Obama re-election strategy: Help Israel attack Iran
By Ken Falkenstein | Thursday, November 10th, 2011 | Policy, Politics
As Obama seeks reelection, one of his biggest challenges is to win back Jews who supported him in 2008 but have become disenchanted with him due to his hostility to Israel.
Jewish voters won’t soon forget that Obama pressured Israel to give up construction in its own territory in East Jerusalem while ignoring the many treaty violations of the Palestinians, who still teach their children that all of Israel is rightfully “Palestine.”
Jewish voters still remember that Obama forced Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to enter the White House through a back door, kept him waiting for over two hours while Obama ate dinner with his family, and then denied him the traditional side-by-side press conference normally conducted with visiting heads of state.
And Jewish voters know that as recently as this week Obama joined French President Nicolas Sarkozy in making disparaging remarks about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s character.
So, given this history, it is fascinating that reports are emerging that Israel is planning an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities with logistical support from the United States.
Why would the normally dovish President with a history of hostility toward Israel suddenly decide to support a military action by Israel against one of the most dangerous regimes on the planet? Here’s why:
Officials believe President Barack Obama would have to support the Israelis or risk losing vital Jewish-American support in the next presidential election.
Make no mistake – Iran must be stopped from developing nuclear weapons, and since diplomatic efforts clearly are not working, I am firmly supportive of military action should Israel deem that such is necessary in its national interest. Furthermore, if the United States provides support for such a mission, Commander-in-Chief Obama will have no stronger supporter than myself in that endeavor.
But just once, can’t Obama do the right thing for the right reasons?
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About the author
Ken Falkenstein has been a staffer in the United States Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates. He has managed political campaigns. He was a military intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army in West Germany during the Cold War. He is currently the Vice President of the Down Syndrome Association of Hampton Roads and practices as a civil litigation attorney with the law firm of Poole Mahoney PC in Virginia Beach. His concern for his kids' future is what most informs his writing.
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19 Responses to "Obama re-election strategy: Help Israel attack Iran"
Anyone that believes Iran would launch an attack on the United States or any of her allies is completely wrong and clearly doesn’t know their history…
History aside, I hope we’re not stupid enough to spark a major war that would leave us in financial ruin. Our major creditors probably wouldn’t take too kindly to our involvement with any kind of military strike toward our land. Any event that would dissuade China, India, Japan and Russia from purchasing our treasury securities would be or eventually be a deathblow to our superpower status.
The lesson of history that must be learned and never forgotten is the lesson of the Holocaust. Israel was borne from the ashes of an attempted genocide on the Jewish people. So, when a country led by a maniac says he wants to “wipe Israel off the map,” Israel must take that threat seriously and prevent that country from gaining the means to do so.
A nuclear Iran poses an existential threat to Israel and a major threat to the entire region. Israel, the U.S., and our allies must prevent that from happening.
Diplomacy and sanctions are proving not to be effective deterrents, and so military action may become necessary. Such action would come with heavy costs in blood and treasure, but the cost in blood and treasure of allowing Iran to gain nuclear weapons would be immeasurably higher.
Well Ken, I am surprised that you would confuse support for a nation with support for a government. I happen to think the Presdient is right on with his unequivocable support of Isreal but his distaste for the right wing Prime Ministeris right on as well. And to suggest that President Obama would act against the interest of Isreal for political purposes suggests to me that you probalbly think their was a Presidentail debate last night.
Fact is, there was a republican candidate laugh in last night, with few observors who would suggest anyone of the bunch was even qualified for the nomination, much less the Presidency. The following words came to my mind; conjurer, philanderer, flipper, flopper, charaltan, extremist, dreamer, and amnesiac. Of course, a few have earned multiple descriptions from the same list.
Frankly, at this point in time, who could jump in to rescue the Party from this cast of has beens? Even mediocracy would be better that this slate.
In defense of Stearns comment Ken, Iran makes inflammatory remarks such as “Israel should be wiped off the map” towards the U.S. via Israel for mostly political domestic purposes. Hateful political rhetoric is used worldwide to gain votes.. politicians create the appearance of bold leadership by overlooking the populace and making inflammatory reactionary remarks beyond their borders to fool citizens into supporting them out of fear of a worse adversary.. this tactic preys on human fear instincts and is used to distract their own citizens and its old news in the mideast.
That said, Iran is part of the larger movement to export the Islamic revolution and the concern I have is where they will deploy their weapons.. I can already hear the post WW3 arguments buzzing that “there were no WMD’s in Iran”..
Ken,
A couple of things. First, I don’t see anything in your link that describes the US providing logistical support, just Obama “supporting” Israel. That support could be as little as not publicly condemning the Israeli strike, although we most certainly would share strategic intelligence and battle damage assessment support (read satellites). That support would be at the code word classification level and not publicly revealed, although widely speculated on. Nevertheless, we would have ‘plausible deniability’ of having been directly and militarily involved in the attack. Many American think that Israel would need aerial refueling support from the US to fly a circuitous route around the Arabian peninsula. Not so, the IAF has its own KC-707 tankers.
Second, I don’t consider Obama a dove. He has delayed the withdrawal from Iraq until we were practically ordered out, he approved the surge in Afghanistan that Petraeus wanted and that Biden reportedly opposed, and he had no compunction about bombing Libya–with or without a Congressional resolution. It is one of the reasons the anti-war leftists are angry with him and feel that he has betrayed their support from 2008.
