Netanyahu’s Speech

I disapprove of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s addressing Congress on constitutional grounds. The Congress’s role in foreign policyh is delineated clearly there and inviting foreign heads of government to address them exceeds that. However, I agree with the editors of the Washington Post that the president should respond to Mr. Netanyahu’s claims with something other than pique and sniping:

Nevertheless, Mr. Netanyahu’s arguments deserve a serious response from the Obama administration — one it has yet to provide. The White House has sought to dismiss the Israeli leader as a politician seeking reelection; has said that he was wrong in his support for the Iraq war and in his opposition to an interim agreement with Iran; and has claimed that he offers no alternative to President Obama’s policy. Such rhetoric will not satisfy those in and out of Congress who share Mr. Netanyahu’s legitimate questions.

Being wrong on the invasion of Iraq isn’t much of a criticism. It also characterizes our last two Secretaries of State, both of whom were appointed by President Obama. Obviously, the president doesn’t consider that a disqualification. That the prime minister is a politician isn’t much of a criticism, either. BTW, I agree with the assessment that the prime minister’s visit is a political move whose target audience is Israelis. The Congress shouldn’t be so foolish as to allow themselves to become props in foreign elections.

However, the way to respond to arguments is with counter-arguments not ad hominems and the president should provide more of them.

Update

The editors of the Wall Street Journal are much more favorably disposed to PM Netanyahu:

For all the White House’s fretting beforehand about the speech’s potential damage to U.S.-Israel relations, Mr. Netanyahu was both bipartisan and gracious to Mr. Obama for all he “has done for Israel,” citing examples previously not publicly known. But the power of the speech—the reason the Israeli leader was willing to risk breaking diplomatic china to give it—was its systematic case against the looming nuclear deal.

Point by point, he dismantled the emerging details and assumptions of what he called a “very bad deal.” The heart of his critique concerned the nature of the Iranian regime as a terror sponsor of long-standing that has threatened to “annihilate” Israel and is bent on regional domination.

The Administration argues that a nuclear accord will help move the revolutionary regime toward moderation. But Mr. Netanyahu spent some 15 minutes laying out the regime’s historical record. Since Hasan Rouhani became president in 2013, Iran’s internal repression has become worse than in the days of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad . Iran has doubled down on its military support for Bashar Assad in Syria, gained control of north Yemen through its Houthi militia proxies, and continued to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Shiite militias in Iraq.

Those are interesting claims. Is there any actual evidence that the Houthi are Iranian proxies? Or is it merely assumed that all Shi’ites are in cahoots? And like Assad or not the present Syrian government is the internationally recognized government of Syria with a seat in the UN General Assembly. The US, in a bizarre turn of events, has been supporting Al Qaeda and DAESH against it.

I’m skeptical of the White House’s apparent belief that we can have a productive relationship with the mullahs who rule Iran. That’s a reversal of more than thirty years of US policy and it deserves more than a few comebacks.

11 comments… add one
  • Guarneri Link

    I find myself almost completely in agreement with the real substance in this post. The comment that Netanyahu was playing to Israel, but soley for political purposes, though, leaves me with a “no kidding” on the former, and raw speculation on the latter. A belligerent and nuclear armed Cuba or Mexico would cause us to consider more than just political considerations, I think. The Journal probably makes the same mistake with speculation about Houthis etc.

    In any event, the issues are real and important and worthy of more substantial consideration and responses than we have seen. Whining about stretching governmental branch authority strikes me as delicious irony wrt this Administration, and the Obama response is rather embarrassingly junior varsity, to coin a phrase. I won’t even address Ms Pelosi et al, because that would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

    Oh, and an afterthought. The next person who invokes “a bad (or “any”) deal is better than no deal” has self identified as an idiot.

  • One question I’d meant to work into that post was to what degree is assuaging fears in Israel an objective of U. S. foreign policy? I think it’s at most a minor consideration but apparently a lot of Americans disagree with me.

  • ... Link

    The Congress’s role in foreign policyh is delineated clearly there and inviting foreign heads of government to address them exceeds that.

    Oh, why not? The President is now writing laws to suit himself, there’s no reason Congress shouldn’t get involved in foreign policy.

  • ... Link

    The Congress shouldn’t be so foolish as to allow themselves to become props in foreign elections.

    As the vote on DHS showed yesterday, our Congress isn’t good for anything other than being a prop. However, they should have at least gotten paid for their services yesterday – although I suspect that they have been.

    However, the way to respond to arguments is with counter-arguments not ad hominems and the president should provide more of them.

    They’re just going back to their core competencies, one of which is cheap sloganeering (slogasneering?) for electoral purposes.

  • ... Link

    I’m skeptical of the White House’s apparent belief that we can have a productive relationship with the mullahs who rule Iran. That’s a reversal of more than thirty years of US policy and it deserves more than a few comebacks..

    That’s a reversal of more than 30 years of _IRANIAN_ policy, too!

