Thursday, June 03, 2010

Bad news - NPT

Recently I wrote a posting entitled "Good news," and several readers accused me of being taken in by Pres. Obama's "charm offensive" after the debacle of his pressure on Israel over the building freeze and his evident hostility to PM Netanyahu at their last White House visit. The gist of these criticisms is that Obama has a third-world viewpoint, that he is pro-Islamic and anti-Israel at core, and there is nothing one can do about it, and this upcoming invitation to Netanyahu to visit the White house is nothing more than a facade, designed to placate the American Jewish vote.

I was inclined to disagree with them, putting the recent mistakes in Middle East foreign policy down to not only a desire to "engage" the Muslim world as a typical liberal policy, but also to a great deal of naievete regarding the Arab/Muslim world. If Obama expected a positive response from them in reaction to his pressuring Israel, previous Presidents and many Middle East observers could have forewarned him against that. In other words, it was amateurism and incompetence that was at work rather than antagonism to Israel.

However, now I must revise that conclusion in the wake of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) scandal. After 40 years trying to put pressure on Israel over its nuclear policy of ambiguity, the Arab/Muslim world, led by Egypt, have finally managed to pull off a major coup, and it happened only because Obama was antagonistic to Israel's fundamental needs! The NPT conference that was held at the UN in NY voted for a resolution condemning Israel and calling for a nuclear-free Middle East and for the organization of a conference at which Israel will be required to join the NPT and submit to IAEA monitoring. Israel has studiously avoided joining the NPT and hence was not subject to such monitoring. However, the 188-member NPT group was joined by the US in passing this resolution, even though it only attacked Israel and did not even mention Iran, the only country in the world currently that is in violation of its NPT commitments. How could this have come about? The analysis is that Obama ordered the US to vote for this resolution hoping that in return the NPT countries will reduce their opposition to UN sanctions against Iran. However, there is no evidence for this interpretation. Basically the US betrayed Israel at this NPT meeting in order to curry favor with the Muslim/Arab world. Having done this, Obama then issued a statement that he still supports Israel's policy of ambiguity and will support Israel. But, this is pure duplicity. Now we are faced with the problem of a conference in 2012 that will be called exclusively to bring pressure on Israel. If Israel refuses to cooperate, then the conference could pass a resolution condemning Israel and calling for sanctions against it. This is what Obama has wrought!

Yes, it could be naievete, yes it could be amateurism, yes it could be liberal ideology that is driving this mess, this confusion in US Middle East policy. But, it cannot only be this, it must result from an underlying antagonism to Israel that is manifested in Obama's policies. Because of the crisis over the flotilla to Gaza attack, PM Netanyahu flew home directly from Canada and missed the meeting with Pres. Obama in the White House. I'll bet he was sorry.

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