‘Obama is Losing a Battle that he Doesn’t Know He’s In.’ This is in the UK Guardian. The UK Guardian is a socialist publication. The writer here, named Simon Tisdall. Now, I don’t know if Simon Tisdall is a token conservative writer at the Guardian, but nevertheless the Guardian, ladies and gentlemen, is a leftist extremist rag.
‘Barack Obama’s chances of making a fresh start in US relations with the Muslim world, and the Middle East in particular, appear to diminish with each new wave of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza. That seems hardly fair, given the president-elect does not take office until January 20. But foreign wars don’t wait for Washington inaugurations. Obama has remained wholly silent during the Gaza crisis. … But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama’s detachment — and that his failure to distance himself from George Bush’s strongly pro-Israeli stance is encouraging the belief that he either shares Bush’s bias or simply does not care.’
Al-Jazeera is giving Obama grief. What does this tell us? If the Guardian is writing this, it tells us that interests in the Middle East expected a president who would be less friendly to our ally, Israel, and now that he won’t speak out and stop what’s going on, they’re having second doubts about him. They are saying, ‘Where is this change?’ And our media is wringing its hands, ‘Oh, my God, he’s inheriting a mess in the Middle East.’ What president has not inherited a mess in the Middle East? Ask yourselves a question, folks. Why is Israel attacking Gaza? Actually that’s not even the question. Why is Israel responding to attacks? Why are they firing rockets into Gaza? Ask yourself that question.
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RUSH: The Democrat Party and liberalism is built on myth after myth after myth. There is no foundation of reality whatsoever. I got caught myself. I asked you a question right before the break. I said, ‘Ask yourself a question,’ going back now to Obama and his problems in the Middle East, a bunch of Middle Eastern countries and leftist newspapers in the UK, they don’t believe Obama is being silent. They thought Obama was going to come out and be harder on Israel than Bush has been, and he won’t say a word about this. They say he’s losing credibility in the Middle East because of this. And I asked you to think of something. Why did Israel attack Hamas and Gaza? And right as I went to the break I slapped myself, ’cause that’s not what happened. But if you didn’t know any better and all you read was the Drive-By Media, you woke up one day last week and you read that Israel had attacked Gaza. The truth is that the Hamas organization has been launching rockets into Israel in voluminous numbers for six months, while the Israelis have been pretending to be the Republican Party and figure out the response to it. They’ve been arguing among themselves, ‘Well, we better make sure that whatever we do the world still loves us.’
But finally after six months they couldn’t take it anymore so they started returning fire. Israel no more attacked Hamas than we have attacked Iran. Yet that’s how the Drive-Bys portrayed it. But let me ask the question again and forget the truth here for just a second. Let’s assume, just to make the point, let’s assume what is not true. Let’s say that one day, out of the clear blue Israel did attack Hamas in Gaza. A question for you in the Drive-By Media: Why do you think Israel would attack Gaza? Is it for their national treasure? Is it because Israel wants all of the scientific discoveries that are being made by Hamas intellectuals? Is it because Israel wants that sand pit of territory? Israel was more than happy to give it away, so why the hell attack? What’s there that you want? You want the oil deposits? There aren’t any. Do you want the golf courses? There aren’t any. Do you want the major economic infrastructure? There isn’t any. Do you want the sanitation plants? There isn’t any. Why attack? The Israelis left Gaza years ago. They gave Gaza to the Gazantas; they gave Gaza to the Hamas; they gave Gaza to the Palestinians. Why do you think Israel attacked Gaza? God gave you a mind. The fact is they didn’t attack Gaza. Israel is finally defending itself.
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RUSH: Zbigniew Brzezinski Tuesday, last Tuesday, December 30th, on Joe Scarborough’s show in the morning, Scarborough says, ‘What does Obama need to do coming into office to open a new chapter in the Middle East peace process?’
BRZEZINSKI (heavily accented): Well, he has to be aware of the fact that by now it must be eminently clear to everyone that the parties to the conflict will never reach an accommodation on their own. I mean, if we haven’t learned that after all of these years and after all of the suffering that the people involved have been exposed to, they will never learn. And, you know, we’re dealing with a very serious problem right now. It’s a problem which has a moral and a political dimension. The Hamas people have provoked Israel. There’s no doubt about it. And they have harassed Israel, there’s no doubt about it. But does that mean that the punishment has to be on that scale?
RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, Zbigniew Brzezinski is a former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter. In the seventies Carter met with Brzezinski first thing every morning to get a lowdown on what’s going on in the world. Brzezinski is considered one of the best and brightest. Zbigniew Brzezinski is considered one of the most intelligent. He is looooved and respected and admired and envied for the power of his intellect in Washington, DC, and in foreign policy circles. However, what he just said here is embarrassingly naive and dumb. He admits that Hamas ‘provoked Israel,’ that they ‘harassed Israel… no doubt about it. But does that mean that the punishment has to be on that scale?’ Meaning, ‘Does Israel have to fight back this hard? Does Israel have to fight back this hard?’
