It’s important to keep up on neocon talking points because in spite of my best efforts, they coordinate their messages brilliantly and they’re powerful (why are we in Iraq, daddy?). It seems they are entrenched in our national life like a bad marriage (for reasons that include the usual glues of bad marriage: tribe, inertia, religion, money, dead child). And of course, they always try to find a way to hide their Israel-centered agenda.
Enough pontificating; here is MJ Rosenberg at media matters:
[Charles] Krauthammer is a psychiatrist and in today’s column, he cleverly defends Netanyahu to the hilt without mentioning him or the State of Israel. His column is called "Obama’s Policy of Slapping Allies" and here are the allies he names: Argentina, the United Kingdom, India, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Guess which country he doesn’t name?
Do I hear an echo? Yes; I listened to the brilliant Mephistophelean Robert Kagan at AIPAC last week:
I think if you look back over the past year, I’d have to say it’s been a tough time to be a U.S. ally. That’s probably the last thing that anyone would have expected with Barack Obama succeeding Bush. The world was certainly delighted to see Barack Obama as president, delighted to see the — the rear end of George Bush out the door. But nevertheless, if you go to Britain, France, certainly Eastern and Central Europe, Japan, our relations with our allies are actually not in good shape right now. There’s a very strong sense in Europe that Barack Obama doesn’t care very much about Europe. They think he cares about Asia, but if you go to Asia, they’re not so sure he cares that much there, either.
Now, I think there is, in fact, a broad foreign policy view in the administration, which is helping to create this perception, and that is, look. Where has the energy of this administration been devoted in its first year? Improving relations with Russia, working on cooperation with China, above all, reaching out to Iran, reaching out to the Muslim world, the Arab world. In — in general, trying to — in — in the administration’s view, repair relations with people who have been adversaries, competitors, challengers of the United States. Well, when that energy has been devoted, it’s — it’s been lost in terms of reassuring allies. And I think that one of the things that I hope this administration will do right now is — rethink, reset and start worrying about a little bit more how our allies are doing, both allies like Israel, but also, Poland and the Czech Republic, even Great Britain. (Applause.)
