Apr 02 2010

Russia, Canada, global warming, the Arctic, and Big Brother

Category: global warming,national security,Russia — harmonicminer @ 8:43 am

A Russian view on Climate Change, the Arctic and Russia’s National Security

What does Prime Minister Stephen Harper have in common with the Canadian Minister of Defence? He shares a sinister, hypocritical and belligerent discourse bordering on the lunatic fringe of the international community. Yet Canada’s new-found megalomania is the least of Russia’s worries: How can climate change in the Arctic threaten her national security?

From Canada, Russia has become used to seeing and hearing positions of sheer arrogance, unadulterated insolence and provocative intrusion. Take for example Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s declaration that Canada is “an Arctic Superpower” (what all thirteen of them?) and the idiotic reference by the Canadian Minister of Defence, Peter McKay, about Russian “overflights” outside Canadian airspace. How can you “overfly” outside?

What these statements hide is Canada´s nervousness at the fact that international law backs up Russia’s claim to a hefty slice of the Arctic and that international law will favour Russia in delineating the new Arctic boundaries. Inside Russia’s continental shelf lie huge deposits of gold, diamonds, nickel, cobalt and copper.

The immense importance of the Arctic to the Russian economy can be seen by the fact that 22 per cent of Russia’s exports and 20 per cent of her GDP come from products obtained from inside the Arctic Circle, where around 90 per cent of Russia’s hydrocarbon reserves lie. Canada, on the other hand, derives less than one per cent of its GDP from products which come from this region.

………………..

Given that the permafrost covers 66 per cent of Russian territory, a dramatic change in climatic conditions could threaten all engineering structures in this region, considers Averyanov.

Besides this, Yuri Averyanov considers that interstate conflict is a real possibility due to the new policies of allies of the USA in the Arctic in expanding exploration and research operations. Indeed, the possibility is referred to in the Russia National Security Strategy, adopted in Spring 2009 and mentioning the use of armed force and conflict over hydrocarbon resources.

In the event of a showdown between Russia and Canada, it is obvious that Russia would win. Yet Canada is becoming more and more arrogant, feeling its back covered perhaps by Big Brother to the south. Maybe it is time for Canada to stick its nose into its own affairs and forget adventures which might bring it dire consequences.

How about that? The Russians, of all people, referring to the USA as “Big Brother.”  Anyway, since “hockey stick” global warming is looking less and less likely (not that it ever looked very likely), the Russians should relax.  And in the worst case, both Canada and Russia will be so busy fending off rabid polar bears that they won’t have time to worry about anything else.

It is a uniquely Russian weirdness to think they own more of the arctic than Canada.  Just to get the picture:


It looks to me like Greenland has a better claim than Russia.  Or maybe if Russia gets too uppity, the fine folk at Ward Hunt Island will mount a punitive expedition, using the massive Canadian navy.

Mar 30 2010

Rewarding illegal behavior with citizenship

Category: Congress,constitution,government,Group-think,illegal alien,national security — harmonicminer @ 8:34 am

An argument to be made about immigrant babies and citizenship

A simple reform would drain some scalding steam from immigration arguments that may soon again be at a roiling boil. It would bring the interpretation of the 14th Amendment into conformity with what the authors of its text intended, and with common sense, thereby removing an incentive for illegal immigration.

To end the practice of “birthright citizenship,” all that is required is to correct the misinterpretation of that amendment’s first sentence: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” From these words has flowed the practice of conferring citizenship on children born here to illegal immigrants.

……………………….

Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to mothers who are here illegally. Graglia seems to establish that there is no constitutional impediment to Congress ending the granting of birthright citizenship to those whose presence here is “not only without the government’s consent but in violation of its law.”

George Will’s piece, linked above, gives a nice history of the 14th Amendment, and explains clearly why it should not be interpreted to mean that all babies of illegal aliens are automatically US citizens.  But somehow, I don’t think Congress is likely to act on this anytime soon, since the Democrats want to turn as many illegals as possible into voters… for them.  That’s why they are loathe to enforce our borders, they are for same day registration/voting and “motor voter” laws, and are only too happy to accept the support of illegal alien activist organizations.

I’m sure the Democrats mourn the passing of ACORN, which was famous for finding ways for illegals to vote, not to mention evade taxes and other laws.

