The official President Obama thread

[CrashMan]

steven787 said:

madskillz said:

steven787 said:
I am Jewish, so this might be surprising if you don't know me too well...

Israel needs to STFU, they have no right to tell our country NOT to be diplomatic. They are criminals fighting criminals. Both Israel and Iran ignore civilian casualties, Iran kills through terrorist groups and Israel does it with soldiers in uniform.

It's not a sign of weakness to sit down and say, "This is our chance to hit the reset button. In 20 years oil won't support you any more. We won't need it, Europe, China, and India won't either. No body is going to care about you, Iraq, or Israel any more. You'll be able to bomb each other all you want. Do you want to be part of the global community and global trade or do you want to bomb each other back to the 12th century?"

Either way we're better off, either they increase attacks and support and start a regional conflict where Israel flattens them... Oil goes up, but in the long run the world becomes more stable OR they start conforming to the standards of diplomacy and governance that is expected from sovereign nations.

The second is more likely, the Iranian people are educated and weary of their goernment. They support it reluctantly because it is stable, they see one situation in Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan and another in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait. Neither the government nor the people want to be in anarchy.

At the same time we, and our allies in the Middle East (with or without Israel) have to help them evolve if they want to.

That's deep, Steve. My real question is - will Israel sign off on the second idea? The rest of the Mideast seems hellbent on ending Israel. And Israel definitely has history on their side.

Israel making the Mideast a parking lot would likely trigger WWIII. Even cautious peace would be great for that region, though Israel needs folks watching their back.

 

 

Well, I think Israel needs to...

Obama's a lot smarter than me though.  Chief of Staff Emanuel is pretty hard line pro-Israel.  I think he realizes that it's more complicated than anyone really can explain.  I think their are many people in Israel and in Arab countries who are tired of the conflict.  Somethings gotta give and I think Obama is the US leader that can make it peaceful.  Egypt and Saudi Arabia  aren't allies of Israel, but they don't want to be dragged into conflict.  It won't be WWIII because of the regional nature and Israel's military superiority of the entire region.

 One thing to realize is that there is a huge constituancy in this country whose interest in Israel is purely religeous in nature, and I'm not talking about the Jewish population.

Far right wing Christians believe that when Armageddon happens, and Jesus comes for the second time, the Jews need to fulfill biblical prophesy and be in Israel (so they can all subsequantly be killed, by the way).  That is the sole reason they care about what happens to Israel.

Its scary, but GWB came out and said he felt "God" wanted all people to have democracy, and they factored in to his foreign policy (something along those lines, haven't seen the clip in a while.)  Our hard on for Jesus in this country is staggering.

My biggest beef with our handling of Israel is our blatent bias in handling the situation.  It is a rare sight indeed to see the term "Israeli terrorist," even if an Israeli blatently is participating in terrorist actions (bombings, etc)