11th Dimentional Foreign Policy
Do you really think that when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama get together to send Joe Biden on a mission to Israel that seemingly blows up in everybody’s face that’s what really happened? Say what you want, but these are truly shrewd people, and so is that dude from Philly, Benjamin Netahyahu.
Another shrewd guy is General David Petraeus. Whether or not you like the guy, ya gotta give him props.
Leaks from a recent top level briefing by General David Petraeus are causing quite a controversy. The general pointed out that, “Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region.” Mark Perry reported this on March 13 in Foreign Policy.
At Petraeus’s pay grade, you have to be politically savvy as well as diplomatically aware. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude one of the biggest obstacles accomplishing anything, anywhere in the middle east is our cozy relationship with Israel. The real question is whether the Arab world will buy the kabuki theater where Israel makes such an obvious diplomatic blunder it would leave the US with no choice but to rebuke it’s greatest ally in the region.
And it plays. It works here at home to allow our administration to show it’s backbone to Arab allies with the support of all but the most die-hard AIPAC and NeoCon malcontents at the Weekly Standard and the assorted Town Hall blogger. The Village is eating this up.
Nicely done. The only question left is what will the Obama administration do with its new found (Arab) street cred. One also wonders how far the Israelis will play this. The other shoe is due to drop in a couple of weeks at the AIPAC conference when Netahyahu pays a visit.
