"On March 12, [IDF Chief of Staff] Ashkenazi left for a five-day visit to
the United States meant to lobby the Obama administration to abandon the
planned U.S. dialogue with Iran. Ashkenazi, scheduled to meet with the
American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, was expected to have brought new
Israeli intelligence on Iran's nuclear weapons and missile programs.
But the diplomatic sources said the administration made it clear that nobody
in a policy-making position was available to sit with Ashkenazi. This
included the president, Vice President Joseph Biden, Gates, National
Intelligence director Dennis Blair or Mullen." From the Washington
Tribune.
Has the U.S. abandoned Israel? Melanie Phillips says yes. " It is obvious
to me that most Americans don't understand or don't care what is actually
happening in the Middle East relative to Israel. People don't understand
history, or have been subjected to revisionist history based on lies and
more lies. Add to that a media that fails to provide an accurate assessment
of what is taking place in Israel, in Gaza, and you end up with a very bad
situation for Israel.' Quote from an unnamed U.S. intelligence sourse.
Naomi
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Against this
By Melanie Phillips
MONDAY, 23RD MARCH 2009
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3464576/allies-no-longer-against-this.thtml
The awesome scale of Obama's ineptitude over his ruinous 'fiscal stimulus'
package and in particular the bail-out and bonus debacle over AIG has
provoked a weeping and a wailing and a rending of garments among the
faithful, yea even unto the New York Times, as they witness The One not
walking on water but risking pulling out the plug on America Inc.
altogether.
What has been all but overlooked in the pandemonium is the catastrophic
damage he is doing abroad to the prospects for the defence of the free
world. His recklessly misjudged televised appeal to Iran – in which he
didn't even distinguish between the regime and the oppressed people of Iran,
whom he effectively threw under the bus by pointedly recognising 'the
Islamic Republic', ie the regime – brought a swift response from that regime
of contemptuous disdain:
In an unusually swift reaction to Mr Obama's overture, Aliakbar Javanfekr,
an aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Iran welcomed 'the interest
of the American government to settle differences'. But he said that the US
government 'should realise its previous mistakes and make an effort to amend
them'. In an almost simultaneous announcement, from Iran's energy minister,
Parviz Fattah, said that the country would 'finish and operate' its
controversial Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant by the end of the year.
To ram the point home, Ahmadinejad added:
'The huge political and security crises have become deeper and deeper.
Today, the pervasive and huge economic crisis indicates the failure of the
materialistic powers in their thoughts, policies and expansionist goals.
These mean that the Western Liberalism and materialistic school of thought
have come to the end of the road while facing a dead-end'.
While the supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei twisted the knife yet further:
"The world has been convinced that it is not possible to block the Iranian
nation's nuclear progress," Ayatollah Khamenei noted, reminding
pre-commissioning of Iran's first nuclear plant in Bushehr as among joyful
developments in the last year... Stressing the uselessness and futility of
the current sanctions on Iran, the Leader added, 'Iran's progresses in
different scientific and non-scientific fields indicate ineffectiveness of
the sanctions…'
While giving Iran its most important asset -- time -- to enable it to reach
the finishing line and develop the nuclear weapons with which it intends to
destroy Israel, Obama's policy towards Israel is also undermining Israel's
ability to defend itself against that genocidal goal. More and more people
are now coming to realize what I have been saying throughout: that he is an
enemy of America's only true ally in the Middle East.
This is obvious through the Israel-bashers and Jew-haters with whom he has
surrounded himself, aided and abetted by new realist appeasers and (often
Jewish) useful idiots on the left within his administration, all of whom are
intent upon pursuing with far greater ferocity the change in strategy
towards Israel that was already apparent when George W Bush became fatally
weakened -- forcing Israel to sacrifice its security, all for the illusory
goal of a Palestine state that would almost certainly become yet another
proxy for Iran and which, far from helping defang the Middle East, would
result instead in regional instability and a yet more terrible war.
If anyone was in any doubt that Washington had now turned against Jerusalem
and was intent on appeasing Iran, they were disabused in the starkest terms
by the fact that when Israel's Chief of the Defence Staff Gabi Ashkenazi
went last week to brief the US government on Iran's nuclear programme, he
failed to gain access to any US Cabinet member including Defense Secretary
Robert Gates, while his counterpart, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also found he had a pressing prior engagement.
This is what an unnamed former US intelligence official has said about the
new US relationship with Israel:
'I have every reason to believe, based on what I've seen at my level of
[security] clearance especially over the last several years, that Israel
will soon be completely on their own… or worse.' When asked what could be
worse than losing the support of the United States, he stated: 'when our
administration provides more support to Arab countries [with] financial and
military aid, undercutting Israel's defense efforts all while pushing Israel
to succumb to the pressure of unreasonable demands designed to end with
their political annihilation as a nation.'
... He continued: "When an intelligence work product that has been
thoroughly and properly vetted is submitted to those in Washington, and I
see a completely different and entirely inaccurate product intentionally
submitted and aired in the media, only to be told 'that is the way it must
be,' then I know it's time for me to leave. It is obvious to me that most
Americans don't understand or don't care what is actually happening in the
Middle East relative to Israel. People don't understand history, or have
been subjected to revisionist history based on lies and more lies. Add to
that a media that fails to provide an accurate assessment of what is taking
place in Israel, in Gaza, and you end up with a very bad situation for
Israel.'
That was published last December; the new hostility towards Israel was
already apparent in the fag-end of the Bush administration. As I have said
before, Obama cleverly took on board a number of 'new realist' officials who
had been driving this agenda. What many in the west – including those who
wish Israel would just vanish off the face of the earth -- fail to grasp is
that this in turn would produce a very bad situation for America and the
west. If Obama succeeds in throwing Israel under the bus, the west will be
next. For now, however, if Israel has any sense of self-preservation it
should surely think three times before sharing any of its intelligence with
America at all.
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Thursday, 26 March 2009
From Naomi Ragen:
Friends,
For more articles,please visit my Web page at: http://www.NaomiRagen.com
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