CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) What we are witnessing in the Middle East now is a colossal foreign policy failure from the last two democrat administrations in the United States.
It was Barack Obama’s policy to strike a nuclear deal with Iran. It was hoped through a series of bribes that we could delay their weapons program by about 10 years.
Perhaps you remember Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Mayor of Tehran while Obama was in office. While in the U.S. for a United Nations event, Ahmadinejad gave a speech to students at Columbia University. With his smug smile, he told the students that there were no gays in his city. The audience snickered. “No, really,” he said. “If you know where they are, please tell me.” He also suggested that the one redeeming value of Israel was that it would be easier to kill Jews if they were all in the same place.
This is a foreshadowing of a world where Iran has nuclear weapons. If Hamas could have secured just one nuclear warhead, do you doubt that it would have been launched in last weekend’s attack? That is the path that the Obama-Biden policy has set us on.
As difficult as it has been for Israel to defend itself from attacks from the Gaza Strip, it was the Obama administration’s policy to recognize Israel’s 1949 borders. Defense of a nation that’s less than 9-miles wide at some points is militarily impossible.
This weekend also served as a moment of clarity for those who talk about a two-nation solution. Let’s imagine that a blood-soaked independent Palestine comes into being. Would it not immediately sign a defense agreement with Iran? Imagine Iranian troops setting up military bases on the Israeli border; Iranian weapons and military operatives training Hamas within sight of a border wall. A Palestinian state would not bring peace. It would create a staging area for future, multi-lateral attacks against Israel.
The United States and many other nations gave large amounts of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority. What did it get us? It swelled the size of Yasir Arifat’s motorcades. It funded the digging equipment for tunnels that militants stormed through and that hostages were dragged into last weekend.
The only good thing about last weekend’s attacks is that it may usher in a new era of real politic. Perhaps we will finally see the world as it is, not we wish it was.
Chris Conley
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