I will grant you that Obama needs to shore up his support with American Jews. But he won’t attack Iran to do it if the Israeli’s can get the job done with only covert US support. If the Israeli attack goes forward and the US does not condemn it, esp. if we veto any UN Security Council resolutions against it, Obama will get credit for it from Jewish voters, wouldn’t you say?
Bomb Bomb Bomb… Bomb Bomb Iran…
That didn’t work out so well for McCain, did it?
Although the political aspect is the least of this kind of action, I think he would lose more votes than gain from it. Most Jews will vote for him anyway.
I am surprised that people feel that this is a straightforward military exercise. Bolton and others were on the air back in 2007 and 2008 saying we had less than a year to do something. Were they all blowing smoke? Attacking Iraq or Syria was a non event because these sites were non operational and not producing radioactive material. This would not be a surprise attack obviously and Iran has had time to prepare in whatever way they want. Suppose Israel bombs and produces something like a dirty bomb over an Iranian city? The mullahs don’t care but I find it hard to believe it would be a positive pasta experience for us. Remember also that our intel on Iraq turned out to be spotty at best. Or did I not get the memo on this?
valentinus,
The intel on Iraq turned out to be wrong. You can say that it was because Bush-Cheney cooked the books to create a pretext for war or you can say that the CIA blew it big time. Personally, I have always subscribed to the philosophy that you should never attribute to malice that which can be readily explained by incompetence. The CIA’s principal intel sources were Iraqi defectors, including one of Saddam’s own sons-in-law if I’m not mistaken. Saddam ordered his people to restart the WMD programs after he kicked the UN inspectors out, but the Iraqis didn’t have the resources to do so because of sanctions. Since telling Saddam that you failed was a proven career-limiting move, his own people were telling him that the WMD programs were coming along fabulously. The mistake that the CIA made was to take the defectors’ accounts of progress in WMD at face value with out independent verification. In other words, if Saddam thought that he had WMD’s, then why wouldn’t the CIA think the same thing?
Israel, on the other hand, has demonstrated that they have much better intel in the region, probably because they have better HUMINT assets on the ground than we do. Remember the Osirak-type reactor in Iraq that they identified and destroyed in 1981? If Israel attacks, the question is not whether there are legitimate targets but whether Ahm-a-nut-job has them dug in deep enough to defeat Israeli bunker busters. My money is on the Israelis.
It’s the same abstraction tactic Obama is using by blaming the 1% and corporations for his economy. Condemn, vilify, demagogue, isolate in speeches and the press while winking at them and making crony deals for huge campaign contributions. The real question is will Obama backstop Israel after an attack on Iran when the Islamic Jihadist hordes descend upon Israel from all points of the compass prior to the election? Or is this part of a larger political strategy of plausible deniability post-attack to provide justification to condemn, vilify, demagogue and isolate Israel to clear the way for a Palestinian statehood vote at the UN with the 1967 borders, which would play to his base?
Timmy,
Yes.
No.
I should have attributed the questions in my last post to the sources… an IAF Col and a Major who are down in our area for training.
Timmy,
I should have guessed. There is a subtle, but distinctive difference between Israelis and American Jews. (Yes, I have trained with IDF officers and traveled in Israel.) American Jews want to support Israel. Israeli’s demand that the United States support Israel publicly and fully against any real or imagined threats, regardless of our own national security interests.
Give my regards to the IAF officers.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/the_550_tons_of_yellowcake.html
Rocky,
Thanks for your response to someone else’s post. You mixed up my name in it though.
val,
? I was responding to your 11:00 am post that included,
“Remember also that our intel on Iraq turned out to be spotty at best.”
You ignored 90% of the post and then made mostly irrelevant comments on the history of the Iraq War responding to the quite mild statement that the intel in Iraq was spotty. This is the kind of thing leftists habitually do. Thanks for clarifying you are an independent elsewhere so I will refrain from such retorts.
If you have knowledge on any or all of the actual questions I had in the earliest post I would greatly appreciate it. maybe its all contained in the memo I never got.
Why is that Israel can have a nuke but not Iran? Is it because Irans leaders threatened to remove Israel from the pages of history like how the soviet union was removed from the pages of history. There is no more USSR however there is still a Russia. Just like when Israel is removed from the pages of history there will still be Jews in Palestine.
If Iran wanted to kill all Jews why they not start with the 25k Jews in Iran, those same Jews who wont even leave to go to Israel for 10k stipend.
If Iran didnt care about survival it could simply remove Israel with its current arsenal of biological and chemical weapons (retrofit those in missles and its bye bye Israel). So what is stopping Iran from doing it. LETS SUPPOSE IRAN HAS NUKES, IT CAN STILL DESTROY ISRAEL BUT WHATS THAT BOB (ISRAEL STILL HAS SECONDARY STRIKE CAPABILITY AND COULD STILL BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF IRAN). SO BOB HOW DOES THE FUCKING EQUATION CHANGE IF IRAN HAS NUKES OR NOT.
Valentinus,
“What we have here is failure to communicate.” I thought that I was answering your entire comment. Perhaps I was too obtuse. My point was that perhaps Bolton and others had bad intel in 2007 and 2008 that caused them to predict that we had a year at best to do something about Iran’s nuclear program. On the other hand, perhaps the Israeli’s have not yet struck but are considering an attack now because their intel is better. I tried to illustrate why Bolton’s intel could have been wrong and Israel’s might be better using Iraq as an example. Does that answer the mail?
BTW, if you ever call me a liberal, I will hunt you down and put your lights out.
One logistical issue with nuking Israel is prevailing winds. The fallout would most likely be transported northwest over Jordan and other neighbors.
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