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Jewish World Review Nov. 14, 2008 / 16 Mar-Cheshvan 5769 The perils ahead By Caroline B. Glick
Early in the Democratic Party's primary season, the Obama campaign released
a list of the now-President-elect's foreign policy advisors to the Washington
Post. The list raised a great deal of concern in policy circles,
particularly among supporters of the US-Israel alliance. It included
outspoken critics of Israel like Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national
security advisor under President Jimmy Carter, and Robert Malley, who served
as a junior Middle East aide to President Bill Clinton. Both men are deeply
hostile to Israel and both have called repeatedly for the US to end its
strategic alliance with Israel.
In the months that followed the list's publication, the Obama campaign
sought to distance itself from both men as the President-elect's advisors
worked to position Obama as a centrist candidate. Brzezinski was cast aside
in February when he headed a delegation to Syria to meet with President
Bashar Assad. The purpose of his "fact-finding" mission was to castigate the
Bush administration for its refusal to pursue Syria as an ally, and to decry
Damascus's international isolation caused by its support for the insurgency
in Iraq, its strategic alliance with Iran, its support for Hizbullah as well
as Hamas and al Qaida, its illicit nuclear program and its subversion of the
pro-Western Lebanese government.
To Brzezinski's dismay, his mission was overtaken by events. The depth of
Syria's support for terror was graphically displayed during his visit when
arch-Iranian/Lebanese terrorist Imad Mughniyeh was killed in Damascus the
day after he called on Assad.
Although he was a junior staffer in Clinton's National Security Council,
since 2000 Malley has used his Clinton administration credentials to pave
his emergence as one of America's most outspoken apologists for Palestinian
terrorism against Israel. Immediately after the failed July 2000 Camp David
peace summit, Malley invented the Palestinian "narrative" of the summit's
proceedings. While Clinton, then-prime minister Ehud Barak, and Ambassador
Dennis Ross, who served as Clinton's chief negotiator have all concurred
that Yassir Arafat torpedoed the prospects of peace when he refused to
accept Barak's offer of Palestinian statehood, Malley claimed falsely that
Israel was to blame for the failure of the talks. In succeeding years, he
has expanded his condemnation of Israel. He insists that not only
Palestinian aggression, but Syrian, Lebanese and Iranian attacks against
Israel as well are all Israel's fault. The Obama campaign distanced itself
from Malley in May after the Times of London reported that he was meeting
regularly with Hamas terror leaders.
As the election drew closer, the Obama campaign expanded its efforts to
present its candidate as a foreign policy moderate. Moderate foreign policy
advisors like Ross were paraded before reporters. Both Obama and his
surrogates insisted that he supports a strong American alliance with Israel.
Obama abandoned his earlier pledge to withdraw all US forces from Iraq by
2010. He attempted to temper and later deny his public pledge to hold direct
negotiations with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without
preconditions.
Due in large part to media credulousness, Obama's new image as a centrist
was widely accepted by the public. And it is likely that Obama owes a
significant portion of his support in the American Jewish community to the
campaign's success in distancing Obama from men like Brzezinski and Malley.
But now that the campaign is over, it appears that as his critics warned,
Obama's moves toward the center on issues relating to the Middle East were
little more than campaign tactics to obscure his true policy preferences.
Two days after his election, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius gave
a sense of the direction in which Obama will likely take US foreign policy.
And, apparently directed by Obama's campaign staff, Ignatius based much of
his column on his belief that Obama's foreign policy views have been shaped
by his "informal" advisor, Brzezinski.
Based on what Brzezinski and Obama's "official" campaign told him, Ignatius
wrote that the two major issues where Obama's foreign policy is likely to
diverge from Bush's right off the bat are Israel and Iran. Obama, he claimed
will want to push hard to force Israel to come to an agreement with the
Palestinians as soon as he comes into office. As for Iran, Obama plans to
move immediately to improve US relations with the nuclear weapons building
ayatollahs.
As for Malley, an aide of his told Frontpage Magazine this week that
acting on Obama's instructions, Malley traveled to Cairo and Damascus after
Obama's electoral victory to tell Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Assad
that "the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and
Syrian interests."
In a related story, Hamas terror operative Ahmad Youssef told the
London-based Al Hayat newspaper that in the months leading up to his
election, Obama's advisors held steady contacts with the leaders of the
terror group in Gaza, and had asked that Hamas keep the meetings secret in
order not to harm Obama's chances of being elected.
Both Obama's transition team and Hamas leaders were quick to deny Youssef's
statements. Yet, together with the earlier Times of London story about
Malley's contacts with Hamas and the new revelations about Malley serving as
Obama's unofficial Mideast envoy, the Al Hayat report has the ring of
truth.