So we won’t see a Congressional reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment anytime soon.  But read all of Will’s piece.  It’s essential information for the next time someone tries to convince you that it makes any kind of sense Constitutionally for anchor babies to be automatic US citizens.

Mar 27 2010

The whitewash in the media continues, #3

Category: government,media,military,national security,Obama,Russia — harmonicminer @ 8:51 am

Hope springs eternal, I suppose. The major media continues to hope that the public has the memory of gerbil… or maybe a lobster. I suspect, however, that the Democrats may discover that the voting public has the claws of a lobster come this November.   Nevertheless, when you ordain a president based on hope, I suppose no one should be surprised if you evaluate his efforts from the standpoint of hope.  But hope is about all you have, despite your opinion that after Two big wins, a presidency <is> transformed for Obama:

Two big wins for Barack Obama at home and abroad — a historic health care bill and a new arms treaty with Russia — have injected sudden momentum into a presidency that had been looking beleaguered.

Well, yes, the health bill was historic, in the sense of a politically suicidal Congress ramming something through that 70% of the public really didn’t want, with naked bribery that would be illegal if a anyone else did it.

“What a week here,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs wrote on his twitter feed, as Obama concluded a new strategic arms reduction treaty in a call with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday.

What a week indeed.   As far as can be determined at this time, the cuts to which Russia agreed are in the area of strategic weapons only.  That means that battlefield and tactical nukes aren’t affected…  and Russia has a great preponderance of those.  It is those weapons that are a bigger threat to Europe, former Soviet satellites, and the Middle East, since they are all Russia has to counter its relative weakness in conventional weapons, compared to its Cold War heyday (though Putin is building up again, and fast, to try to recover the conventional strength that Yeltsin squandered, from their point of view).  Russia has plainly signaled its intent to use its possession of the main oil pipe into Europe (in the Georgia invasion) to control the Euro-powers.  Russia wants to regain its superpower status.   Putin is not a peace maker, unless it temporarily serves his larger purpose, which is expansion and power.

Biggest concern:  will Russia use this to get the USA to make cuts that matter, while Russia simply decommissions aging technology that may not be working too well anyway?  Second biggest concern:  how much of that aging nuclear technology and fissile material will be safely decommissioned into secure storage, and how much will mysteriously evaporate into the ether, maybe showing up on the black market?

It is risible that Putin and Medvedev would agree to ANYTHING that they didn’t believe strengthened them and weakened the USA in relative terms.  The US media (and, I fear, the US State Department) don’t seem to grasp the distinction between a piece of paper and actual peace.  North Korea has agreed to all kinds of things, and the media have hailed the negotiations that produced the agreements, and then had abrupt memory loss when North Korea reneged, leading to calls in the media for more negotiations.  Review the definition of insanity.  The Soviet Union, we now know (based partly on KGB files opened to the public after the collapse of the old regime), bent most arms agreements we ever made with them, when they could.  Putin regrets the passing of that brutal state, and is doing his best to emulate its power-grasping tendencies.

Putin has been busy rehabilitating Stalin in the minds of the Russian public.  Does anyone actually think that Putin/Medvedev are signing agreements either out of fear of US nuclear preemption (about as likely as the US nuking Mexico), or out of altruism and the desire for international amity (maybe they should get Nobel Prizes)?  If you are one who harbors either belief, I have a nice property with an in-ground swimming pool in Siberia that I’d love to sell you.  The pool isn’t heated….  but with global warming heating up Siberia, all you really have to worry about is rampaging polar bears looking for an ice floe to surf on.

No doubt Obama supporters will claim that the new agreement has strong verification protocols built in.  Maybe.  But Russia is a big, big country.  Obama has been busy cutting our space program, our military and our intelligence agencies.  Exactly what resources will he use to verify that Russia isn’t holding out the same way the Soviets did?  Those agreements had “verification” built in, too.

In six days, two of the biggest projects of Obama’s presidency came to fruition after months of painstaking work, transforming the image of an administration that had swung hard but failed to connect on big agenda items.

He has STILL failed to connect on the government takeover of health-care.  Don’t confuse holding hostages with hitting home-runs.

