By Ted Belman
A few days ago I was dispirited by the article Netanyahu agreed to a freeze in Jerusalem.
Afterward I talked to Arlene Kushner who remained confident that Netanyahu won’t divide Jerusalem. Then I talked with an American ME investigative journalist who had just returned to the US from a whirlwind trip to Israel and surrounding countries.
This is what he had to report,
- 1. Nevertheless, relations are so strained that Obama and Netanyahu aren’t on speaking terms, so he doubted the story.
2. There is a big aversion in Israel to breaching the US/Israel relationship. He cited past examples where it didn’t work out for Israel.
3. Bibi is walking a tightrope between not causing a breach in US/Israel relations and not capitulating.
4. Obama made promises to Netanyahu regarding Iran in exchange. What they were exactly wasn’t said but they included meaningful sanctions by the end of January.
What is meaningful, who knows. Did he also promise that if Netanyahu waited, the US wouldn’t object. If Israel attacks Iran, the US will not be able to stay out of the fight.
Now it appears that Obama doesn’t have the stomach for meaningful sanctions. In a FrontPageMag article today, Hillary Goes Weak-Kneed on Iran it is reported
- [..] A squishy, misguided, weak-kneed liberalism has emerged in Hillary Clinton’s comments about the kind of sanctions that would work best in halting Iran’s nuclear program. Rather than take the one step that would really be effective — cutting off the flow of refined gasoline to Iran — she instead insists that we need to target the Iranian leadership with sanctions.
Her husband wisely rejected the same kind of advice in deciding on the sanctions to impose on Serbia during the Bosnia war, opting for broad-based economic sanctions to deter aggression. The sanctions were incredibly effective, and the mere threat of their re-imposition in 1996 was enough to bring Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic to his knees.
But now Hillary says sanctions must target Iran’s Revolutionary Guard “without contributing to the suffering of the ordinary (Iranians), who deserve better than what they currently are receiving.”
But the impotence of sanctions that do not go for the jugular is obvious, and the abysmal record of targeted sanctions aimed at Iranian leaders is enough to discredit the entire process. However, sanctions can be effective — immediately — if they strike at a nation’s most vulnerable point.
The House of Representatives approved a resolution at the end of December that imposed sanctions against Iran, banning any company from doing business in the United States if it supplied oil products to Iran. Co-sponsored and pushed by Illinois Republican Rep. Mark Kirk (who deserves support in his bid for a Senate seat), the measure has real teeth and is now pending before the Senate.
Hillary’s comment about avoiding sanctions that “contribute to the suffering” of the people of Iran can only be interpreted as a push-back against the sanctions that have passed the House.
The clock is ticking.
