Former Netanyahu aide Joel C. Rosenberg – surprise! – lambastes the president for dithering on intervention in Syria and thereby jeopardizing Israel’s war to remain the sole nuclear power in the Middle East:
If President Obama is so distrusted by the American people and her representatives in Congress that he cannot build solid support for limited military strikes against Syria’s chemical-weapons facilities, the Israelis are coming to the painful realization that there is no chance for the president to pull together support for preemptive military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Zero. Nada. Zilch. … That means one thing: The Israelis are on their own, and now they know it.
Enter AIPAC. Next week, that formidable group will storm the Hill for another war, even as Israelis themselves are content to allow the civil war to burn both sides in Syria out. It’s not in Israel’s interests that either Assad or the Jihadist rebels gain the upper hand. And yet they will happily ask the United States to risk its own potential enmeshment in a wider war – just to keep the conflict going. But AIPAC is fixated in forcing Obama to start yet another major war in the Middle East; and AIPAC never loses. They’ll threaten Democrats with de-funding and ostracism; they’ll win over Christianist Republicans with religious arguments about the need for Israel and America to stand together Muslim Jihadists. Goldblog takes things down a notch:
I believe it would be a mistake to assume that just because the president is hesitant on Syria he will be hesitant on Iran. Why? Because the president has defined Iran’s nuclear program as a core threat to U.S. national security. He has made it clear that only two challenges in the Middle East rise to the level of core American national interests: The mission to destroy al-Qaeda and the goal of stopping the Iranian nuclear program. He has stated repeatedly, over many years, that it is unacceptable for Iran to cross the nuclear threshold, and his administration has worked assiduously to sanction Iran in the most punishing of ways.
I hope Netanyahu listens to Jeffrey on this. And Rouhani does as well.
The Dish 