In any case, the public really hasn’t evinced much concern about Russian nukes lately, though doubtless the media will try to pump this “achievement” up into something deserving of the prematurely awarded Nobel Peace Prize.  I suppose my problem with this is simple:  Obama has not built up any trust in his ability to tell our friends from our enemies.  He is captive of the moral equivalence view that American objectives are no worthier than Russian ones.   At bottom, he does not believe in American exceptionalism, so he cannot defend American interests with a whole heart.  After all, we’re no better than anyone else.

By Friday, Obama could savor the spectacle of the pundits he frequently decries, switching from a “this presidency is over” mantra, to hailing him as a conquering domestic president and a global statesmen.

Yeah, and come next November he could be savoring that lobster we talked about. The claws, that is.  Now, that would be a change worth hoping for.

Mar 26 2010

Gosh, Pat, I didn’t know you were such an Obama fan

Category: Fatah,Hamas,Israel,jihad,middle east,national security,Obama — harmonicminer @ 8:00 am

Netanyahu’s Hollow Victory? Pat Buchanan’s apparent hatred of Israel continues to masquerade as “conservative” foreign policy prescriptions.

“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital.”

With this defiant declaration, to a thunderous ovation at AIPAC, Benjamin Netanyahu informed the United States that East Jerusalem, taken from Jordan in the Six Day War, is not occupied land. It is Israeli land and Israel’s forever, and no Palestinian state will share Jerusalem. Israel alone decides what is built, and where, in the Holy City.

With his declaration and refusal to walk back the decision to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, which blew up the Biden mission, “Bibi” goes home a winner over Barack Obama.

But it is a temporary triumph and hollow victory — over Israel’s indispensable ally. For the clash revealed that the perceived vital interests of Israel now collide with vital U.S. interest in the Middle East.

Memo to Mr. Buchanan: land taken in wars of self-defense is legitimately kept. That is the time honored historical fact.  Live with it.  Jordan will certainly have to.  So will the “Palestinians,” who COULD easily have been resettled in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, et. al., after the failure of those nations to destroy Israel in war.  (Of course, those people have been denied the opportunity to live elsewhere, because each of those nations had something to gain from keeping the hatred of Israel alive…  or so they thought.   In any case, none of them wanted the war to be over until Israel was destroyed.)  If Jordan had not attacked Israel, along with many others, Israel would not be building settlements in Jerusalem today. Everyone will have to live with the consequences of their decisions, including those made decades ago by different governments.

But there is nothing illegitimate, nothing at all, about Israel keeping the land it won while defending itself (almost unsuccessfully so) in wars not of its making.

Memo to the rest of Israel’s neighbors: if you want to keep the land you have now, don’t attack again.

Memo to Obama:  Israel’s support in the USA is broad and deep.  You might want to remember that.  The honeymoon is over.  You might want to remember that, too. 

Feb 10 2010

Is Obama our Gorbachev?

Category: national security,Obama,Russia,socialism,society — harmonicminer @ 9:45 am

Is Obama an American Gorbachev?   And if he is, does that make you feel better?  Pravda certainly seems to love the idea:

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev believes that US President Barack Obama still has the support of the electorate despite opinion polls showing his support slipping. Gorbachev had positive comments and words recently when discussing nuclear disarmament treaty negotiations.

“The election of Obama was not an accident,” Gorbachev said. “It is true however that there has been some slippage in support for him.” While he said that he liked Obama “a great deal,” Gorbachev acknowledged that Obama faces considerable difficulties as he attempts to change his country’s policies.

“US policy is changing, but it’s a difficult process,” he said. Gorbachev feels that the United States had missed “many opportunities” in the past, but chances are better with Obama. “I am very pleased that now Obama has changed course and has gone back to dialogue and the process of nuclear arms control,” said Gorbachev, speaking through an interpreter.

Some have said they see Barack Obama as the US version of Mikhail Gorbachev. When the United States found itself in the midst of a global economic crisis, the administration decided it was time to launch the dialogue and discussion idea for peace in the world spoken about in the campaign. This is what Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to do during his leadership of the Soviet Union. During his trip to Moscow, Obama met with Mikhail Gorbachev.

The United States is suffering from a worst case of “buyer’s remorse” since the fall of Nazi Germany. President Obama under the circumstances can only really work for change in the health care system, which is a life-and-death matter. The sordid rackets so ostentatiously infecting the system boil down vividly to lives ruined and bankrupted, and a system more frightful to deal with than disease itself. Probably the home truth is that health care will end up being rationed one way or another due to the change in the Democratic Congress.

