Foggy Bottom: August 2010 Archives

I guess he really has decided to go the Jimmy Carter route - with an Iranian twist:

Mrs. Clinton said the [Israeli-Palestinian] talks are due to begin on September 2 and will be hosted by President Barack Obama. She said she hoped a comprehensive peace agreement can be reached within one year.

"There have been difficulties in the past, there will be difficulties ahead. .. I ask the parties to persevere, to keep moving forward even through difficult times and to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region," Mrs. Clinton said.

The leaders of Egypt and Jordan also have been invited to attend the first session.

In a statement, the Quartet - the EU, the UN, the US and Russia - said its members reaffirmed direct negotiations between the parties, "which can be completed within one year."

The historical parallel with the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, "hosted" by Mr. Peanut, couldn't be more obvious.  Given that his foreign policy has been as inept and disastrous as its domestic counterpart, Red Barry is clearly looking for some actual accomplishment that will be generally acknowledged as such to give him something to hang his 2012 re-election hat on, especially since otherwise all he'll be seen as doing is obstructing the dismantling of all the unpopular garbage the GOP congressional majorities were elected to repeal, cut, and replace.  A Rose Garden photo-op with Netanyahu and Abbas grinningly sharing a three-way handshake with His Majesty wouldn't necessarily be any magic electoral elixir, but it'd be a big step in the direction he wants to go.

But then there's the aforementioned "Iranian twist":

Coincidentally, according to today’s front-page administration-fed NYT story, one year is also the timeframe U.S. officials are now claiming Iran has before it achieves nuclear breakout capacity. The idea of this two-step media offensive, presumably, is to put pressure on Israel not to do anything “rash” before the new round of peace talks plays out, especially with news set to break tomorrow that the Bushehr reactor is ready to go. That’s consistent with the White House’s thinking all along: They’ve always believed that settling the Palestinian issue first will make it easier to deal with Iranian nukes by denying the mullahs an opportunity to exploit the great Muslim grievance. If a peace deal is struck, then theoretically the goodwill it’ll generate towards Israel and America among Sunni nations will neutralize the Muslim solidarity that Iran wants to exploit when the confrontation over its nuke program finally comes.

In plain, blunt terms, B.O. will be holding the Israelis hostage on the mullahs' behalf against the IDF doing what has to be done to at least buy time towards the Jewish State's very survival, which is only necessitated by our refusal to "disarm" Tehran ourselves.

Eeyore accurately previews the inevitable endgame:

Hamas will play no role in the peace negotiations and has no interest in ceding Gaza to its enemies in the Palestinian Authority in the event that a peace deal is hashed out. On the contrary, with Iran’s full support, they’ll inevitably accuse Abbas of having sold out the Palestinian nation in order to inflame the same sense of Muslim grievance and solidarity that the peace talks are meant to mute. In fact, if O shocks the world and the talks start making serious progress, I assume Iran and Hamas (and Hezbollah, of course) will simply precipitate some sort of crisis in order to derail them. Which is to say, how can you expect any deal to hold as long as Tehran and its proxies still have fangs?

And once they have nuclear fangs (again, as always, assuming they don't have them already) what Muslim entity will even heed, much less cooperate with any U.S. initiative once incineration from Tehran becomes the likely outcome?

Yes, triumphal photo-ops and re-election definitely are driving this umpteenth doomed-from-inception "peace process" wank.  But the regime's strategic objective remains: Dismantle Israel as the implacable enemy of "Middle East peace," not Iranian Islamist theocratic apocalyptic fanaticism, which can be "won over" to "peace and friendship" with an "extended open hand.

You know, just like Imam Rauf and Park51 (and Barack Obama and the Pelosi Politburo) have been SO open to compromise on the site of the Islamic Victory Monument.

What could go wrong?