Obama didn’t really care if there were no moderates in Iran. His goal was to strengthen Iran which he certainly did. He enabled the Iranian nuclear program, paid for it and the proxy wars in the Middle East.
If Obama had left office the day after he was elected, he would have accomplished everything he set out to do, in becoming the first black president. He really ran out of ideas that day, and it showed in all the superficial, second-hand policies he later adopted. His Cairo speech was nice, and it won him a Nobel, but it had all the depth of a very serious half-hour TV show. All that mattered to him and his people was the ratings.
The funny thing is that by the time he left office in 2017, almost everyone in the Middle East, who otherwise could agree on little, loathed him as a shallow idiot.
We were in Arab East Jerusalem in the early days, and the shocker for us was that the most popular American was still George W. No, he didn’t favor the Arab cause, but he was credited with knowing what he was doing and with being fair to all sides. All downhill from there.
I encountered this in 2011 when I visited East Jerusalem. I saw pictures of W in multiple places, and one of his father in the outdoor market of the Old City (suq, or shuq in Hebrew).
Then I ran across an Ethiopian Jewish soldier of the IDF, and we fell into a conversation about Obama. In his halting English and me in my halting Hebrew, he explained his annoyance with liberal Americans who assumed that he must like Obama because, as an Ethiopian, he's black.
Obama is and was always a pathological narcissist, of the "cerebral" or "cool" type, pegged as such by observers such as Sam Vaknin and others as far back as 2008. Such people always express their delusions of grandeur in pseudo-intellectual theorizing and expect to be admired for it. They always end with gratuitous destructive behavior. With a very different sort of narcissist, we saw the same nonetheless with Trump in 2021.
One easy measure of Obama's delusionality was the gap between the "smart," cool thinker image he projected and his actual history. At Harvard Law, he was the president of the law review, a purely ceremonial position, unlike the editorship. As a professor of constitutional law, he was expected, like all academics, to published refereed research, in the form of articles, monographs, and books. Not only did Obama publish nothing of the sort, the two times he was contracted to write and submit a book on the topic of race and constitutional law, he instead produced the two ghost-written memoirs, a mishmash of fact and fiction, that the world knew of him in 2008.
David Garrow, Obama's biographer and not a conservative, summed it up well in this interview a couple years ago:
Birtherism: "It was about foreignness, un-American-ness. I think that what Obama feared was that showing the birth certificate would make his Hawaiian-Kenyan-Indonesian outsiderness even more plain." These are actually attributes of the cerebral, "cool" narcissist.
"The protagonists of the grand drama of race in America are the cultural and actual descendants of the Puritans, not Black people—who, as Americans, mainly desire the same things that other Americans do, like safe streets and decent jobs and health care and not to die prematurely from heart disease. White Puritans have more elevated concerns [virtue signaling]."
With respect to Iran, Obama cooked up a mishmash of revisionist, neo-isolationist, and New Left ideas with little substance and no factual support, believing that these theories made him superior and more insightful than people in the Middle East or any number of experts in the West (not that those experts always know what they're talking about). This is the reason why Obama was widely reviled in the Middle East by the time he left office, by all sorts of people. They could see he was phony and had no clue what he was talking about. The last four years and the defeat of Harris has just confirmed this correct perception in a way that makes it obvious to even dense liberal true believers who fell for this fake "race man" messiah and his billionaire-funded campaign in 2008.
Both articles are amazing stuff that the legacy media simply wouldn't touch. They made it to Tablet's "best of the year" for 2023 and 2024, respectively, and showed what a brilliant publication Tablet is, BTW.
An important clarification about the conflict over Palestine: Obama was not "pro-Palestinian" -- for and about the Palestinians, he did exactly nothing, unlike Bush Jr., or Clinton, or Bush Sr., or Reagan. His fantasizing was centered on Iran, and it was the echo chamber constructed from monopolistic social media platforms that made it look like Obama was a genius, when he in fact he was a delusional crackpot, as well as a many-times-over lawbreaker with his misuse of intelligence powers and domestic spying on journalists and Congress.
