It’s stunning, actually, that in the event of a conflict between the revolutionary, jihadist state Iran and our democratic ally Israel, Democrats want us to be neutral.
The Democratic National Committee chairwoman doesn’t want to make Israel an “election” issue. Maybe before lecturing Republicans to clam up she should work on educating her own party about the U.S.-Israel relationship and about the menace of a nuclear-armed Iran. It is embarrassing for the Democratic Party’s finger-wagging chairwoman to be saddled with a constituency that is so indifferent to the plight of the Jewish state. As for Obama, it seems he’s right in sync with opinion in his party on Israel. And that is a big problem for the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship, the survival of the Jewish state and the continued credibility of the United States, which under two administrations has vowed that it is “unacceptable” for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.
Once again, I am struck as to how Rubin seems to have completely omitted our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the country's memory, and how we arrived at them, and that she has no issues with Israel dictating foreign policy to us. Indeed, she is "stunned" to find that after nine years in Iraq and ten going on eleven in Afghanistan, that the American public really isn't terribly keen on going to war with Iran and want us to stay out of an Israel-Iran fight, and want us to not invest another lost decade's worth of blood and treasure just because Israel gets trigger-happy.
Besides the ridiculous notion that people who don't want war are somehow not only "indifferent" towards the Israel but ostensibly against Israel's very survival itself, I have to ask if all it took to get the US to invade Iran was Israel attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, why hasn't Israel simply done it already if the Iranian nuclear program is such an existential threat?
Also, it's not like the United States is truly "neutral" anyway, nor are we just standing around doing nothing to support an ally. America is applying tough economic sanctions and has gotten the European Union to go along with them. These sanctions get much tougher in another five months or so when the clause that the US will no longer do economic business with countries that do buy oil from Iran fully kicks in. Hell, even FOX News is admitting the sanctions are working. Oh, and yes, we have carrier groups hanging out in the region as well just in case Iran does something stupid, and in fact to specifically prevent Iran from doing anything stupid. It seems to me that Israel is choosing not to act for a reason, and that reason is the sanctions are working.
But Rubin blithely insists war is the only option and goes after anyone who believes in any other approach to Iran, when President Obama is calmly proving that this just isn't the case in reality. After a decade of blood and trillions of dollars, America is getting tired of having its patriotism questioned by armchair Alexanders who engage in nothing but endless wargasm. Certainly the Post's readers deserve something slightly more nuanced than Rubin's cartoon-inspired approach to international relations.
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