BROUHAHA: What a curious quarrel: President Bush, in
Israel, describes the policy of appeasement that led to World War II and the
Holocaust, and Senator Barack Obama and his supporters take umbrage, claiming he
has been viciously insulted.
Instead of protesting that Bush has implied
that Obama would be soft on terrorist masters (because Obama has said he would
meet - personally and without preconditions - with Iranian terrorist master
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even as Ahmadinejad's regime is killing Americans in Iraq,
squashing freedom in Lebanon, developing nuclear weapons and threatening Israel
with genocide), Obama might simply have said: "On this one point, Bush and I
agree. I, too, would oppose a policy of appeasement. I, too, look not to Neville
Chamberlain but to Winston Churchill as a model."
Politics aside (if we
can manage that for a minute), the key issue is not whether you talk to
terrorists, despots and tyrants. The issue is what you say - in particular (1)
what you are willing to offer and (2) what you are prepared to threaten.
A president who doesn't know is a president who isn't ready to
negotiate. A president should sit down with a sworn enemy only when it's clear
that a deal - beneficial to our side - is not merely possible but imminent.
Anything else is diplomatic malpractice that can only lead to diplomatic defeat.
Also, while everyone is by now familiar with Bush's controversial
snippet, how many have taken the trouble to read the passage in context? Do so.
It's below. Then decide whether you think these lines were "outrageous" (as Sen.
Joe Biden said) or "disgraceful" (as Sen. John Kerry said) or "reckless and
reprehensible" (as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said) or "beneath the
dignity of the president" (as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said) or "a cheap
political attack" (as DNC chairman Howard Dean said):
[I]t is a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes
more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy in the Middle East
than any other nation in the world. We believe that religious liberty is
fundamental to a civilized society. So we condemn anti-Semitism in all forms -
whether by those who openly question Israel's right to exist, or by others who
quietly excuse them. We believe that free people should strive and
sacrifice for peace. So we applaud the courageous choices Israeli's leaders have
made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no
nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its
destruction. We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve
political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together
against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our
resolve. ... Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the
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 I
could only have talked to Hitler, all 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 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
the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel's population may be
just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million
strong, because the United States of America stands with you. America
stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists
sanctuary. America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons
ambitions. Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the
world's deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future
generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a
nuclear weapon. Negotiation is not a policy. It is a technique. Saying that one
favors negotiation with, say, Iran, has no more intellectual content than saying
one favors using a spoon. For what? Under what circumstances? With what
objectives? ... Legitimacy and international acceptability are qualities
terrorists crave, and should therefore not be conferred casually, if at
all. nuclear-armed clerical regime is a serious menace, and ...
successful diplomacy with Tehran without the threat of force is fantasy. How to
handle Iran may well be the decisive foreign-policy question of the 2008
presidential campaign. Are the political ambitions of the broader jihad totalitarian,
genocidal, millenarian - in a word, nuts? Or are they negotiable? ...
Here are some words of Hussein Massawi, the former leader of Hezbollah:
"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to
eliminate you." has isolated Iran from the rest of the world, to its severe and
ongoing detriment. ... If a President Obama were to meet with President
Ahmadinejad, it would send a signal to the Iranian people that they are not
isolated but that the rest of the world has come to respect them and to have to
deal with them. The leading argument for toppling the current regime will have
been fatally undermined. Saudis to Bush: No reduction of oil prices. Bush to Saudis:
OK, we'll give you nukes President George W. Bush and King Abdullah formalized new
cooperation on Friday between the kingdom and the United States on a range of
topics, including the development of civilian nuclear energy in Saudi Arabia and
US protection of Saudi oil fields. The agreements came as Saudi Arabian
leaders made clear that they saw no reason to increase oil production until
their customers demanded it, apparently rebuffing a request made by the
president directly to the king in an effort to stay the soaring US gasoline
prices. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, will increase crude
production next month in response to rising demand from its customers and a
request by U.S. President George W. Bush to ease the strain of record oil
prices. The country will raise output by 300,000 barrels a day to 9.45
million barrels a day in June, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al- Naimi said in Riyadh
today, following a meeting between Bush and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.
