Patterico's Pontifications

12/13/2008

Obama’s Changing Position on Iran and Israel

Filed under: International,Obama — DRJ @ 8:43 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Last week, a source close to the Obama Administration said if Iran were to attack Israel, it would result in a devastating nuclear response by the United States:

“U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s administration will offer Israel a “nuclear umbrella” against the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran, a well-placed American source said earlier this week. The source, who is close to the new administration, said the U.S. will declare that an attack on Israel by Tehran would result in a devastating U.S. nuclear response against Iran.”

Last May during the Democratic primary, Barack Obama criticized Hillary Clinton for taking a position identical to the one his Administration has reportedly embraced:

“Barack Obama scolded Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday for saying that the United States would “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacks Israel, and likened her to President Bush. Clinton stood by her comment.”

What a difference 6 months — and an election — make.

Of course, an unnamed source doesn’t necessarily speak for the Obama Administration. This could be a Clinton confidante attempting to nudge the Obama Administration into a position Hillary favors. Either way, this suggests to me that Hillary is trying to run the foreign policy of the Obama Administration … or it could be she already is.

— DRJ

9 Responses to “Obama’s Changing Position on Iran and Israel”

  1. Wow!!
    Obama changing his position for political reasons(show strength as President).

    I thought Mr. hope and change talked about pursuing nuclear disarmament to bring peace to the
    world.
    You can’t have nuclear disarmament and provide a
    “nuclear umbrella” at the same time.

    Of course I am sure Israel feels so much better knowing that “after” they have been annihilated
    that we would strike Iran.
    That General Custard style foreign policy is
    hope and change that I am sure Israel will believe
    in.

    Troops out of Iraq immediately.
    Now they will stay based on the Generals recommendations and events on the ground(just like Bush).

    Going to quit giving tax breaks to the rich by rescinding the Bush tax cuts and installing windfall tax cuts.
    Ahhh,never mind. let’s keep Bush’s tax cuts and forget about that windfall tax thing.

    No spying on Americans!!!The NSA wiretapping is illegal.
    Ahhhh,never mind.I think I will vote for it and
    give the telecoms immunity also.

    No more torture!!!
    Ahhhh,never mind.I think I will keep the CIA detention and interrogation methods in place and will not go after all the “supposed crimes”by
    the Bush administration with the DOJ over this.

    The “no lobbyist” rhetoric is the funniest:

    http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/10/obama_edwards_and_the_lobbying.html

    Both Barack Obama and John Edwards have fulminated against “lobbyists” and “insiders,” and claimed that they will end “business as usual” in Washington if elected president. But the latest quarterly campaign finance reports show that both candidates continue to receive large sums of money from donors employed by powerful “special interests,” including trial lawyers, pharmaceutical companies, and hedge funds.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111403922_pf.html
    Barack Obama campaigned on a pledge to change Washington, vowing to upend the K Street lobbying culture he encountered when he joined the U.S. Senate.
    But more than a dozen members of President-elect Obama’s fast-growing transition team have worked as federally registered lobbyists within the past four years.

    They include former lobbyists for the nation’s trial lawyers association, mortgage giant Fannie Mae, drug companies such as Amgen, high-tech firms such as Microsoft, labor unions and the liberal advocacy group Center for American Progress.
    Mark Gitenstein, one of the 12 transition board members who will play a significant role in shaping the Obama administration, worked on million-dollar lobbying contracts with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and promoted legislation for giant defense contractors Boeing and General Dynamics. Until this fall, he was registered to petition Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission on behalf of AT&T, Merrill Lynch, KPMG, Ernst & Young and others.

    Yea,real surprise to see “the peace loving anti-war candidate”chicken hawk Obama do a 180′ on using nuclear weapons and threaten the total destruction of another nation.

    I thought “war is not the answer”.
    Change baby,Change!!!

    Baxter Greene (8035ae)

  2. Remember,Obama’s “moral compass” and “spiritual
    advisor” condemns America on a regular basis about using nuclear weapons on Japan:

    “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

    I am assuming that Wright will take the stage Sunday and “God Damn Obama” is what we will hear
    coming from the pulpit.

    OOhhh,nevermind.That would mean liberals holding liberals up to the same standards they hold everyone else to.Not gonna happen.

    Baxter Greene (8035ae)

  3. “Change you can believe in” turns out to mostly mean change in Obama’s own positions week by week.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  4. I don’t care how Obama comes around to defending Israel – if it takes Hillary to force him to do what’s been the de facto policy of this country almost since Israel’s inception, so be it. This is only the beginning – watch him pivot quickly regarding Russia’s recent actions shortly after he takes office.

