Islamist 'Bumps', Israeli 'Noise and U.S. Weakness

 

IBDEditorials.com

Middle East: President Obama promised "a sustained effort to find common ground" with the Muslim world. He's found it: He and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agree that what the Israelis say is "noise."

Block out the "noise" coming from the Israelis. Not a healthy attitude to take toward a singularly persecuted people.

In "Mein Kampf," Adolf Hitler declared that the outset of World War I was a lost opportunity "for proceeding against the entire fraudulent company of these Jewish poison-mongers of the nation." Germany, he said, "should have dealt summarily with them without the slightest consideration for the clamor that would probably arise."

During a Washington Post interview over the weekend Ahmadinejad similarly called Jewish clamor unworthy of attention. Still, he said, the Israelis "would love to find a way for their own salvation by making a lot of noise and to raise stakes in order to save themselves."

Did Obama borrow Ahmadinejad's talking points? Appearing on CBS' "60 Minutes," the president was asked about Israeli pressure on him regarding Iran.

"I am going to block out any noise that's out there," he replied, even though the "noise" comes from "one of our closest allies in the region."

"One of." The Mideast's single dependably free country must be flattered to hear it's right up there with Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

There was a third howler in the interview. In the wake of the murder of our Libyan ambassador, two ex-Navy SEALs and another American, Obama was asked about rethinking his support for the new Islamist government of Egypt and similar regimes.

His answer? He always knew "there are going to be bumps in the road."

And the road's destination? Obama challenged the notion that "somehow we could have stopped this wave of change."

But he, in fact, unleashed it with the highly symbolic act of traveling to Cairo University three years ago and apologizing for America before an audience that included members of the "civilizational jihadist" Muslim Brotherhood. He's sorry for everything from enhanced interrogation of terrorists to the 1953 coup that saved Iran from Marxist-Leninism.

The road Obama has America traveling on goes downhill, and the catastrophes ahead for a world of shrinking U.S. power will be a lot noisier than the wise-but-ignored words of the Israelis.