Profoundly Engaged
"It is critically important for the whole world to know we did everything in our power, we did everything that reasonably could have been expected, to avoid any confrontation.
"President Obama is not bluffing."
U.S. Vice-president Joe Biden
Speaking before the powerful lobby group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, Vice-President Biden spoke the assurances that a too-busy President Barack Obama wished to convey to American Jews concerned about the future of Israel in a hostile Middle East. It's a rough neighbourhood and always has been, the Middle East.
With the advent of the "Arab Spring" interpreted by the West as a timely awakening of the great Arab street finally demanding of their rulers, dictators, theocracies that elusive fundamental in human relations some call liberty, others call freedom, and still others name human rights, the situation that eventuated in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria resemble hugely what occurred much earlier in Lebanon.
The people who began their protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria were far more interested in high food prices and scarcity of vital resources than they were to attain freedom, so that symbolic message of an oppressed people awakening to demand their human rights was rather misread. Although it eventually morphed into a semblance of rights-seeking.
The trouble was that those who were secular, leftist, human rights activists were in a distinct minority, and their role was swiftly taken over by Islamists hovering in the background. What Iran had achieved with its Islamic Revolution re-enlisting society into the backwardness of historically 'pure' Islam while honing science and research to harness a nuclear advantage, has helped create a sectarian divide.
Iraq, once dominated by minority Sunnis, now echoes Iran's Shiite triumph. Syria, whose Shia minority oppresses its Sunni majority has fallen into the same type of slaughterhouse theatre that Lebanon experienced that transformed it from the most moderate and reasonable of functional Arab states with accommodation between its Shia, Sunni, Christians and Druze, to a country where the government has been taken hostage by a Shia terrorist militia as an Iranian-Syrian outreach project.
And there is Israel, holding on to its geographic gains from the last of its battles holding off the combined military assaults of its neighbours. With terror groups loyal to Iran, opposing others loyal to al-Qaeda threatening to filter through the Golan Heights to Israel. And so, Vice-President Biden was there, at the AIPAC convention to assure the lobby group that it remains in the U.S. interest to help protect Israel.
The thousands of pro-Israel supporters were informed by the Vice-President that ongoing efforts to de-legitimize Israel represented the "most dangerous, pernicious" change he has witnessed in relation to Israel's Security. And U.S. State Department head John Kerry was swift to point out to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan that it is not at all helpful to resuming relations with Israel, to describe Zionism as a blight against human rights.
President Obama, stressed his vice-president, would continue to present as a reliable bulwark against any efforts to undermine Israel. "It is not a matter of debate", emphasized Mr. Biden. Israel's and the United States' mutual interest in preventing Iran from its dedication to acquiring nuclear devices ensures that the two countries are engaged in an enterprise that is meant to protect both Israel and the wider international community.
Despite which, he emphasized acting in haste would only serve to further alienate the international community. As though such a thing could even be possible. For the international community appears to have divorced itself from support of Israel. In Europe most countries have absorbed so many refugees and migrants from Muslims fleeing their countries of origin, that the emphasis now is on ensuring that those host countries do not offend their Muslim populations whose presence far outweighs those of Jews.
Labels: Controversy, Crisis Politics, Defence, Iran, Israel, Nuclear Technology, Security, United States
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, March 06, 2013
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