Even more foreboding than these reports are statements by Obama's foreign
policy advisors regarding his plans to open direct contacts with Iran. On
Wednesday the Washington Post reported that Obama intends to move quickly
to seek an accommodation with Iran regarding Afghanistan. Obama's advisors
assert that such a deal is possible because as far as they are concerned,
the Shiite Iranians oppose Sunni jihadists just as much as the US does.
But the facts do not support this view. Top US and British military
commanders have asserted repeatedly that Iran is a major sponsor of the
Taliban and al Qaida in their war against the Afghan government and NATO
forces in the country. Since 2006, Iran has provided advanced weapons, money
and political support to the Taliban and al Qaida insurgents in the
country.
The Obama team's rejection of the demonstrated reality of Iran's support for
the Taliban and al Qaida in favor of a policy based on the fantasy that it
is possible to cut a deal with the ayatollahs will undoubtedly not be his
last move in the mullahs' direction. It will likely be quickly followed by
an offer to conduct direct, high level talks with Iran's leaders about their
nuclear weapons program.
What is most disturbing about Obama's emerging foreign policy is not simply
that it ignores the reality on the ground — a reality which clearly
demonstrates that Iran and its Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese surrogates
are implacable foes of Israel and America and therefore not interested in
being appeased. It is also not just the fact that it sends a signal of
American weakness to Iran and its proxies just as Iran reaches the nuclear
threshold. And Obama's emerging foreign policy is not merely disconcerting
because by speaking with Iran and its proxies, Obama will be legitimizing
the genocidal regime in Teheran.
What is most alarming about Obama's emerging foreign policy towards Iran and
its proxies on the one hand and Israel on the other hand is that it will
cause actual harm to Israel. By pressuring Israel to cede land to Syria and
the Palestinians, Obama's apparent foreign policy will provide Iran with
still more territory from which to attack Israel both through its terror
proxies and with its expanding ballistic missile arsenal. By embracing the
Syrian regime in spite of its support for terrorism, its nuclear
proliferation activities and its subversion of Lebanon, the incoming Obama
administration will embolden Syria to increase its subversion of Lebanon and
Iraq, while strengthening its ties to Iran still further.
As for direct talks with Iran itself, the question immediately arises, what
could Obama offer Iran in exchange for an end to its nuclear program that
Bush hasn't already offered?
What it can offer is Israel.
Over the past few years, Obama's top nuclear non-proliferation advisor, Joe
Cirincione has repeatedly advocated placing Israel's nuclear arsenal on the
negotiating table and offering it up in exchange for an Iranian pledge to
end its nuclear program. Defense Secretary Robert Gates — whom Obama is
considering retaining — insinuated in his 2006 confirmation hearings that
Iran is only building nuclear weapons to defend itself against Israel.
Gates, it should be recalled has been instrumental in convincing Bush not
only not to attack Iran's nuclear installations, but not to support an
Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear installations.
What is profoundly distressing about statements by men like Cirincione and
Gates is what they tell us about the strategic reasoning informing the
incoming Obama administration. Their views echo those voiced by advocates of
American abandonment of Israel like Professors Steve Walt and John
Mearshimer. Walt and Mearshimer argue that Iran is not a threat to US
interests or to global security because in the event that the mullahs
acquire nuclear weapons, they are likely to view them merely as a deterrent
against Iran's enemies. And as a result, Iran will respond as the Soviet
Union did to a deterrent model based on mutually assured destruction.
This view is contradicted by Iran's open advocacy of Israel's destruction,
and its declared willingness to absorb a nuclear attack in return for
destroying Israel. But assuming that this how the Obama team views Iran,
they should be the last ones advocating Israeli disarmament. Because if this
is their view, then by their own reasoning, Israel's presumed nuclear
arsenal is necessary to deter Iran from attacking. And if as Cirincione
advocates, Obama intends to place Israel's nuclear arsenal on the
negotiating table, he will effectively be giving Iran a green light to
attack Israel with nuclear weapons.
All of the Obama team's post-election/pre-inaugural foreign policy signals
place Israel's next government — which will only be elected on
February 10th — in an extraordinarily difficult position. It is not
just that their
positions make clear that the Obama administration will do nothing to
prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The Obama team's pre-inaugural signals indicate strongly that Israel's next
government will need to strike Iran's nuclear installations before two
rapidly approaching deadlines. The strike will have to occur before the
mullahs enrich sufficient quantities of highly enriched uranium to produce
nuclear bombs. And Israel will need to neutralize Iran's nuclear program
before the Obama administration begins implementing America's new foreign
policy.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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