Obama Foreign Policy
February 11, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Unnamed sources tell Israel’s Army Radio that the main purpose of President Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel is to warn Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu against attacking Iran. Netanyahu has flagged the spring of 2013 as a significant time in the context of the Iranian nuclear threat. And having recently been re-elected, he can now form a more hawkish security cabinet [note: at least according to the Jerusalem Post]. According to
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February 9, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The White House has explained that President Obama nixed Gen. Petraeus’ plan to aid Syrian rebels — which Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, and Gen. Dempsey all supported — because the CIA concluded that the weaponry Obama was willing to provide wouldn’t “tip the scales” in favor of the Syrian rebels. This is not to say that the CIA thought the plan developed by Petraeus wouldn’t tip the scales. The General
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February 9, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
According to Khaled Abu Toameh at the Gatestone Institute website, there are reports that Hamas dispatched as many as 7,000 militiamen from Gaza to protect the regime of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi who faces a popular uprising. The reports quoted unidentified Egyptian security officials as saying that the Hamas militiamen had been spotted in the Egyptian border town of Rafah before they headed toward Cairo to shore up the Muslim
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February 8, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, Leon Panetta testified that he and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff backed a plan to aid selected groups fighting to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Reportedly, the strategy was developed by then-CIA Director Petraeus and supported by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. President Obama rejected the plan, however. The Washington Post’s editors, citing reporting by the New York Times, attribute the decision to Obama’s re-election campaign,
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February 8, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Elliott Abrams is the Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His CFR blog is Pressure Points. He served, most recently, on the staff of the National Security Council staff during the Bush administration commencing in June 2001, first as a deputy assistant to the president and later as deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy. He is also the author of Tested By
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February 7, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Joint Chiefs Chairman Dempsey and Secretary of Defense Panetta have testified today before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Bill Kristol summarizes their testimony as follows: The White House left Ambassador Chris Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, and Sean Smith on their own on September 11 in Benghazi. That is the upshot of today’s Capitol Hill hearing featuring Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin
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February 6, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Here I’ve foolishly wondered why we’re giving Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood regime — you know, the one in which the President from the Brotherhood forced out the country’s top two military chiefs in order to consolidate his power over the armed forces — a slew of F-16s. If I’d only waited a few days, all would have become clear. At a ceremony marking the delivery of the first four F-16s to
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February 5, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Today came news that (1) John Kerry made lengthy phone calls to Israeli and Palestinian leaders even before starting work at the State Department on Monday and (2) President Obama will visit Israel in March or April. No one should doubt that, as in Obama’s first term, brow-beating Israel into making concessions to the Palestinians will form the core of the Obama-Kerry outreach. As Groucho Marx said, in Horse Feathers,
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February 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Lenin supposedly said that “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them,” though William Safire was dubious about the authenticity of the quote. (Lenin might have said that the capitalists will “close their eyes to the above-mentioned reality and will thus transform themselves into men who are deaf, dumb and blind.”) Barack Obama isn’t much of a capitalist, and he has nothing so crass in mind
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February 2, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Chuck Hagel’s prevarications in his Senate testimony this week about the prevarications of the Obama Administration’s Iran policy brought to mind one of Churchill’s characterizations of British government policy about disarmament in the early 1930s—what at other times he described more simply as “mush, slush, and gush.” But this 1934 comment comes close to capturing the essence of Obama’s own brand of mush, slush, and gush about Iran: It is
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February 1, 2013 — Scott Johnson
As Paul noted earlier this week, the Senate confirmed John Kerry as Secretary of State Today by a vote of 94-3. Many have noted the record of Kerry’s opinions in American foreign policy is distinguished by its devotion to mischief, error and misjudgment. To take only one small example, Jay Nordlinger documented Kerry’s wayward ways on Latin America in the 2004 National Review article “Back in Sandinista days…,” kindly made
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January 30, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The chief of Egypt’s military, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, warned of the possible “collapse of the state” following a fourth night of street fighting in Cairo and other major cities. In that event, the military might very well intervene in an effort to restore stability. Unfortunately, as we pointed out in August of last year, Sissi’s sympathies lie with the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, this report by the Washington Post, though it
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January 25, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens gave one of the featured speeches at David Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend this past November in the immediate aftermath of the election. He took Gaza as a case study of error, his own and Israel’s, while contemplating the hostilities that erupted in Operation Pillar of Defense. Stephens covers a lot of ground in his remarks and they remain timely. Notes: At around 25 minutes in
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January 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Meeting Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the fourth annual Presidential Conference in Jerusalem this past June may have been my personal highlight of the year. I posted videos of my interview with her here and here. She is a true friend of Israel. In her comments Ayaan expressed high hopes for developments in Egypt. Paul Mirengoff discussed Ayaan’s comments in “The short term and the long term in post-Mubarak Egypt.” If
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January 21, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The Washington Post reports today that al Qaeda’s successful attack on the Algerian natural gas plant has greatly boosted al Qaeda’s prestige in Africa. Along the way, the Post notes rather casually: The assailants were well-trained and armed with what appear to have been weapons from the late Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s arsenal. The overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi has turned out to be a terrible blunder. It has empowered radical
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January 16, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In the annals of context offered allegedly to explain controversial or offensive remarks, this may take the cake: A congressional delegation led by McCain met with Mohammed Morsi a day after the White House strongly denounced his remarks as “deeply offensive.” Morsi made the comments in a 2010 speech, as a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood before he became president, but they resurfaced recently when aired on an Egyptian TV
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January 13, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Colin Powell appeared on Meet the Press this morning to speak up on behalf of Chuck Hagel. It was an amazing performance. Amazingly disgusting. My daughter Eliana has posted the video at NRO. Please check it out if you missed Powell’s turn at bat for Hagel and Team Obama. Powell both excused Hagel’s disparagement of American supporters of Israel and crudely disparaged Republicans as racist. Eliana explicates Powell’s comments in
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