[E]thanol and other biofuels are being blamed for everything from
global warming, to increased pollution, to the sharp rise in food prices that
have triggered riots in parts of Asia and Africa. ... [T]he notion that
ethanol production is the driving cause of rising food prices simply isn't true.
The underlying cause is the emergence of this global middle class and the
inevitable glitches in supply and demand that happen along the way.
... There are two additional reasons why food prices are soaring: First,
the cost of oil has been skyrocketing, and as the price of oil rises, so too
does the price of everything else - including food. Second, there's a lot of
market speculation going on right now. If you were wondering what those greedy
imbeciles who wrecked the housing market with their sub-prime mortgage gimmicks
and funds are up to these days - well, they're speculating in commodities
futures including wheat and corn. ... In any case, has everyone in
Washington completely forgotten what launched the biofuels industry in the first
place? Apparently they have, so let's remind ourselves what all this is really
about: We import a lot of our oil, and some of the countries we buy it from
don't like us. Indeed, several of them would like to see us dead. (Killing your
customers makes no sense as a business plan, but that's the Mideast for you.) So
we want to become energy independent, or at the very least we want to reduce our
dependency on foreign oil. There's a major role here for biofuels, as there are
roles for nuclear power, solar power, wind power, and whatever new kind of power
some American genius might invent in the coming years. It was our national,
bipartisan decision to reach for energy independence that gave rise to the
biofuels industry. In fact, ethanol is already reducing our dependence on
foreign oil. For instance, in most states now when you stop for gas you're
pumping E-10 fuel into your tank. That's gas comprised of 10 percent ethanol -
which means we've already reduced our dependence on foreign oil for driving our
cars by that amount. Not bad at all, for starters. ... In the modern
world, oil is to an economy what blood is to a body. A child's body contains
just three to four quarts of blood. An adult's body contains five to six quarts
of blood. As the world economy grows - as those tens of millions of people
emerge from poverty - it requires a larger flow of energy to make their
emergence from poverty possible. ... Achieving energy independence is too
important to let become entangled in politics or ideology. Those calling for biofuels to take a back seat in our energy plan
have waged a relentless campaign of misinformation, blaming U.S. policies in
support of ethanol and biodiesel for inflation in the grocery aisle. Frightening
Americans by arguing that ethanol made from corn is somehow taking food from the
world's hungry might be sensational, but it is not supported by the facts.
Palestinian suffering is, of course, real and heart-wrenching, but
what the Arab narrative deliberately distorts is the cause of its own tragedy:
the folly of its own fanatical leadership - from Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand
mufti of Jerusalem (Nazi collaborator, who spent World War II in Berlin), to
Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser to Yasser Arafat to Hamas of today - that repeatedly
chose war rather than compromise and conciliation. Palestinian
dispossession is a direct result of the Arab rejection, then and now, of a
Jewish state of any size on any part of the vast lands the Arabs claim as their
exclusive patrimony. That was the cause of the war 60 years ago that, in turn,
caused the refugee problem. And it remains the cause of war today. Six
months before Israel's birth, the U.N. had decided by a two-thirds majority that
the only just solution to the British departure from Palestine would be the
establishment of a Jewish state and an Arab state side by side. The undeniable
fact remains: The Jews accepted that compromise; the Arabs rejected
it. With a vengeance. On the day the British pulled down their flag,
Israel was invaded by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan and Iraq - 650,000 Jews
against 40 million Arabs. ... Look at Gaza today. No Israeli occupation,
no settlements, not a single Jew left. The Palestinian response? Unremitting
rocket fire killing and maiming Israeli civilians. The declared casus belli of
the Palestinian government in Gaza behind these rockets? The very existence of a
Jewish state. Israel's crime is not its policies but its insistence on
living. On the day the Arabs - and the Palestinians in particular - make a
collective decision to accept the Jewish state, there will be peace, as Israel
proved with its treaties with Egypt and Jordan. Until that day, there will be
nothing but war. And every "peace process", however cynical or well-meaning,
will come to nothing. Israel used to be the only democracy in the Middle East. That's no
longer true, as democratic institutions take root in Turkey and Iraq. But Israel
remains especially admirable in its insistence that elected leaders be
answerable to the law as well as the public. Even in France, former President
Jacques Chirac remained beyond the reach of investigators looking into similar
bribery allegations while he remained in high office. Israel's fidelity
to the rule of law is all the more remarkable given that it has spent its entire
existence in a state of siege. Israel's enemies promised its destruction in 1948
and 1967, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does so today. Those threats must be taken
seriously, especially as Iran and Syria consolidate their grip on Lebanon and
deepen ties with Palestinian radicals in Gaza. Israel has nonetheless
consistently managed to defeat its enemies, often by means of pre-emption. These
victories have served American as well as Israeli interests, not least when they
destroyed the nuclear plans of Saddam Hussein in 1981 at Osirak and, more
recently, of Bashar Assad. We hope that Israel will someday live at peace
with its neighbors. But its first obligation must be to its own defense as long
as its neighbors still deny the Jewish state's right to exist. We're confident
Israel will continue to thrive as a great nation - especially as it adds the
principles of free markets to its longstanding belief in the dignity of free
men.
