International posturing, of deadly importance to Israel

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Feb 13, 2015 at 21:45

Thank you, Daniel, for clearing up what seems to be some esoteric wheeling and dealing in Congress and the Administration. It seems that the most important element of what you said, is the fact that the the Iranians are coming on full-steam against this, as you say, toothless bill. That moves the arena from the domestic political scene of pre-2016 party posturing, to the international arena of deadly Iranian pressure tactics.

I have been following President Bushabama's machinations rather dispassionately since the last elections. We are stuck with him as a President, after all, are unlikely to impeach him, and already have a rather powerful opposition seated in the Congress that BO has been routinely bypassing lately as he rules as a virtual dictator. There is not much we can do, therefore, in the political arena, to staunch the bleeding of America.

There is some political maneuvering we can do in preparation for 2016, which I will not focus on here. For instance, Obama is perhaps the most belicose President in US history, having started deadly, persistent wars in Libya, Syria-Iraq and Ukraine; and he is now likely to get congressional approval (with enthusiastic Republican support) to authorize putting American lives at risk in combat against ISIL. This behavior, along with Obama's desire to get fast-track authority to make anti-US-labor international trade deals, promises to deepen the divide between the aristocratic Obamas and the anti-war and pro-labor wings of the Democratic Party. All of this should be spelling disaster for the Democrats in 2016, but see below:

Obama's approval ratings. have been sitting at 47% approve and 49% disapprove, ± 5%, since August, 2009. In spite of this generally negative rating, Obama convincingly defeated his challenger in 2012. What's even more frightening, is the fact that there has been so little movement in his ratings, despite one economic and foreign policy disaster after another. I come away from all this, with the impression that the American public has stopped thinking and feeling altogether, and is frozen in some sort of media-generated stasis. We are, in other words, becoming a nation of zombies in a world of zombies. That is not an encouraging sign.

I know that you don't usually talk about these matters, but something interesting has come up in today's news -- namely, that Greece's new leftist leader seems to be pro-Israel and publicly anti-Turkish:

Greece plans joint military drills with Israel, Cyprus, Egypt
DEBKAfile February 12, 2015, 8:46 AM (IDT)

The Greek Defense Miniser Panos Kammenos said in Cyprus Wednesday that the newly-elected government in Athens planned joint military exercises in the coming months with Israel, Cyprus and Egypt to enhance regional security in view of tensions with Turkey over oil exploration in the eastern Mediterranean. Nicosia has licensed exploratory drilling in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and is unhappy that Ankara is determined to search for oil and gas in the same area. Kammenos criticized as a "clear provocation" Turkey's sending of a survey ship to the waters where the drilling is taking place.

-- http://www.debka.com/newsupdatepopup/10487/

It's also interesting, that the Egyptians are on board in this venture. This is a crystalization of trends that have already been happening: The Egyptians, for instance, have been at war with Hamas and its allies for some time, making them de facto allies of Israel. and their Saudi backers are quietly lined up with both in the background. Meanwhile, NATO ally Greece has been quietly sitting back and endurig the Turkish occupation of Cyprus for over 40 years, and has spent the past six years or so getting closer to Israel -- even at a time when Obama was head-over-heels in love with Turkey and their Muslim Brotherhood government. Now Obama is changing lovers, but not to the benefit of our allies Greece, Israel and Egypt: He is cozying up to the Iranians and, by extension, Assad's Syria and Hizbullah (and, though this is causing some contradictions, with the Houthis of Yemen!).

I am curious to see how the Russians will take all this. Russia has been a long-time ally of both Syria and Iran; and when he needed friends last Spring because of the Ukraine sanctions, he struck a deal to his own hurt with PR China. Lately, he's been increasingly dealing with Egypt, which is Syria's enemy as well as Turkey's, and with the Vietnamese, who have an ongoing dispute with PR China that is even more explosive than that between Turkey and Cyprus. In the Ukraine, the Russians are trying to avoid a Cold War-like confrontation that would make them even more dependent on China, by dealing with Germany's Merkel and France's Hollande. Putin, in other words, seems to be posturing himself to move independently -- even, if need be, in the direction of helping Israel; at a time that Obama and his crew seem to be daily waxing more and more irrational.

This is a situation worth keeping one's eye on.

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