should always be suspicious of miraculous last-minute deals. It was more likely a tactic employed to keep the talks going without congressional interference.
More important than what is in the agreement, is what is not.
Since 2014, we have known that Iran is close to developing ICBMs, yet President Obama has sought to dismantle or disrupt U.S. ICBM systems and has not included ICBMs in the current nuclear talks with Iran. In fact, the deal is leaving in place enough nuclear capability for Iran to put nuclear warheads of some ICBMs even before the sunset clause is reached.
Why is Iran building them? You don’t build ICBMs in order to deliver insignificant explosives. Their only purpose is to carry nuclear warheads. Iran does not need an ICBM to hit Tel Aviv. Intercontinental missiles are for reaching other continents like North America.
The nuclear agreement is the end of nonproliferation. Iran is a rogue state that is illegally enriching with our blessing. The arms race has already begun in fragile countries with paper governments and transitory values.
President Obama’s alleged goal was nonproliferation to give us a safer world, but among the many mistakes he is making with the nuclear agreement is ignoring Iran’s missile development.
The 2014 Annual Report on Military Power of Iran stated that “Iran could have an ICBM capability by 2015,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee last July when the report became public.
“We have known this [Iran’s interest in developing ICBMs] since well before the Obama administration,” Rogers said. “This unchanging fact is one of the reasons I have been and continue to be concerned about the administration’s efforts to dismantle our missile defenses.”
Rogers said that suggestions that somehow the danger of Iran’s developing long-range missile capabilities has diminished, or that the Pentagon report has altered U.S. intelligence assessments “is untrue.”
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency confirmed that Iran is close to having ICBM capability.
James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jan. 29, 2014, that “Iran would choose a ballistic missile as its preferred method of delivering nuclear weapons.”
There is some dispute over the year, but whether or not Iranian ICBMs will be ready this year or five years from now, there is no question that Iran is developing a robust missile program.
The concern that they will have ICBMs by 2015 appears to be jumping the gun but it’s not far off.
Iran is developing ballistic missiles with a range of up to 6,000 kilometers, capable of holding parts of the American homeland at risk but it might not come for five years or more.
According to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, such capability is still only aspirational because as scientist David Wright points out, building ICBMs is tricky. In fact, it is unlikely that Iran would be capable of fielding an ICBM until 2020 at the earliest and even then its missiles would be “too large and cumbersome to be placed on a mobile platform.”
Iran currently has the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East. Israel has more capable ballistic missiles, but fewer in number and type.
Iran is currently reliant on foreign suppliers for key ingredients and components which have not been readily forthcoming from Russia and China up until now, but Iran will come into large sums of money when the sanctions are removed. They are quickly becoming a powerful and dominant force in the region. Iran has also just forged a partnership with Russia.
Iran’s space program, which includes the successful launch of a small, crude satellite into low earth orbit using the Safir carrier rocket, proves the country’s growing ambitions and technical prowess.
Iran has an expanding nuclear and missile program representing Iran’s ultimate goals of attacking what it calls “the little Satan” (Israel) and “the great Satan” (the United States).
In a video obtained by Israel in January of this year, a new and previously hidden missile and launch site in Iran was at first thought to be capable of sending a rocket into space or launching an ICBM.
While this idea has been debunked as a misreading of satellite imagery by outfits such as Janes 360, the same publication said the facility is not yet complete. They also advised that while Iran claims they do not need missiles with a longer range than what they currently have, there are indications that they continue to work on long-range rockets.
Jane’s has seen a surge of activity at the Bid Ganeh missile development facility and Iran has invested significant resources into building a new launch facility near Shahrud that “could test longer-range, solid-fuel missiles”.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., recently made a stunning comment at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran.
“The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran,” the Democratic lawmaker said.
He has been an outspoken critic of Obama’s approach with Iran and Cuba. He is now under indictment on corruption charges. While the investigation into his dealings has been ongoing for two years, the timing of the indictment is curious.
Republican Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told Jerusalem news agencies he can’t understand why the president promises to veto upcoming congressional legislation about Iran even before it’s been written.
“For Congress not to have the ability to weigh in on this, which has such geo-political importance and where Congress has played such an important role, is ridiculous and candidly irresponsible for Congress not to play a role,” Corker said.
Wouldn’t we all like to know the answer to that and as to why ICBMs are being ignored. It appears that Obama only intends to kick the can down the road to the next president while setting up a more dangerous chessboard on which to play. We should keep in mind that Iranians invented the game of chess and they lie.
The people behind the Obama platform, fully support a policy of appeasement and say things like this.
This is why our Constitution has safeguards to prevent one man from ruling alone. Hypothetically and using an extreme but not impossible example, one man alone could be a fool, a subversive, or a madman. Unfortunately, Congress has been rendered near-useless and there is a wide opening for fatal mistakes.
President Obama thinks ignoring Iran’s ICBM aspirations and their sitting on nuclear weapons makes for a safer world.
We have already appeased evil leaders, ignoring reality, sacrificing allies, and it hasn’t worked. It can’t work, it will never work.