The entire speech is here.
Criticisms of the speech are here.
John Bolton writes:
More here.
A Wall Street Journal editorial is
here.
Reuel Marc Gerecht writes that a
More here.
Mark Steyn says the policy debate boils
down to this:
More here.
Dick Morris writes that the reason not to
negotiate with Ahmadinejad is based on the need to convey to the Iranian people
that he
More here.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: The UN
has no plans to do anything about Iran (or Sudan or Zimbabwe or fill in the
blank). But the UN does have plans to investigate the U.S. on charges of racism.
More here.
FUELISHNESS: Andy McCarthy notes
the following headline by Robert Spencer at Jihad
Watch:
He quotes the AP:
The nuclear power should go well with that $20 bill in
military arms we sold the KSA last summer (while the Saudis continue to press
Hamas's case). But not to worry: the Saudis will continue to depress the price
of all that wonderful literature they provide us on the, er,
internal struggle for personal betterment through good works in
society.
However, Bloomberg has this:
What really happened? Apparently the Saudis are willing to produce
a little more oil, enough to allow Bush to say he is coming home from Riyadh
with more than a T-shirt.
What should be clear by now: Persuading Saudi
Arabia to pump and sell more oil in exchange for huge sums of money which the
Saudis then use to fund anti-American terrorists, incite anti-American hatred,
purchase American businesses (including media companies) and influence America's
universities is a rotten deal.
The WSJ on "beseeching the Saudis" here.
America has not had a sensible - or even
sane - energy policy for more than half a century. (And what exactly does the
Department of Energy do? I mean that as a serious question. If you have an
answer, please email me.) Part of the reason: powerful interest groups oppose
drilling for oil in Alaska and off America's coasts, oppose using American coal,
and oppose building nuclear plants (here at home - we're apparently going to
help the Saudis with theirs while the Russians help Iran). These groups also
oppose the development of bio-fuels, and will do nothing serious to create a
competitive market in transportation fuels by putting on the road vehicles that
can utilize alternative fuels.
Fred Barnes writes here on the domestic oil sources America could be
utilizing - but probably won't.
Regarding biofuels, Herbert Meyer, who
served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of
Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence
Council, agrees here with what I wrote here, and what former National Security Advisor Bud
McFarlane wrote here. A few excerpts:
Sen. Tim
Johnson writes:
More here.
MORE CHICKENS COMING HOME TO
ROOST: Jordanian University lecturer Ibrahim Alloush recommends that suicide
bombers be equipped with small nuclear weapons. Our friends at MEMRI have more
here.
Alloush has lived and studied in the U.S.
(probably through some American-taxpayer funded program). More here.
And here's his comment on 9/11: "America
brought the 9/11 attacks upon itself. Okay? This is a case of the chicken coming
home to roost. In other words, you have brought this problem upon yourselves,"
he said.
I wonder if he ever visited any churches in the Chicago
area.
ISRAEL'S CRIME: Charles Krauthammer writes:
More here.
The Wall Street Journal
editorializes:
More here.
- Cliff May
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