Economically, the US isn’t in a recession it’s in a collapse. Dmitry Orlov outlined the process in his book “Reinventing Collapse” about the parallels between the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the prospects for demise of the US as currently constituted.

Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the Soviet dissolution. In the USA, the outcome this time might not be very appetizing. It would be one of the supreme ironies of history if it turned out that the US was incapable of ending its most self-destructive rackets peacefully and bloodlessly, while Russia made her transition in a peaceful, orderly manner.

Time will tell. Until then, Russia has proven once again she is a reliable, stable and responsible partner in international relations, has tremendous respect in the international community due to the fact that she honours international law and the agreements she signs and provides a remarkable opportunity for investors, showing signs of increasing strength in the fundamentals which underpin the economy.

The main thing to remember about Gorbachev is that he presided over the dissolution of the government he headed, followed by a considerable period of great instability in Russian society, followed by the current more-or-less dictatorship that masquerades as a democracy.

Feb 04 2010

“The One” after year one

Category: national security,Obama — harmonicminer @ 9:34 am

The Age of Obama: Anno Domini 2 You really want to click the link and read the whole thing. It’s Krauthammer in perfect form, with his usual clarity and concision.

In the real world, as opposed to what French President Nicolas Sarkozy calls President Barack Obama’s “virtual world,” America faces the reality of Iran’s intransigence and aggressiveness; China’s headlong pursuit of its own national, regional, and global interests; Russia’s determination to regain its Near Abroad; the Arab states’ refusal to accept any kind of a reasonable settlement of the kind that Israel has already offered under several governments; Syria’s designs on Lebanon; and Hugo Chávez’s designs on the weaker countries in Latin America. President Obama’s foreign policy agenda of gradual American retreat will have inexorable consequences: When erstwhile allies see the American umbrella being withdrawn, they will have to accommodate themselves to those from whom we were protecting them. If Obama proves impervious to empirical evidence and experience, all these accommodations, the weakening of alliances, the strengthening of centers of adversarial power in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Caracas, and elsewhere will continue until we are awakened by some cataclysm.

Perhaps I should have subtitled my address “How do you celebrate the first anniversary of the Second Coming?”–a theological conundrum that has confounded theologians for centuries.

Jan 22 2010

Things you’re not allowed to say at airports

Category: government,Group-think,national security — harmonicminer @ 10:10 am

99-year-old Granny isn’t the problem

I learned a new word from this column, which makes it worth the price of admission… which is free.  All worth reading, but here is the money paragraph, basically a reaffirmation of the “emperor’s new clothes” problem:

Question: what do the 9/11 killers, the Shoebomber, the Heathrow plotters, the Pantybomber, the London Tube bombers, the doctors who drove a flaming SUV through the concourse of Glasgow Airport and the would-be killers of Danish cartoonists all have in common? Answer: they’re Muslim. Sometimes they’re Muslims with box cutters, sometimes they’re Muslims with flaming shoes, sometimes they’re Muslims with liquids and gels, sometimes they’re Muslims with fully loaded underwear. But the Muslim bit is a constant. What we used to call a fact. But America’s leaders cannot state that simple fact, and so the TSA is obliged to pretend that all seven billion inhabitants of this planet represent an equal threat.

Dec 30 2009

The Cause of Terrorism is not poverty; the fix is not to restrict the freedom of normal people

Category: Islam,national security,terrorism — harmonicminer @ 9:08 am

In a refreshing break from its usual mantra of “terrorism is just a natural response to poverty and oppression,” the AP reports that the airline bomb suspect came from an elite family and the best schools.

As a member of an uppercrust Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received the best schooling, from the elite British International School in West Africa to the vaunted University College London.

But the education he wanted was of a different sort: Nigerian officials say his interest in extremist Islam prompted his father to warn U.S. authorities. As Abdulmutallab was being escorted in handcuffs off the Detroit-bound airliner he attempted to blow up on Christmas Day, he told U.S. officials that he had sought an extremist education at an Islamist hotbed in Yemen.

A portrait emerged Sunday of a serious young man who led a privileged life as the son of a prominent banker, but became estranged from his family as an adult. Devoutly religious, he was nicknamed “The Pope” for his saintly aura and gave few clues in his youth that he would turn radical, friends and family said.