And then he said earlier, ‘It is eminently clear to everyone that the parties in the conflict will never reach an accommodation on their own.’ Now, what he means by that is, we have to step in there and determine winners and losers, which is what we have been doing diplomatically since 1948 or 1949, and this problem has never gone away! This problem is never going to go away until Israel wins this, and here’s the danger of what Israel is doing. You remember in 2006 they went into Lebanon and they didn’t finish it off? No matter Israel does, the world media (including ours) is going to destroy them for it. So they might as well end this. Now that they’ve got ground troops and tanks in there, they may as well rout Hamas; there will be no peace until there is victory.
That is what is common sense. That is what is world history. Peace is not the result of doctors, nurses, words, clean water, toothbrushes, Habitat for Humanity building rickety houses that collapse in ten years. Peace is the result of victory: one side winning and one side losing. As long as these ceasefires keep happening before the termination and culmination of events, this process will continue. So here we have the brightest guy in Washington, brightest foreign policy guy, Israel used disproportionate force. No. What are they supposed to do, launch the same number of rockets and make sure those rockets don’t hit any targets? Or hit very few targets? We must have a proportionate response? This is lunacy, and it is under the guise of brilliance! Proportionate response? Okay, let’s have a proportionate response to Hitler. Let’s have a proportionate response to Saddam Hussein. Let’s have a proportionate response to Pearl Harbor. When does anything ever end in that regard? It never does. Of course, diplomats kind of like that: things never ending. One more Zbigniew Brzezinski. Joe Scarborough finally said to him, ‘So what does Obama do, [Zbig]? How does he step in? We saw what he said before AIPAC earlier this year. Does he stand up to Israel and say, ‘Stop the bombing?”
BRZEZINSKI: Look, first of all, he is not president aaaand he cannot act until he becomes president. We — we — we don’t have a duopoly in the White House. So I think for the time being he simply has to bide his time. Now, once he’s president he has to face the fact that we’re dealing with a massive crisis in the Middle East — and the crisis is getting worse, it’s not getting better. The peace process is in shambles. There was an effort made under Clinton, which got aborted after the elections in Israel. Then we had eight years essentially of a lot of posturing, a lot of talking, but no engagement.
RUSH: (laughs) My God. Again, Zbigniew Brzezinski. That’s what passes for brilliance. (interruption) Now, Snerdley, I didn’t say he’s bright. I’m calling him ignorant, shortsighted, and not nearly as smart as he and everybody else thinks he is. It’s inside the Beltway they think he’s brilliant. It’s inside the foreign policy establishment they think this guy is a five-star diplomat, understanding world crises and how to solve them. He had four years with Jimmy Carter. He’s been advising others to do so. The problems never change. However, this business, ‘The peace process is in shambles’? Everybody has said that for the last 50 years! It’s always been in shambles. What president, in recent history, has not inherited a shambles in the Middle East? I don’t recall this concern in the past.
I don’t recall the media being all concerned for George Bush when he inherited the mess left him from Bill Clinton. But beyond that, folks, try this. Try inheriting a presidency where terrorism and Al-Qaeda was ignored for two full terms (thank you, Bill Clinton). You inherit a presidency after that and then you suffer an attack on our home soil for the first time since Pearl Harbor. You watch on live television as 3,000 of your fellow Americans are slaughtered, and then you have to defeat an unknown enemy while keeping the country safe — all without the benefit of a functional relationship between the CIA and the FBI; while lacking any understanding who attacked, why they attacked, how they were funded and having no clue how to quickly rout ’em out because they were hiding in countries supplying most of our oil.
And if you screw up just once, if you miss just one attack — like the one where ten jets were set to explode over our country — the world’s economy goes into the toilet. Our enemies are emboldened to try again and again and again and again. As for Obama, it’s ‘Poor little Obama. Poor little Barack. What a mess he’s inheriting! It’s such a blow to his hopes for peace.’ Well, as for Obama’s mess in the Middle East, Zbig, at least Afghanistan is not run by the Taliban today. Iraq isn’t run by Saddam Hussein, and Iran’s role in funding Hamas and Hezbollah is now clearly defined and understood. Iran’s economy is on the brink of collapse, thanks to low oil prices. Obama inherits all of this, and these low oil prices have significantly weakened Russia and Venezuela. Hugo Chavez just announced today that he’s ending the free oil, the free heating oil for people in the Northeast. He’s ending it. The oil price is too low.
Now, if you want to start crying tears, Zbig, let’s go back and cry tears for the virtual foreign policy incompetence and inattention that he inherited from Bill Clinton; versus the pretty clear road Obama has thanks to George W. Bush. This Gaza thing is not a mystery. If Israel doesn’t wipe ’em out, just wipe ’em out… Look, the Saudis aren’t going to do anything. You know, the Middle East — the Saudis, the Egyptians, a number of others — they want Israel to wipe ’em out. Hamas is Iran, and Iran is Saudi Arabia’s enemy. That’s why you’re not hearing a whole bunch of protests from the usual suspects in the Middle East. Hamas, Hezbollah, that’s Iran, and they threaten everybody. You’ll never get vocal support from the Middle East states for Israel, but they’re not going to be sad if Israel cleans that place out and wipes Hamas out.