Banning Arab parties in the upcoming election? Stunning. …and incredibly stupid. The good news is that it actually makes Olmert’s move on Bush against Condoleezza Rice almost recede from view. Almost. But it sure reminds you of the serial failures Rice has suffered under a president that never seems willing to let her do her job, whatever that may be at the time.
Though I’m no fan of Condi, mainly because she’s proven woefully incompetent in her positions, particularly as national security advisor, she’s trying to get a ceasefire agreement pushed through at the UN Security Council. But on a phone call from Olmert, George W. Bush made Rice abstain from voting on the measure, the only one on the U.N. Security Council not voting in favor of the ceasefire. The Israeli leader gloated in typical machismo satisfaction, revealing why so many detest Israeli leaders during military actions. Their rhetoric is insulting to the United States, making the U.S. presidency look like nothing more than a mere patsy for Israeli action.
“She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour,” Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.
[...] “I said ‘get me President Bush on the phone’. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care. ‘I need to talk to him now’. He got off the podium and spoke to me.
“I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour.”
This is exactly the type of foreign policy from which Obama needs to stay an ocean away. The interlocking of Israeli – American policy regarding the former’s escalating military actions against Palestinians has caused our country a lot of grief. Obama needs to separate Israeli – American policy in the Middle East, though there is no evidence that is what will happen. But independence and friendship are not mutually exclusive, and Obama through Clinton needs to send that message upon arrival.
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