Obama's Risky Ploy

There are now many self-evident and destabilizing developments:

1) Obama feels more comfortable with Turkey's Erdogan, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, perhaps even with the Iranian leadership, than with Netanyahu. He likely believes Netanyahu is the least rational, the least predictable in the arena.

2) Obama and many of his advisors have felt for a long time that containment of Iran's nuclear program (even its attainment of nuclear weapons), is not only possible but preferable to war.

3) Obama's public proclamations change creatively with the audience. He is, after all, the perfect politician, a natural chameleon. His recent support for Israel, at the preeminent Aipac conference, is too-little-too-late to fully dispense with his visceral dislike of Netanyahu and his consistent lack of empathy for Israel's past security policies. He has yet to visit Israel during his presidential term, yet he saw fit to wax eloquent in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

4) So Obama prefers no military confrontation. This would raise gas prices, hurt the economy (albeit temporarily), and damage Obama's reelection prospects, his primary and all-consuming goal.

5) The USA has the conclusive and indisputable ability to obliterate the Iranian nuclear program. It can do so in an exceptionally efficient, pin-pointed and largely non-lethal way. Iran would then measure its response modestly, for to be too aggressive would in turn invite America's wrath, most likely leading to the destruction of Iran's military and industrial capability. This follow-up response would put the regime at risk and embolden the opposition - the worst outcome for the ruling despots, as they could live without nuclear weapons but not without their absolute power.

6) However, Obama abhors the idea of being identified as a war president, especially one who supported intransigent Israel against the victims of colonialism and imperialism in the Middle East. He would after all prefer to be president of the World's United Nations, rather than just the USA.

7) Ingeniously, Obama is playing a very deft poker game in the Middle East:

-First he established negotiation as his primary tool
-Then he instituted inconclusive and slow-acting sanctions
-Now that everyone is, as a result, running out of time, he sets a timeline for the USA that suits only Ahmadinejad and the State Department, that of disallowing Iran to actually assemble a bomb

-The danger is that only America can, at that late stage with its incomparable reach and firepower, destroy Iran's nuclear program

-Then Israel will necessarily be dependent on Obama's word, his changing assurances. Israel's timeline ends much sooner and she needs to take out the nuclear facilities before they are hardened further, before the essential components are dispersed even more widely

-Obama knows this and is relying on Israel's immutable commitment to retain control over its own destiny, to never allow its existential existence to fall into the hands of others, whether it's Obama or Khomeini

-So Obama, with vote-enhancing pronouncements of support for Israel, will bide his time, forcing Israel's hand, ensuring Israel ultimately takes responsibility for its own fate and attacks Iran's facilities, thereby neutering Iran's nuclear risks for the USA and the world as well

8) The poker hand is thus played with disarming charm and panache, with believable concern. Israel is blamed for Iran's reaction, for oil price hikes, for economic dislocation. Obama is lauded as Israel's best friend, and gets re-elected. Game over.

JUST IN - A leading Israeli newspaper (and numerous blogs here in the USA) reported that Obama and the White House have offered Netanyahu crucial bunker busters and advanced refueling planes if, and only if, Israel guarantees to wait until after Obama's re-election to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, a risky proposition indeed. These bombs and planes would presumably allow Israel to delay their preemptive attack as they would provide the ability to go deeper, for far longer. To place Israel's survival (and Iran's genocidal pledges) behind Obama's political agenda suggests an order of cynical and political blackmail no former U.S. president would likely have countenanced. The White House ambiguously denies parts of this story. I would like to believe the veracity of this report is suspect - I pray it would be so. Time surely will tell.

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