Should Israel be in Bush's back seat?

[Violet_Crumble]

By Tony Karon

When Ehud Olmert tells the world that President Bush's invasion of Iraq has made the Middle East safer, at least he can fall back on the excuse that sarcasm is a mainstay of Israeli discourse. But when Olmert says Israel won't talk to Syria as long as President Bush won't, Israelis ought to be worried. More worried, still, when Condi Rice comes hawking fantasies about Israel concluding peace with the Palestinians while Hamas is swept away by Mahmoud Abbas (or is it Mohammed Dahlan?) playing a Palestinian Pinochet, while the likes of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt somehow contrive to reverse the train wreck of Iraq and scare Iran back into its shell.

Olmert appears to be outsourcing Israel's strategic decision-making to a White House that has repeatedly demonstrated a catastrophic failure to grasp the realities of the region. Betting Israel's security on the ability of the Bush crowd to transform the strategic landscape in the Middle East is rather like leaving a party in the backseat of an SUV whose driver is cradling a bottle of tequila and slurring his words as he rebuffs offers by more sober friends to take the wheel.

Warning signs have been there for months: When Olmert stumbled into Lebanon last summer, he may have been expecting Washington to play the role of the big brother who would drag him, still swinging, off Hassan Nasrallah, having demonstrated his "deterrent" power without getting himself into too much trouble. Instead, he found Washington impatiently egging him on, demanding that he destroy Nasrallah to prove a point to the Shiite leader's own big brother, and holding back anyone else who tried to break up the fight. As neocon cheerleaders like Charles Krauthammer made plain, the administration was disappointed at Olmert's wimpish performance.

Clearly, the game changed when the United States blundered into Iraq, believing it could transform the region through the application of its overwhelming military force. Sober minds in Washington have concluded that Iraq is lost, but Bush is having none of it - as he made clear last week, he intends not only to up the level of force, but also to begin directing it at Syria and Iran. Those in Israel tempted to welcome this development may be suffering from the same geopolitical psychosis as President Bush: the belief that military force translates automatically into power. If anything, 2006 highlighted the fact that America's overwhelming military advantages have failed to tip the region's political balance in its favor; on the contrary, resorting to military force over the past four years has actually been accompanied by a precipitous decline in America's ability to influence events in the region and beyond, much less impose its will.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/818048.html

[teryang]

1. Finger pointing

Both regimes reeling from military defeats are incredibly weak and dangerous. Both leaderships suffer from profound ideological defects.

[jody]

2. Or Should Bush be in Israel's back seat? Who's driving ME policy? n/t

[oberliner]

3. wow, in two posts flat

Not bad.

[Violet_Crumble]

5. And who do you think is driving US foreign policy?

And how, exactly, does any other country have the ability to drive US foreign policy?

[jody]

6. That's a funny question implying a small country controlled by a few million citizens can't

possibly influence the foreign policy of the world's only super power. :rofl:

If that's not possible, then foreign countries and U.S. citizens/special interest groups who support them are wasting billions of dollars overtly and covertly to influence the executive and legislative branches of our government.

Sorry but IMO Israel and its supporters don't like to waste money as you seem to imply with your question.

[Violet_Crumble]

7. There's a difference between influence and actually driving foreign policy...

And it's not Israel and its citizens that attempt to influence US foreign policy - it's for the most part US 'supporters' of Israel, and a large number of them are from the Religious Right. AIPAC and many US 'supporters' of Israel tend to be more extreme than the Israeli govt. But when it comes to attempts to claim that Israel drives US foreign policy, it's a ridiculous notion as US foreign policy is basically what the US govt considers to be in the best interests of the US. If that policy happens to be something that Israel agrees with, that works, but when the time comes that the interests of the US aren't in line with the best interests of Israel, then Israel will not even be in the backseat - it'll be tossed out of the car without the car even slowing down...

[number6]

4. Or Should Bush be in Israel's back seat?

he's in the child safety seat,sucking his thumb