  • steve Link

    Iran has been engaged in proxy wars the same as we have done for the last 50 years. When Israeli agents kill people on foreign soil it is not terrorism. When Iranian agents do it is considered terrorism. When Israel bombs a foreign country it is justified. Not so if Iran takes actions against others. In sum, I don’t think most of us would consider Iran a bunch of good guys, but there doesn’t seem to be any real substance to the mad mullah theme. They follow the same rules everyone else follows.

    So what is the alternative to negotiating a deal if you don’t want them to have nukes? I don’t see much beyond invade and occupy. Bombing will delay it, but make it certain they will develop one. Tighter sanctions? Meh. That just gets you to the table, and if you ever read the details of the Iraq-Iran war should be pretty clear that they are willing to suffer privation, even if it means loss of life, to keep their sovereignty. And finally, while a bad deal may not be better than no deal, perfect is the enemy of good.

    Dave- I would hope it is a minor consideration, but the conservative members of my email chat group all unanimously agree that we should make no deal with Iran w/o the full approval of Israel.

    Steve

  • Andy and I differ on this subject. If the mullahs are telling the truth and they’re not developing nuclear weapons, there’s nothing to negotiate over. If they’re not telling the truth, negotiations are futile—they’ll cheat on any agreement.

  • TastyBits Link

    Iran is going to get nuclear weapons, and PM Netanyahu is preparing Israel for that day. Unless something has changed, he knows Israeli planes cannot bomb Iran and return home. He will be able to say he did everything possible.

    At the rate Iran is gaining regional power, they do not need nukes as badly as they once did. It would be in their interest to forego nuclear weapons at this time. As soon as they have them, the Saudis will have a few FedEx’ed from Pakistan, and the rest of the ME and Egypt will be trying to get them.

    As the US increasingly isolates Russia, Russia will need to increasingly strengthen her client states. Whether the delusional hawks like it or not, Iran is in the driver’s seat, and this was the result of intervention without any concern for reality.

    When your hen is not ruling the henhouse, do not act surprised. Remember, you had to “crack a few eggs to make an omelet”. I am sure it tasted good, but it left chaos in the henhouse. The truth is that you are more concerned about your belly than the henhouse.

  • Guarneri Link

    Dave

    No, I don’t think assuaging Israeli fears is part of US policy. But Obama clearly giving BN the finger is not the way important principals on the world stage treat each other. I think BN did “an Obama” by making it a visible political issue. I think that’s what pisses Obama off and why the lapdogs were assembled to make their shrill response.

    Paybacks a bitch.

  • jan Link

    “Iran is going to get nuclear weapons, and PM Netanyahu is preparing Israel for that day. Unless something has changed, he knows Israeli planes cannot bomb Iran and return home. He will be able to say he did everything possible.”

    I tend to agree with Tasty on that point.

    Iran is insidiously going on with it’s nuclear program, whether the US likes it or not. They are an aggressive and an openly unscrupulous regime bent on dominating the ME and beyond, if they can. According to Gordon Chang, Iranian technicians, as well as the head of the Iranian Nuclear Program, have been at every one of the N. Korean nuclear test events. Also, along with the technical cooperation between N. Korea and Iran, there is a strong suggestion the former has been selling fissile material to Iran, which may mean Iran is further ahead in their program than realized. Now N. Korea is working on it’s long range missile capacity, something the former SOD Gates has predicted would be perfected enough in a year’s time to strike the west coast. And, missiles is something N. Korea likes to share with friends such as Iran.

    So here you have two unpredictable, volatile countries joining together in their mutual desire to eliminate the west. One, North Korea, penned a 1994 nuclear agreement with Clinton by way of economic incentives. which they consequently didn’t honor. Now we have a similar kind of agreement folly going on with Iran. IMO, they will follow the same blueprint reflected in the accord reached with N. Korea, in which N. Korea begrudgingly signed a nuclear agreement to ease economic sanctions while biding more time to cultivate their nuclear capability. Iran will follow this same model, resulting in the proliferation of WMDs, as other ME countries scramble to get their own nuclear bombs.

    In the meantime the left and right politically haggle, apparently unconcerned about little else than who wins the ideology wars in election after election, and which President leaves the biggest legacy.

  • TastyBits Link

    N. Korea is easy to fix. You simply explain to them that any site that launches a missile will be destroyed, and if they retaliate against S. Korea, Japan, or anybody else, you will begin taking out strategic targets in Pyongyang. Then, you must have the will to carry through.

    I have serious doubts about their artillery on the DMZ. It must be maintained to remain functional, and the ammo has an expiration date. The US has counter-artillery batteries with radar to identify where the rounds were fired, and unless they are able to move fast enough, they are toast. In addition, air assets will be put on station, and they will bomb any flashes of light they identify.

    (During the First Gulf War, I knew Marines who were sent out to draw fire, and we could hear the pilot’s chatter on the radio. Luckily, the Iraqis could not hit the side of a barn, but once the pilots identified their location, they began bombing anything that looked like a target.)

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