The Other McCain

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Arguably The Most Precision Bus Toss Since Bismarck

Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

I read Showalter’s tome The Wars of German Unification for a War College class:

Taken together, three wars served to unify Germany and fundamentally altered the balance of power in 19th-century Europe: the Schleswig-Holstein conflict of 1864; the “Six Weeks’ War” of 1866; and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. They marked the establishment of Prussian hegemony in central Europe, the creation of the Bismarckian Reich in 1871, and, as a by-product, the reduction of Habsburg influence and the collapse of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. Showalter gives a full account of the international context as well as of the wars themselves and their consequences.

Old Otto was an 800 pound brain, playing the media like a ukulele. But each of the three conflicts got just a little gnarlier. The strategy increasingly outran the policy. The scuffle with France was intended to pull in the southern German states, and went a good way toward starting World War I a few decades early. Lacking Otto’s genius, WWI would arrive in 40-ish years. Oops.

One would not accuse anyone in the current Administration of being an 800 pound brain. If they are, they are totally getting their Sun Tzu on, looking befuddled to mask brilliance. Yid with Lid reviews the latest groans from the Mahmoud abyss: “We Will NEVER Recognize Israel As A Jewish State”.

In October when negotiations were going on to convince PM Netanyahu to extend the Judea and Samaria building freeze, [President Obama] made the offer to President Abbas to extend the settlement building freeze if the Palestinians agreed to recognize Israel as the Jewish State. Abbas replied almost imminently with a resounding no.

These omissions by President Obama are no accident. If he overtly called for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish State he would be negating the Palestinian demand for a right to return, which is why he said the “Right of Return” is something to be left to negotiation (but according to Obama the 67 borders aren’t.

YWL predicts:

This Friday the United States is going to veto the unilateral Statehood Bid of the Palestinians. The veto will probably be followed up with a speech by Secretary of State Clinton apologizing for the veto.

In addition to the multi-decade investment in gumflapperydiplomacy, and the deterioration of the situation in Egypt, Foreign Policy points out another important angle in Africa:

What Abbas’ gambit is likely to produce is an end to American funding and participation in professionalization of Palestinian security forces (already tenuous because of the April 2011 Fatah-Hamas power sharing agreement), and greater hostility to political engagement with the government of Palestine by the two governments it needs to make a Palestinian state a reality: the United States and Israel. It may also undercut the Palestinian case for a right of refugee return to lands in Israel.

The Obama Administration’s veto in the Security Council will incur a high political cost to the United States. It is difficult to argue, as we have, for the independence of South Sudan, the dawn of representative governments throughout the Middle East, and the right of ethnic and religious enclaves to their autonomy while opposing the partition of Israel’s territory along those lines. Moreover, as the last two administrations have supported a two-state solution, it leaves the United States in the awkward position of vetoing something we have said we want as the outcome. And then there’s the man on the street question: if the Palestinians have a President and Prime Minister, don’t they already have a state?

Arab countries will cry foul at our hypocrisy, making more difficult our partnerships in that important region.

So, it seems as though the Obama Administration is trying to toss both the Palestinians and the Israelis under the bus, but only slightly. We don’t want too many flaming Eastern Mediterranean folks clinging desperately to the luggage panels as we come to the 2012 primary season bridge; they might burn the bridge to the point that the Canadian bus can’t safely cross it to re-election. Just toast them all a little.

Less snarkily, there is no obvious middle ground upon which to compromise, as the last fistful of Presidents have shown. It’s cheap enough to snark at BHO, who was touted as an 800lb brain, but is clearly no Bismarck. Ho hum. Let’s move past the cheap shots, shall we?

What I Would Do is simplify. We are a federal republic, which claims to promote stable, representative, peaceful governments. It’s time to quit fannying about supporting thugs. While not giving it a Full Ron Paul, I submit that our government should re-evaluate all of our entanglements and let the bad actors know that they are considerably lower on the priority list until they get their lousy acts together. The notion of the Good Samaritan makes sense in inter-personal relationships; the notion of throwing good money after bad, in the hopes that bad is eventually the new good, seems wrongheaded.