Andrew Klavan: Obama’s Clown-Car Diplomacy
April 10, 2015The Fable of the Bees
April 10, 2015The Fable of the Bees, Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Continetti, April 10, 2015
(Please see also, 28 Times Obama Said He’d Prevent Iran from Getting a Nuclear Weapon | SUPERcuts! #184 — DM)
Complacency is an understandable response to peace and security. Some problems do go away if you leave them alone. But the world is not the Rose Garden, and the consequences of nuclear attack or nuclear war would be far worse than bug bites. Sometimes it’s right to worry, it’s right to be afraid, it’s right to have the flyswatter nearby. The hornets will strike, and when they do it will be more painful if we have let our guard down.
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A beautiful day: warm, sunny. A garden in bloom filled with the laughter of children. Frolic beneath the whitewashed façade of a stately and classic old house. A friendly man in dress shirt and trousers reads aloud. Then: screams.
The young ones listening to the man are terrified. Bees have been spotted. The kids are afraid. The man, a father of two, projects calm. He pauses from his book—Where the Wild Things Are—and says, “It’s okay guys. Bees are good. They won’t land on you. They won’t sting you. They’ll be okay.”
Doesn’t work. The bees are buzzing, menacing. A few of the kids cry out. The man changes his strategy. He admonishes the children. “Hold on, hold on, you guys are wild things,” he says. “You’re not supposed to be afraid of bees.” Laughter from parents, normalcy restored. The man resumes his tale.
An amusing interruption of an otherwise placid White House Easter Egg Roll? Undoubtedly. But some in the press said more was going on, that this encounter between the innocents, President Obama, and the swarm held a more profound significance.
“‘Bees are good,’ Obama says as children scream,” read the Politico headline. “Perhaps no president in history has made a stronger case for protecting pollinators than Barack Obama,” wrote the Washington Post. “Obama trying to reassure children about bees is a perfect metaphor for his foreign policy,” pronounced a writer for Vox.com, who most recently confused New Hampshire with Vermont.
I say Vox.com is right. “Bees won’t sting you” is an apt slogan for Obama’s attitude toward the world. But I say too that his attitude is patronizing, unrealistic, dangerous. Bees do sting. And kill. And the real wasps of the world, the terrorists and criminals and psychopaths and autocrats, with their knives and box-cutters and bombs and guns and tanks and missiles and rockets and ICBMS—they sting, they hurt, they kill even more. They won’t be “okay.”
“If you stay calm and more or less ignore the bee,” writes Vox.com, “the odds are that things will be fine.” Sure, someone one day will be hurt, even die. “But panicking at every bee sighting would be counterproductive.” In the real world of states and ideologies and nuclear proliferation, “America’s superpower status should make us willing to embark on new diplomatic initiatives and avoid counterproductive panics over minor issues.”
We have here all of the components of the liberal mindset: the threat deflation, the technocratic elitism, the preoccupation with the behavior of the stronger party vis-à-vis the weaker one, the depersonalization of non-Western actors, whose ideas and motives and ambitions and emotions are justified or ignored or explained away.
Bees aren’t dangerous and, Obama says, “Iran understands that they cannot fight us.” John Kerry tells Congress, “We are actually living in a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world,” as a Caliphate is proclaimed in Mesopotamia, as Russia threatens nuclear war, devours Ukraine, and buzzes NATO allies, as jihadist attacks spread, as China builds a system of artificial islandsto expand its regional power.
Worried? Settle down. You’re being irrational, inflating threats, acting out like a spoiled and ignorant brat. Liberals know better. We have this situation under control. Leave it to us—and do not, if you are a member of Congress, try to interfere. It’s America that must not panic but exercise restraint, to bind itself in a thousand petty contracts and agreements, in corrupt institutions, to guarantee that we don’t act rashly, aggressively, or alone.
What most concerns liberals is not the barbarism of our enemies but our conduct toward them. Not the habits of the bee but the decorum of the children. For who can control bees? They behave instinctively. And who can influence Putin? He’s encircled, stuck in the last century. The Iranians? We burned them pretty badly with that whole Mossadegh thing. Terrorism? We can pursue the terrorists, for sure, and we can apprehend them or kill them. They’re not warriors but criminals, and the grievances and furies that drive them can’t be suppressed through force alone. They have to burn themselves out.
Comforting thoughts. And especially attractive to Americans, who are protected by two great oceans, who exist in an unacknowledged confederation with our northern neighbor and whose biggest challenge with the citizens of our southern one is that they all seem to want to move here. Insanely rich, we are anxious over having too much to eat, over the consequences of increasing longevity. We Democrats prefer commerce to conflict, domestic affairs to international ones. We can afford not to panic. Or so it seems.
But try telling an Israeli that bees won’t sting. A Syrian. A Kurd. A Ukrainian. A Nigerian, or a Kenyan. You most likely will be laughed at. Revealed as naïve. Explain to the Saudis and Jordanians and Egyptians, to the Poles and Lithuanians, to the Japanese and South Koreans that America is engaging with rogue regimes because to respond to them in the traditional postwar manner would be “counterproductive.” Our allies will laugh.
Complacency is an understandable response to peace and security. Some problems do go away if you leave them alone. But the world is not the Rose Garden, and the consequences of nuclear attack or nuclear war would be far worse than bug bites. Sometimes it’s right to worry, it’s right to be afraid, it’s right to have the flyswatter nearby. The hornets will strike, and when they do it will be more painful if we have let our guard down.
In which case there will be only one option.
28 Times Obama Said He’d Prevent Iran from Getting a Nuclear Weapon | SUPERcuts! #184
April 10, 2015Cartoon of the day
April 10, 2015Via You Viewed Editorial, April 10, 2015
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
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