And Israel is the staunchest US ally in the middle east, correct?
So why is post-America's State Department behaving like this?
The New York Times ran a report alleging Washington had warned its European partners in the P5+1 not to be too open with Israel, “because whatever we say may be used in a selective way.” The P5+1 is made up of the US, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain.
One Israeli official responded by echoing an earlier comment by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that if the deal being negotiated was a good one, why was there a need to hide details.
The Times report dovetailed with one earlier in the week in The Washington Post, which said US officials are angry about alleged Israeli leaks that, in the negotiations, the US had increased the number of centrifuges it would allow Iran to retain from some 1,500 to more than 6,000.
Yet Psaki and her colleague at the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest, said their decision to withhold information from Israel is not new.
“Obviously, we work to protect sensitive information in the negotiations,” Psaki continued. Asked pointedly whether the US is withholding information from inside the talks from the Israelis, she said, “Correct.”
Washington’s acknowledgment of a gap in its briefings to Israel highlights growing space between the allies on the emerging agreement with Iran, aggressively sought by US President Barack Obama and opposed with equal vigor by Netanyahu.
And then how about our second-closest ally in the region, Egypt? Do we have that country's back as it deals with the mass execution of 21 of its Coptic Christian citizens and the kidnapping of dozens more by the civilized world's other Islamic enemy, the Sunni one?
The Obama administration was given multiple chances Wednesday to endorse a longtime ally’s airstrikes on America’s biggest enemy at the moment, the so-called Islamic State. Over and over again, Obama’s aides declined to back Egypt’s military operation against ISIS. It’s another sign of the growing strain between the United States and Egypt, once one of its closest friends in the Middle East.
This shouldn’t be a complete surprise; Cairo, after all, didn’t tell Washington about its strikes on the ISIS hotbed of Derna, Libya. Still, Wednesday's disconnect was jarring. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest passed on a reporter’s question about an endorsement of Egypt’s growing campaign against ISIS. So did State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“We are neither condemning nor condoning” the Egyptian strikes, is all one U.S. official would tell The Daily Beast.
In other words, these once-close nations are now fighting separate campaigns against their mutual foe. And that could prove to be very good news for ISIS. The rift between U.S. and the region’s most populous country portends of another division that ISIS could exploit, this time for its expansion into northern Africa and the broader Middle East.
U.S. officials privately said they do not have a better idea for confronting the threat and the ongoing strains between the two nations has led to a breakdown of trust.
How does one arrive at any conclusion other than that the Most Equal Comrade and his nomenklatura have it in for Western civilization?
Latest Gallup shows Americans NOT in favor of Nettie crashing Congress (63 % say it is the wrong thing to do) and 6% think the US should take neither side in the matter with Palenstine. Doesn't sound good for your Dear Leader.
ReplyDeleteER, make that 66 % thinking the US should not take sides, i.e., we are gonna kinda grumble over suiting up and showing up to defeat your dear leader's enemies.
ReplyDeleteAn NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from July says that 40 percent of Americans weren't sure who Netanyahu even was. (Another 24% had a positive view; 15% had a negative view.)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aei.org/publication/netanyahu-visit-israel-iran/
But to address the current matter before us, here's what a CNN/ORC poll finds:
How do Americans feel about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Congress next month? According to one new poll, more support it than object -- despite the controversy over the way he was invited.
The data, reported here for the first time, was commissioned by the Israel Project, a pro-Israel group. It adds important context to a CNN/ORC poll, released Tuesday, which showed that 63 percent of Americans disapprove of the way House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu to the joint session. Boehner said Sunday that he had intentionally kept his plans secret from the Barack Obama administration, because he feared White House "interference" with the speech, now scheduled for March 3.
While it may be true that most Americans don't like Boehner's tactics, it's not the case that they don't want Netanyahu to go through with it
According to the TIP data, 25 percent of 1,563 respondents to the new poll said they agreed more with the statement:
Some people say Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is in the middle of an election at home, and it is inappropriate for the U.S. to host him for a speech only two weeks before the election is being held. They say this is a Republican attempt to make Netanyahu look stronger before his election.
While 43 percent of respondents said they agreed more with the following statement:
Other people say Iran is getting closer to building a nuclear weapon. As one of the world's most knowledgeable leaders on the Middle East and the Iranian nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu should address Congress before the March 31st deadline for a political framework with Iran.
Those are detailed questions for a news survey, which was conducted by Paragon Insights, and one can debate whether the reference to Netanyahu's credentials was relevant. (The full methodology and text of all questions can be found here.)
And a January 2015 Fox News poll found that 70 percent of post-Americans feel that the Most Equal Comrade has not been tough enough on Iran.
But public opinion is not the main point here. Sometimes that which is right is popular as well, sometimes not.
ReplyDeleteRight may not be relative to you, but it is, lol.
ReplyDelete