I watch with interest the brouhaa over the remarks of George W. Bush in the Knesset a couple of days ago. ( A legislative body he loves more than his own Congress, I might add). Basically, you can either think he is giving great oration or attacking the other side when he stated:
Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
Some people suggest that if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of our enemies, and America rejects it utterly. Israel’s population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you.
The media have fixated on the first paragraph-they need to look harder at the second. And people need to read Bush’s whole speech-because when you do you will find that he was speaking, as he often does, in code words for a designated audience both in Israel and the US. Go back and look how he started it:
What followed was more than the establishment of a new country. It was the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David — a homeland for the chosen people Eretz Yisrael.
People don’t use those words, Eretz Yisrael, by accident. They do it deliberately and it is designed to warm the hearts of the John Hagee’s and Rev. Dobson’s of the world and also infuriate any Arab within listening distance. He should know better-assuming he wants to be even handed and promote dialogue between Israel and the Arabs.
Except of course, that’s not what Bush really wants. He wants the Temple rebuilt. The Arabs know that by the way.
It is also seems ironic to me-that Bush talks about not negotiating with terrorist groups when the nation he is standing and speaking in was the direct result of a terrorist insurgency.
Whoa! Hold the phone! Israel was formed as a result of the Holocaust.
Ummm…..No.
Israel was born despite the Holocaust. Every visiting foreign dignitary is taken to Yad Vashem, the official Holocaust memorial. The route proceeds from exhibits on the horrors of the death camps to the establishment of the Jewish state. The stress on the Holocaust reflects the emotional trauma that the horror still inflicts on Jews. It also underpins the political message that Jews can only be safe in their own state. But an additional message is that Israel was created as a response to the genocide perpetrated against Jews in Europe. That’s a historical mistake, and promoting it is politically costly for Israel. As an organized political movement, Zionism began in 1897, decades before the Nazis took power in Germany. Modern Jewish migration to Palestine began even earlier, not just from Europe but also from Yemen, Central Asia, and other parts of the Muslim world. Early Zionists did see anti-Semitism as proof that in an age of nation-states, Jews needed one of their own. But they built their plans on Europe’s Jews moving to Palestine. Those numbers would ensure that Jews would grow from a small minority to an overwhelming majority in the country.
In 1939, there were 8.3 million Jews in the territory that would come under Axis rule. Six million were murdered. The Holocaust orphaned the Jewish independence movement, whose largest source of support and immigrants was wiped out. The state that was established was much weaker than it would have been.
When Israel bases its public relations on the Holocaust, it unintentionally lends support to the Arab argument that Palestinians are paying for Europe’s sins, a talking point intended to undercut Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish home and shift Western support to the Palestinians.
Bush also made it clear that Israel is threatened by Iran and he will not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. The unspoken implication is that Israel will be destroyed if they get one.
Sounds good but it ignores why Iran wants a bomb-they have nothing in alternative. And it gives them a card they can play, with both Israel and the United States. Bush ignores the real reason that we need to be talking to Iran:
Although all nuclear proliferation is dangerous, the rhetoric ignores the regional power balance. Israel does not normally say it has nuclear arms. But Olmert slipped in 2006, classifying Israel as a nuclear power. Foreign reports sometimes refer to Israel’s presumed second-strike capability, the ability to destroy an enemy even if the enemy were to strike first. Such deterrence kept the Soviet Union and the United States from using nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
A common argument is that deterrence won’t work as it did with the Soviets. Iran’s fundamentalist leaders would supposedly be willing to commit national suicide to fulfill their irrational ideology. Experience shows, however, that Iranian leaders share the Soviets’ caution. Iran agreed to a cease-fire in the war with Iraq once Iraqi missiles began falling on Tehran. The ayatollahs were willing to sacrifice soldiers—but not to pay a higher price. The threat of mushroom clouds will concentrate their thinking about Israel wonderfully.
It’s true that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s extreme anti-Israel rhetoric and Holocaust denials are perfectly pitched to frighten Jews. But when Mohammad Khatami was president of Iran, we were told that his moderation made little difference because real power lay with the ayatollahs. For the same reason, one should avoid overestimating Ahmadinejad’s clout.
Iran’s underlying reason for wanting nukes is nationalist and fairly pragmatic: It seeks to assert its role as a regional power and to deter other nuclear powers. The real risk is that it will set off a regional race for the bomb. The more fingers there are on more buttons, the greater the chance of a mistake. Complacency would be a mistake—but so is panic.”
The partisan political rhetoric also ignores a fundamental fact that has occurred in the last few months. The very government that Bush was resolutly vowing to remain steadfast in front of, has been urging him almost weekly to begin those very negotiations that he eschews.
Like the president who leads it, the Bush administration has been known for holding fast to its views and seeing the world through an ideological lens. That world view explains in part why the administration often has refused to negotiate or even talk with what it considers to be some of the world’s most odious regimes. But, in its twilight, the Bush administration has shown hints of stepping back from its blanket refusal to engage some adversarial regimes and militant groups. The tactical shift, however sporadic, is no doubt a byproduct of the fact that there is now little time left for an administration hungry for foreign-policy victories.
But other factors may have influenced the administration as well. Among them, the advice from some veteran former Israeli security and diplomatic officials who have been making a steady pilgrimage to Washington in recent months to urge officials to reconsider the administration’s ideological position of not engaging with hostile regimes and terrorist groups.
The whole thing about not talking to the US enemies ignores a few other things as well.
1) Sovereign nations talk to each other all the time. The US talks to Saudi Arabia and its government is hardly one that “promotes freedom and democracy”. And I don’t see our embassy in the biggest dictatorship of all, China, closing anytime soon. The US actually maintained an embassy in Nazi Germany until 7 Decemeber 1941. There is a big difference between talk between nations and talk with terrorist groups. Obama has actually been very clear on that point.
2) The US will have to talk with Iran at some point. The only real question is how and to whom. McCain, if he becomes President will probably have some sort of NK like discussions with Iran. Not with the Ackmewhathisname, but with intermediaries just like Bush himself does with the NORKS. It is also important to remember that diplomacy does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in concert with other things-like two CVBG’s steaming through the straits of Hormuz. The important distinction is that you are not getting a lot of Americans killed while pressuring Iran. And it reminds Iran the roof will cave in if they do anything stupid.
While all the while allowing dialogue to move forward. We should also think back to the good old days when we overthrew Iranian governments we did not like-remember Mossagedeh? Akmawhathis name is not as secure politically as he lets on. And he will be standing for some sort of re-election ( a loose term I know). Back in the good old days we made bad guy nations collapse from within.
Like the Russians.
Finally, ask yourself this question. Is the United States-or Israel for that matter-any safer vis a vis Iran than it was in 2000? The answer to that question is no. In fact, it can be argued that if anything , US policy in Iraq created a vacuum that Iran jumped into. Nations act in self interest. Unless the United States really wants to invade all comers-in which case it needs a bigger Armed Forces-the US sometimes has to talk with people we don’t always agree with.
After all, it was not appeasement because Chamberlain talked with Hitler. It was appeasement because he gave him the Sudetenland. No one is talking about doing anything like that here.
So this is good. Perhaps Obama can rally the Dems from their solace and actually debate the Republicans point for point about GWB’s misguided approach on foreign policy. There is more than one way to fuel Europe………………………………………………….