Israel's Netanyahu is Out of Control

It is amazing to me that the Israel's leader Netanyahu is interfering in our foreign policy and election to an extent that is more brazen than we have ever seen. Trying to push the United States into bombing Iran and their nuclear facilities. Of course in Israel this is a debate as well.

Israel has problems, demographic problems which in the years to come will spell their end as they exist now. It is interesting to me that somehow over the last thirty years the right wing of the United States has embraced the right wing of Israel in a way that in some cases, is almost treasonous. Not treasonous in a way that is like you think of Benedict Arnold, but certainly treasonous in the way of acting for a faction in another country in a way that is detrimental to your own country.

Mitt Romney has become nothing but a mouthpiece for Netanyahu. Keep in mind that I do not say a mouthpiece for Israel. This is because the generals in Israel and the Mossad is not in favor of an overt attack against Israel. The geopolitical firestorm this would unhinge would be catastrophic. It would unite the Iranian people behind their leaders in a way that nothing else could, it would send rockets into Israel in a way that could only exacerbate the whole Middle East crisis. Hamas and Hezbollah would see their activities given a cloud of legitimacy they currently do not have. And from a purely parochial small scale viewpoint a recession worldwide would be caused and we would be paying five, six, seven dollars a gallon for gas in the United States.

Often folks complain that Obama was not prepared to be President but his foreign policy has for the most part been quite strong and more nuanced than the blunderbuss approach from Bush the second.

In the Middle East right now we have Egypt in a situation that is a powder keg. We have the Muslim Brotherhood in control in Egypt balanced by the military. We have Syria in Civil War. And in the middle of this somebody really suggests creating an Israeli/Iranian firestorm.

There is one way to allow the extremists in these countries that took part in the Arab spring to usurp power in these countries, that for the most part have not been anti West in their new leadership. That is to enter into a military action against Muslims on the side of the Israelis.

Israel is our great ally. And they should be. But they have some hard difficulties to accept. Birthrates mean that soon they will become more and more, in their own country, a minority. The apartheid policies they enforce in Gaza and the West Bank will have to be used in more places just to keep order. They need to find a way to a two state solution or over our children's lifetime they will be in an untenable situation.

A last thing to point out is that of all the countries in the Middle East Iran is the country whose people, whose population, is the most receptive to the West. This is not a country of people living in tents. If one looks at Tehran this is a teeming, literate, western embracing culture. They are run by a mad man but the only way that extremism will win in the long run in this country will be if we give them a reason to pull together.

Put another way, if someone attacked the United States, and we have experienced that, did the battles between Republicans and Democrats become less important. Of course they did. Correctly so. Why would we expect other people in other countries to act differently.

One more reason not to vote for Romney. He is so beholden to Netanyahu and the far right in this country, like Sheldon Adelson, that he cannot be trusted to run foreign policy. He just cannot.

This could blow up at any minute. The end point is, however, that what Bibi is doing is unprecedented in his attempted interference in American politics.