Featured AIPAC Pulls Boehner's Strings; Netanyahu,ossad At Odds

Well, I'm left handed, for real. Perhaps that has something to do with my non-conformist 'think outside the box' 'tude' I've had all my life.

 

Seems this is all about politics, Likud and Republican politics that is:

Chris Wallace: White House Was ‘Flabbergasted’ Netanyahu Accepted Boehner Invite

"...Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace said the White House was “flabbergasted” when it learned House Speaker John Boehner had invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress.

Wallace told fellow Fox host Shepard Smith Friday that White House officials claimed they got “no advance warning” of this address before Congress. Wallace added that he is “shocked” that Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Durmer, never mentioned or hinted of Netanyahu’s March trip during a two hour meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry.

“I found a quote today…this is from Martin Indyk, who’s a former Ambassador to Israel from the United States,” Smith told Wallace:

“Look at what he said: ‘Netanyahu is using the Republican Congress for a photo-op for his election campaign and the Republicans are using Bibi for their campaign against Obama…unfortunately, the U.S. relationship will take the hit. It would be far wiser for us to stay out of their politics and for them to stay out of ours.’”

“I think he’s 100 percent right,” Wallace told Smith. “To give you a sense, I happened to be the White House on Wednesday when Boehner announced he invited and Netanyahu accepted this, and a top White House official was flabbergasted. Said ‘we got no advance warning. We found out about it,’ them in the White House, ‘when Boehner announced it to the press.’”

“To make you get a sense of really how, forgive me, wicked this whole thing is. Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Israeli Ambassador to the United States for two hours on Tuesday, and Ron Dermer, the ambassador, according to the State Department, never mentioned the fact that Netanyahu was in negotiations,” Wallace continued, “and finally agreed, to come to Washington, not to see the president but to go to Capitol Hill, speak to a joint session of Congress and criticize the president’s policies.”..."

 

Why Obama-Netanyahu Fracas Is About Politics in Israel, Not Iran

"...JERUSALEM -- Most people think that the recent fracas between Jerusalem and Washington is about Iran. They are wrong. Israel has what it takes to turn much of Iran into a radioactive desert. Should Israel and Iran engage in a nuclear exchange, says U.S-Middle East expert Anthony Cordesman, then it is the latter and not the former that will be wiped off the map.

Nor are the mullahs unaware of that fact.

That has not prevented Israel from talking endlessly about destroying Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his predecessors have been doing so for over a decade. Since success depends on surprise -- as when Israel bombed the Iraqi reactor in 1981 and the Syrian one in 2007 -- this talk itself proves Israel has no serious intention of carrying out its threats. Nor is Netanyahu the man to do it. For all his frequent posturing, deep at heart he does not have the guts....."

"...As former U.S Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said, Israel does not really have a foreign policy. All it has are internal politics of which foreign policy is a third-rate extension. And it is mainly internal politics that have driven Netanyahu to emphasize the Iranian "threat."

ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL

This reminds us that, in Israel, it is elections time. The last two elections were held in 2009 and 2013. In neither of them was there any question that Likud would win and that Netanyahu would hold on to his dearly beloved job. This time things are different. One reason for this is that, economically speaking, things are not going as well as they should. The outcome is high prices -- for a couple of years now, not a day has passed without the media publishing comparisons with other countries, almost all of them unfavorable to Israel....."

"...The other reason is the creation of a new left-center party under the joint leadership of Yitzhak Herzog and former Foreign Minister Tziporah ("Tzippi") Livni. Both Herzog and Livni have the charisma of earthworms. Many people, though, see them as preferable to Netanyahu who is regarded as glib and untrustworthy...."

"...USING THE JEWISH-AMERICAN CARD

So what to do? Unlike former Prime Ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon, Netanyahu cannot claim credit for any important foreign policy deed. Like his one-time mentor, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, all he can do is try and maintain the status quo. Partly that is because he does not have the necessary authority over his own party and the Israeli right in general. Partly because, as I said, he just doesn't have the guts. But maintaining the status quo does not yield many votes. At any rate, not enough to make him feel secure.

So use your Jewish-American card. Get yourself invited to the U.S. If not to the White House, with whose occupant Netanyahu has long been at loggerheads, then to address both Houses of Congress. The procedure is somewhat unusual, but that does not bother the prime minister too much. After all, the U.S, too, is facing elections in less than two years. Consequently the pressure it can bring to bear on Israel is limited. It is even possible that, by seeming to twist President Barack Obama's arm, Netanyahu will actually gain some points with parts of the electorate.

And so it goes. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry will huff and puff. Presumably more so behind closed doors than in public. They may even threaten to "reconsider" America's relationship with Israel as, for example, Gerald Ford and Kissinger did in 1975 when Rabin did not agree to a proposed interim agreement with Egypt. However, real change will only happen, if it does, after the next American elections.

By that time Netanyahu will be safely back in the saddle, or so he hopes. And everything else be damned....."

 

"...Mr. Boehner’s desire to win powerful allies in a confrontation with Mr. Obama over the president’s No. 1 foreign policy objective for the remainder of his term....Dennis B. Ross, a former senior adviser to Mr. Obama on the Middle East. “It’s clear that Speaker Boehner wants to make his own point. He’s trying to use the Israeli prime minister to do it.”

