Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures while addressing the 2015 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference in Washington, Monday, March 2, 2015. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
Most Americans have had the unfortunate and extremely disconcerting experience of being in the presence of a petulant child when they throw a temper tantrum when things do not go their way. It is a worse scenario when adults throw a fit and exhibit contemptuously rude and impertinent behavior or speech; especially when the adults are members of Congress, Republican presidential candidates, or a foreign nation’s leader. To be fair to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his petulance and insolence are borne of hubris due to Republicans giving the foreigner unfettered control over American foreign policy in the Middle East; control that ended when Barack Obama became President.
Everyone under the Sun realizes that the one overriding reason Benjamin Netanyahu is acting like the petulant little brat that he really is, and why his insolence is intolerable, is because he was given no authority over, and could not control, the P5+1 negotiations with Iran over the Islamic Republic’s alleged nuclear ambitions. Despite Netanyahu, and his Republican sycophants’ belief, the Israeli foreigner, his nation, or any Republican presidential candidate or congressional representative is not any kind of permanent member of the United Nations security council. Netanyahu and his Republican facilitators also do not lead the Executive Branch of government that sets America’s foreign policy, and although it has been a crushing blow to his ego, Benjamin Netanyahu is not a member of any branch of the United States’ government; he is a foreigner, a bully, and a warmonger.
Immediately after the “official” announcement that a deal had been reached between the P5+1 (permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) Netanyahu’s office announced he would use his considerable influence to incite real congressional resistance to the deal like he did in a speech to a joint session last spring to rebuke President Obama for not allowing Israel to scuttle the U.N. P5+1 negotiations with Iran. The statement from Netanyahu’s office said that the prime minister is going to attempt to thwart the deal “with every available means at his disposal; including persuasion directed at the Congress, and American public opinion in general.”
However, Netanyahu’s considerable hubris clouds his perception of the American people who are sick and tired of America being embroiled in Middle East wars at Netanyahu’s urging. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, 6 in 10 Americans support the U.N. plan to lift international economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program; precisely what the P5+1 deal accomplishes.
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Netanyahu began his “persuasive propaganda campaign” against the deal by claiming that with the announcement, “The world is a much more dangerous place today than it was yesterday, and swore that “Israel is not bound by the agreement between Iran, the United States, Britain France, Germany, Russia, and China. Even though Israel was given a copy of the agreement, Netanyahu lied and said “Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars” in a deal “that gives the Iranian regime the capacity to produce many nuclear bombs; in fact an entire nuclear arsenal, with the means to deliver it.”
It is too bad Netanyahu started running his mouth before reading the 159-page document titled “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” that is more elaborate, more detailed, and allows for more intrusive inspections than any Soviet-American arms treaty completed during the Cold War. For the record, there will be no sanctions lifted until Iran meets several conditions such as dismantling the majority of its centrifuges, shipping most of its uranium out of country, and several other conditions before one sanction is lifted. However, that is not good enough for Republicans or their de facto leader Netanyahu who say that any deal with Iran is a bad deal because it prevents a war with the Islamic Republic.
It is noteworthy that President Obama, the man Americans twice elected to lead the Executive Branch with explicit purview to set America’s foreign policy, took a page right out of the Republican demigod Ronald Reagan’s negotiations with the former Soviet Union and said the P5+1 agreement was not based on trust, but verification. The President said, “You know, I have a lot of differences with Ronald Reagan, but where I completely admire him was his recognition that if you were able to verify an agreement that was negotiated with the evil empire that was hell-bent on our destruction and was a far greater existential threat to us than Iran will ever be, then it will be worth doing.”
During an interview with the President, Thomas Friedman suggested that, like Republicans and Netanyahu claim, the United Nations deal ‘might‘ give Iran a free hand to cheat without fear of any American retaliation more robust than instantly reinstating crippling economic sanctions. He asked the President, “Why should the Iranians be afraid of us?” President Obama did not hesitate to say “because we could knock out their military in speed and dispatch if we chose to,” and it is why the President said that this deal is worth doing instead of rushing headlong into another Middle East war; a war that Netanyahu, Republicans, and the military industrial complex lust for Israel to start and America to finish.
This idea that Israel, or Netanyahu for that matter, has unfettered purview of America’s foreign policy is due to conditioning borne of the Bush administration’s compliance to Netanyahu’s counsel and crusade for American war with Islamic nations. Netanyahu, as a private citizen, was an important Bush advisor in the rush to invade Iraq, and coupled with America’s continued largesse in supporting Israel’s military has the Israeli’s actually believing that they hold sway over America’s foreign policy in the Middle East. For example, the head of the Israeli Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid, denounced Netanyahu’s spring campaign in the U.S. Congress as a “colossal failure.” Lapid said that, “Netanyahu crossed a line that caused the White House to stop listening to Israel. We weren’t even in the arena, we had no representative in Vienna, and the door to the White House was closed to us. Netanyahu should resign, because if you promise for years that only you can prevent this deal and then it’s signed, you’re responsible.”
No, the deal is the responsibility of the United Nation’s five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany; Israel was not represented and the White House did not listen to Israel because Barack Obama is President and sets America’s foreign policy. This simple fact is completely lost on Israel, its thuggish bully leader, and every Republican reacting like petulant little children because they did not get their way, and war with Iran.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