“In all the time I taught him we never had cross words,” said Michael Rimmer, a Briton who taught history at the British International School in Lome, Togo. “Somewhere along the line he must have met some sort of fanatics, and they must have turned his mind.”

At what point will the west, particularly the leftist elites, stop trying to tie terrorism to poverty or “oppression”?  This nonsense arises in part, of course, to find a way to blame the Israelis for defending themselves, and refusing to continue to allow their opponents advantages in land and ability to pre-position forces that nearly led to Israel’s destruction in earlier wars.  The real enemy is a mosque-induced death cult, whatever the economic status of its members.

This 23 yr old wannabe mass murderer had privileges I can only dream about. Something poisoned his mind. That something was radical Islam.

Abdulmutallab is not the only one with such ambitions.  His colleagues in hopeful horror are, like him, “students” from families that are wealthy enough to send them abroad for world-class educations.  The thing they have in common is that they take 7th-century Islam extremely seriously.  They actually believe the words of the “Prophet,” and have chosen to live — and die — in response to that belief.

In the meantime, ever more restrictive airport boarding regulations seem a certainty, and ever more intrusive searches, until we figure out that we have no choice but to identify who is more likely to have evil intent, and give them more scrutiny, because we surely don’t have the resources or the time to give the necessary scrutiny to everyone, including your grandmother in a wheelchair from Peoria, or Trenton, who may choose not to visit you next Christmas due to a distaste for body cavity searches and x-ray glasses (like the ones they used to sell in D.C. Comics, except these will work) in the hands of prurient security types.

The feckless belief that we can solve our security problems by restricting carry-ons and on-board behavior even more than we already have, and by searching everyone even more thoroughly, is yet more “Powerpuff Policy.”

Sooner or later, someone is going to figure out how to make high-explosive dentures and hip/knee replacements.  While Christian “fundamentalists” will be getting only fluoride treatments, young adult male Islamic fanatics will be lining up to have all their teeth pulled and get dental implants made of enamel coated plastique.   I predict an influx of wealthy foreign nationals, of Islamic extraction, into European schools of orthopedic surgery, particularly focusing on lower extremity joint replacements.  Our too-faithful recent oral surgery patients, who will not have flossed much, will enter airplanes with a slight limp.  It’s tough to recover from double knee/double hip transplants, especially when it hurts to eat.

The other passengers will feel sorry for them, briefly.

Eventually, the only people on airplanes will be strip-searched people with no scars, who just endured body cavity searches and had their stomachs pumped.  But they will be very, very safe, wearing their airline-issued flying uniforms.  When they land at their destinations, they will report to the changing room/luggage area, where they’ll get their clothing back, which was sent in a transport plane.   Cost of a ticket from L.A. to Phoenix?  About $1,000.

Coming up next:  explosive hair.

Dec 28 2009

Powerpuff Policy

Category: national security,politics — harmonicminer @ 9:28 am

Picture 16

I just watched an episode of the Powerpuff Girls in which the Gangreen Gang, so named because they all seem to have green skin, is placed in the Powerpuff Girls’ kindergarten by Jack Wednesday, Truant Officer, who seems unable to distinguish adolescent troublemakers and arch-criminals from kindergarten-age kids.  I suppose he can’t be blamed, since the teacher seems to accept these obviously too-large and too-mean “kids” into her class with open arms.

As the day proceeds, the Gangreen Gang lives up to its billing by stealing cookies, pouring milk on students, throwing paste in the other kids’ faces, etc.  Each time, the teacher somehow seems not to notice who the real miscreants are, and when the Powerpuff girls try to stop the depredations of the Gangreen Gang, the teacher admonishes them that “there’s no fighting in school” and “you just need to learn to trust strangers.”   The Powerpuff Girls protest that the Gangreen Gang aren’t strangers, they are nearly-super-villains, to no avail.  The teacher says that *she* hasn’t seen the Gangreen Gang do anything especially bad.  Of course, she hasn’t really been paying attention, a fact obvious to any viewer.