I don’t know precisely how this particular bus toss will fail, but predictions involving rockets and bullets are likely to prove correct. It will all be fun and games until one of those unguided rockets takes out the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Update: I’m not Jewish, but the fact that the Administration feels this needs to be said smacks of nebbish desperation.

Update II: via Dan Riehl, calling up the Israeli reservists does not sound nebbish; rather, prudent. One cannot count on non-violent rage in that neck of the woods.

Category: Israel, Yid With Lid

Comments

6 Responses to “Arguably The Most Precision Bus Toss Since Bismarck”

  1. Jorge Emilio Emrys Landivar
    September 19th, 2011 @ 6:05 pm

    We really should stop funding Israel’s enemies. Then we should stop funding Israel so we don’t hold them back when they need to defend themselves.

  2. Lemuel Vargas
    September 19th, 2011 @ 6:32 pm

    I thought that Yaser Arafat already acknowledged Israels’ right to exist..
     
    Though he had frequently been accused of and associated with terrorism,[64][65][66] in speeches on 13 and 14 December,1988 Arafat accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242, Israel’s right “to exist in peace and security” and repudiated ‘terrorism in all its forms, including state terrorism’.[67][68]

    So when Abbas said “We Will NEVER Recognize Israel As A Jewish State”, he is repudiating what Yaser Arafat pronounced..

  3. JeffS
    September 19th, 2011 @ 8:17 pm

    Arab countries will cry foul at our hypocrisy…

    That “hypocrisy” would be based on faux outrage. 

    In reality, the Palestinians themselves have consistently failed to live up to their side of several agreements.  They have NOT earned their own state….by their own dishonesty and hypocrisy. 

    Unless you’re an Arab or a leftie, that is.

  4. Matt Lewis
    September 19th, 2011 @ 8:24 pm

    Were his fingers crossed?

    Seriously, he always seemed to be talking out of both sides of his mouth.  Saying nice things to Western audiences, and then inflaming the savages the next minute. 

    Old scraps of paper coming from the UN seem to pale next to the stuff he and his followers actually did.

    In other news:  Arafat’s condition was reported as stable.

  5. Anonymous
    September 19th, 2011 @ 8:59 pm

    Attempting to gain statehood unilaterally through the UN violates the 93 accords with Israel and the US. IMHO so does the alliance with Hamas as long as and until Hamas renounces violence and the destruction of the state of Israel. The 93 accords are the basis of all of our aid to the PA.. Without that accord the PA is just another terrorist organization. The next administration would have no trouble justifying withdrawing all aid from Gaza and the West bank as well as refusing to fund any UN efforts on behalf of the faux people known as the palestinians. Israel can also claim that any agreements in the 93 accords and agreements made afterward is null and void because the PA broke faith first. All our aid to Egypt is based on the Camp David peace treaty. If Egypt abrogates any part of that treaty we can and should stop all aid, and Israel and Egypt are technically still at war.

    Obama came into office with the intention of brokering a “comprehensive” Mideast peace accord no matter what “sacrifices” Israel had to make to accomplish that end. This was partly because Mideast peace would simplify our exit from the region and the rest of the world freeing up funding for social justice. As importantly a peace between Israel and the rest of the Arab nations including Syria would be a monument to Obama’s awesomeness. This is why he pandered to Iran and Syria. An agreement between the PA and Israel wouldn’t have been comprehensive enough if the Golan Heights kerfuffle still out there. He needed to smack Israel and suck up to Iran and Syria to accomplish this. I don’t think he cares that Iran will have the bomb as long as they don’t use it to wipe out Israel before the peace monuments are completed.

  6. McGehee
    September 20th, 2011 @ 5:40 am

    What Arab leaders say in English is only for Western consumption. You may rest assured it’s a lie.

    What matters is what they say in Arabic, because that’s the language they use when giving instructions to their troops.