"...As one senior administration official deeply involved in the talks said recently, “This whole set of discussions bolsters the hard-liners” in Tehran “who don’t believe we will reverse the sanctions no matter what Iran does.”

“Netanyahu is using the Republican Congress for a photo-op for his election campaign and the Republicans are using Bibi for their campaign against Obama,” said Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel, using the prime minister’s nickname. “Unfortunately, the U.S. relationship will take the hit. It would be far wiser for us to stay out of their politics and for them to stay out of ours.”

"Israeli news reports were filled Thursday with anonymous American officials fuming about how Mr. Netanyahu had snubbed Mr. Obama with the speech only days after asking for his help. Columnists and commentators said the Israeli premier and the Republican congressional leader were both engaged in meddling. “They are helping Netanyahu defeat his rivals here, and he is helping them humiliate their rivals there,” observed Nahum Barnea in Yediot Aharonot. “That is dangerous. That is toxic.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/u...anning-to-meet-with-israeli-premier.html?_r=0


It will anger me to no end if the Republicans are out to deliberately torpedo the negotiations with Iran solely to humiliate Obama. And it will backfire on the GOP in a HUGE way; the whole world will see it - that warmongering neocons indeed do dominate the party. That's the bottom line, the very reason that Obama got into office to begin with, Americans want peace, not war.

Poll: Americans support Obama on Negotiating with Iran

 

Post-mid-term advice to Republican Congress: Don't govern

According to the editors of the National Review, there's only one thing for Republicans to do with their new-found control of the US Congress: nothing.

The political reality is that as long as President Barack Obama is in office and can veto bills he doesn't like, Republicans aren't going to be able to achieve any of their legislative objectives. So why try?

"If Republicans proclaim that they have to govern now that they run Congress, they maximise the incentive for the Democrats to filibuster everything they can - and for President Obama to veto the remainder," they write. "Then the Democrats will explain that the Republicans are too extreme to get anything done."

Not only that, they say, attempting to pass legislation will risk opening the divide between the establishment and hard-core conservative wings of their party.

The alternative, the editors write, is for Republicans to do what they can to lay the groundwork for a presidential victory in 2016. Then, with control of both the executive and legislative branches, the party will be able to effectively implement its agenda.

Republicans should talk about their healthcare proposals, tax reform, energy policy, education subsidies and more. But, Lord knows, they shouldn't try to make the compromises and risk the brinksmanship that may be required to enact any of it.

"Not much progress is possible until we have a better president," they write. "Getting one ought to be conservatism's main political goal over the next two years."

If all this sounds familiar, that's because it is. Shortly before the 2010 mid-term elections in which Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said his party's number-one priority was ensuring that Mr Obama only serve one term.

It's an oft-quoted line. Here's a bit more of what Mr McConnell said, for context:

"We need to treat this election as the first step in retaking the government. We need to say to everyone on Election Day:' Those of you who helped make this a good day, you need to go out and help us finish the job.'"

The Republicans didn't finish the job in 2012, as Mr Obama was re-elected. The National Review editors don't want their party to let Democrats off the hook twice.

The National Review editorial was picked up quickly by liberal commentators, who pointed to it as evidence of continued Republican malevolence.

"The goal of this attitude isn't to advance the nation's interests, even incrementally," writes MSNBC's Steve Benen. "Rather, the argument - reaching levels of public cynicism that are truly awe-inspiring - is that the sole focus of a political party is to do nothing until that party has absolute power over all branches of government."

George Washington University Prof David Karpf says that it will be difficult for Democrats to counter this strategy, however.

"Republicans will continue to make sure nothing gets done in Congress," he writes in the Huffington Post. "Voters will continue to be disgusted, tuning out from politics as a result. And then, tuned out from politics, they'll see less reason to turn out on Election Day, and less value in paying close attention along the way."

The Washington Post's Paul Waldman writes that the National Review's advice, while a bit cynical, is sound.

If Republicans can avoid big confrontations over things like the debt limit and funding the government, while advancing just enough legislation to make it seem like they're trying, they'll probably get a pass from the public and the media.

"In short, the fundamental gridlock will remain, and Republicans will say that the way to end it once and for all is to keep them in power in Congress but also give them the White House, too," he concludes.

That's all easier said than done, writes the New Republic's Danny Vinik. Will Mr McConnell be able to keep fire-breathing back-benchers like Senator Ted Cruz in check?

"It's one thing to lay out a conservative agenda," he says. "It's another thing to rally the party behind it."

The way the system works now, however, the potential future payoff - control of the White house, the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate - is worth the risk of being perceived as do-nothing opportunists. Winning big is the only way to get things done anymore.

It's a bold strategy the National Review is proposing. Let's see if it pays off for them.

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I'll come back to this thread in the future and say, "I told you so", if this move by the Republicans results with the hardliners in Iran having their way. The path Boehner has struck out on by circumventing the White House and endangering this diplomacy that Americans want can be at the least counterproductive to the long term conservative agenda, and at worse propel us into even more unnecessary war.

 

The fact that he hasn't kowtowed to the Zionists is one of the few things I like about Obama. If you want a Likudnik for POTUS who will "follow Israel “like a stupid mule”, then Palin's your gal. She'll cater to Bibi's every whim.

 

Just as much as you hate America.

 

Please explain your point.

I would like to see you provide any evidence that I hate this country.