This back and forth becomes so extreme that at recess, it’s the Powerpuff Girls who are given a “timeout,” while the Gangreen Gang essentially commit assault in a game of “dodgeball” with overmatched 5 yr olds.  And even then, when the Powerpuff Girls try to tell the teacher what’s happening just outside the schoolroom window, the teacher shushes them and returns to reading her book, right up until one of the balls breaks throught the schoolroom window and nearly decapitates the teacher, who finally notices the near-carnage on the playground.

In the denouement, when the Powerpuff Girls beg to be allowed to set things right, the teacher insists there is “no fighting at school,” but with a very broad hint to the Girls, she sends them out to play (and finish) a particularly violent game of dodgeball, that leaves the Gangreen Gang on the ropes, and ready to be picked up again by Jack Wednesday, Truant Officer.  We’re supposed to think the teacher is cool because she authorized the Powerpuff Girls to “fight” without really “fighting,” though only after intolerable provocation and injury to the rest of her class.

It is, of course, only a cartoon.  Nothing like this would happen in the real world, right?  But President Obama’s foreign policy seems at least this cartoonish.

He seems not to have read or been briefed on any of the history (old or more recent) of the players, from Iran to Venezuela’s Chavez to North Korea to Russia to China to Islamofascism in all its forms.  He acts like every day is a new day, and maybe today they’ll all play nice with him.  He seems bent on following some misplaced notion of “international law” and honoring the U.N. and its ridiculous “community of nations,” including a “human rights commission” staffed by some of the most abusive governments on the planet.  In this, the U.N. is more cartoonish than the Powerpuff Girls.  It’s as if the script writers had put the Gangreen Gang in charge of the entire school district, with the more lowly gang members in charge of the welcome wagon for new students.

Obama’s inexplicable support for illegal, unconstitutional actions by former President Zelaya of Honduras, his feckless approach to a nuclear-arming Iran, his tried-and-worthless approach to the Israel/Palestinian conflict, all of these make the actions of the Powerpuff Girls’ kindergarten teacher seem positively wise and far-sighted.

At least she knows when it’s time to bend the rules.

In the meantime, Obama gives obeisance to everyone who intends ill towards the USA, including the UN, the IPCC, and every third world dictator he chances to meet.

Hope and change.  Only now, there isn’t much left of the former, and only bad omens for the latter.

Nov 28 2009

Abbas: Obama isn’t putting enough pressure on Israel

Category: Fatah,Hamas,Hizbullah,Iran,Islam,Israel,national security,Palestine,Syria,terrorism — harmonicminer @ 9:51 am

Abbas accuses Obama of doing ‘nothing’ for peace in the Middle East

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday accused US President Barack Obama of doing “nothing” to achieve peace in the Middle East. Speaking to Argentinian newspaper Clarin, Abbas said he hoped that Obama would “take a more important role in the future.”

He went on to say that the Palestinian people were awaiting US pressure on Israel, “so that it respects international law and takes up the Road Map,” stressing that the peace process could not be restarted without a halt to settlement construction.

When asked what he was willing to concede for peace, Abbas told Clarin that the Palestinian people had “already made concessions.”

He opined that the current government, with Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister and Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister, “is not seeking peace,” though he said that 73 percent of Israelis were in favor of peace.

What Abbas wants, of course, is for Obama to be tougher on his (putatively) only friend in the Middle East, Israel, than he is on actual opponents, like Iran, Syria or Hisbullah.

If we needed any reminder of the fact, this illustrates the basic dynamic of all Middle East peace negotiations.  Israel, which has always been the attacked party, must give up land and options that were legitimately earned in acts of national self-defense from Arab aggression, self-defense against incredible odds.  In the meantime, Palestine doesn’t have to give up anything, including the intent to see the end of Israel as a Jewish nation.

Prediction:  Obama will be no more successful than any of his predecessors at convincing Palestinians that their best interests lie in normalizing relations with Israel, with reporting and fighting against the terrorists in their number, and with going about the business of building a functioning economy, without the ridiculous and unachievable destruction of Israel.  Palestinians have exactly the same opportunity now that Israel had 60 years ago, to build something out of nothing in the desert.  Further, they have a potential partner, Israel, which would help, if Palestinians could control their hatred of the Jews.  I’m not holding my breath.

In the meantime, Obama brings a student council president level of understanding to a negotiation where world class diplomats have tried and failed.  I won’t blame him for failing.  I will blame him if he manages to cripple Israel while he is busy failing to engineer an unlikely peace.

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