    Dmac (e30284)

  5. _______________________________

    That would mean liberals holding liberals up to the same standards

    You mean “progressives.”

    The fact that such people often use what can be considered a euphemism to describe their philosophy may explain why Obama, assuming he’s not totally foolish, realizes that deepdown his leftist tendencies are irresponsible, nonsensical and at odds with logic.

    So if he’s willing to throw his gut instincts under the bus, (supposedly and apparently) along with people like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, then he may not be a complete disaster in the Oval Office. However, in general terms — particularly when it comes to the crucial issue of his selection of judges — the new occupant of the White House is going to screw up this country for years to come (ie, examples way in the future of the kind of idiotic judicial decisions that continue to be made by judges appointed by, and as far back as, Jimmy Carter, circa 1976-1980).

    But at least when it comes to major aspects of foreign policy, even Obama may realize that his predecessor, George Bush, makes a lot more sense than Jeremiah Wright.

    Examiner.com:

    “The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact,” the Illinois Democrat wrote in “The Audacity of Hope,” a memoir published last year. “Much of what I absorbed from the sixties was filtered through my mother, who to the end of her life would proudly proclaim herself an unreconstructed liberal.”

    Obama has a 95 percent liberal rating from Americans for Democratic Reform, a liberal advocacy group that ranks all members of Congress. Yet he is often portrayed as a centrist.

    Mark (411533)

  6. Tooting my own horn, I wrote about this here.

    This is a stunningly bad idea. Expressing the idea that Israel should be covered by our “nuclear umbrella” is the first step to an American policy which pushes for the Israelis to give up their (purported) nuclear deterrent force. After all, why would they need it if we are covering them?

    But unless we are going to give the Prime Minister of Israel the communication equipment and activation codes to actually launch our nuclear-tipped missiles, which we would never do and we should never do, such a program would mean that Israel’s nuclear deterrent would have to go through the approval of the President of the United States. That introduces a further uncertainty: would an American president actually launch nuclear weapons against Tehran and Qom if Tel Aviv and Haifa and Jerusalem had been incinerated? After all, that wouldn’t undo the nuclear attacks and, heaven forfend, would jeopardize our supply of oil!

    The Patterson School of Diplomacy Dana (556f76)

  7. Personally I think Israel, or US, or anybody else out there with the capacity, should nuke Iran, while there at it, add a few other Islamic hell holes to the carnage. These arsehole Islamic governments are no better then terrorist organisations running countries. They are nothing but barbaric inhumane regimes and are spreading their influence and barbarism throughout the world. We should get back to standing up for our own culture, our own values, and to hell with all who appose us. We should isolate them, not let them come to our countries, not trade with them……and nuke them if they try and stuff with us in any way.

    Stu (877bce)

  8. Think about it. The US, even go as far as saying the Western world has not won a war since all this political correctness way of looking at the world and self loathing and self hating suicidal tendancies in our approach to every one that is different, regardless of how barbaric and backward they are. We lost Korea, we lost Vietnam, we quit on the first gulf war, and now we have put an Islamic government in power in Iran, complete with Sharia law. This is the problem, you don’t defeat your enemies by appeasing them, by pouring billions into their country to rebuild it better then before, and by putting in power a government with the exact Ideology that caused the problems in the first place. You win a war by naming the enemy, and destroying that enemy. You kick their arse and when you defeat them you call the shots, you tell them what the rules will be from now on, you put your laws in place, you eradicate the very way of thinking and living that leads them to be your enemy and want to destroy you in the first place. eg……..Japan…..we won…….we called the shots……now look at them…..a great nation, productive, prosperous, with the old ways gone. Religions and cultures that lend themselves to voilence should not be protected and preserved…….they should be wiped out, just like Nazism. This all cultures are equal rubbish has got to end. All cultures are not equal, if that is the case then we have no right objecting to cannibals or any other inhumane practice.

    Stu (877bce)

  9. Obama has one goal only. It is to convert the USA to the USSA, the first S standing for Socialist. He will attempt to nationalize every aspect of our economy. He will promote all sorts of bail-outs and stimulus packages because he knows they will weaken us, making it that much easier for him to achieve his ends.

    He hates this once great nation and so does his wife as did both his father and his mother.

    I hate being right and hope I am wrong.

    jadavison.wordpress.com

    John A. Davison (90231f)


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