You touch it with a needle. And I would add that his appeal to white progressives was based on exactly what you note. To them, Obama was not some black vulgarian like Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton. He was just like them, a denizen of the seminar room, the Acceptable Black Presidential Candidate, white in all but skin color. And I always thought that Obama understood this quite well, and despised those white people who sucked up to him. He was vain, but not stupid.
Yes, vain is a close cousin of narcissist, which term the headshrinks like better -- it's in their big book of mental issues and possesses a technically precise definition :)
And you, sir, have hit the nail on the head as well, similarly to Garrow's responses in the interview. "Authentic African-American" (whatever that means) is not what the increasingly white, upscale Democratic party wants. It wants a passably black but exotic, post-modern version of Woodrow Wilson, the denizen of the seminar room, wielding bad theories with fancy jargon.
Obama despises those white people (these are reflexes of his troubled childhood with a racially prejudiced white grandmother), but he nonetheless owed his presidency to them.
Thomas, I think your essay hits the nail on the head. Obama was motivated almost exclusively by animus towards Israel and to Netanyahu. Obama’s animus is reflected widely in the Democratic Party.
The irony is that Netanyahu may be the only leader of a current western democracy who is modestly competent. Compared to Biden, Starmer, Macron, Scholz and Trudeau, Prime Minister Netanyahu is Churchillian. Since the October massacre, Netanyahu has gotten almost everything right; he’s a maestro. He’s destroyed Hamas and Hezbollah which is the proximate cause of Assad’s fall. It’s pretty obvious that Iran is next.
Obama was the most destructive American President since World War II though admittedly, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush gave him a run for his money. Happily Obama’s foreign policy legacy has now been destroyed thanks to three men; Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
The smartest essay you will ever read on the rise and fall of Barack Obama can be found here.
Thanks. I'll check the article out. Oh, and not being a fan of Forever Wars Theory, I'd strike George W. from your list of most destructive modern presidents and substitute Joe Biden.
Thomas, call Joe Biden names if you must, since that's your opinion, but it's wrong-headed to suggest that American policy should consist of saying "Amen" to whatever the IDF decides to do in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, especially if they are using American weapons to do it with.
We need to understand that not every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, just as not every Zionist or patriotic Israeli agrees that bombing civilians is permissible in trying to eradicate Hamas.
You are, I know, a Big Picture guy; so, zoom out for a moment.
The world population of Jews is reported to be 15.7 million , with 7.2 million living in Israel itself, and 5-6 million in the US.
The world population of Muslims is roughly 1.8 billion, many of whom are unhappy with America's continued and presumably unlimited support of Israel. Among the most hostile -- and serious about developing nuclear weapons -- is Iran.
I am skeptical about negotiating with the current regime in Tehran, but believe that Iran's demography suggests that the people want a democratic government answerable to them instead of to a small group of ultra-conservative religious leaders.
Doesn't it make sense to try and have good relations with Iran and other predominantly Muslim countries, as well as with the State of Israel? I think so.
No, it makes no more sense to try to have good relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran than it would have been to try to have good relations with National Socialist Germany. The Iranian regime is one of despotism, terror, and torture—all of which it seeks to spread beyond its borders. Good relations with a regime like that would come at the price of kicking the people of Iran to the curb—which is what Obama did, and Biden did. How did that turn out?
Nor do I think it a good idea to craft US foreign policy in such a way as to appease Muslims. i.e. to appease societies and peoples that in most cases are profoundly antisemitic and hostile to liberal democratic values, as we understand them. For instance, many of them are deeply misogynistic and homophobic. On the whole, in dealing with countries like that, I prefer the Caligula Option: Let them hate as long as they fear.
I have never understood why American lefties (almost all of whom loudly declare that they are not anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic) are so much more critical of our ally Israel than they are of those murderous regimes in Syria (now gone) and Iran.
"Pragmatic statements" (comparing 16 million Jews to 1.8 billion Arabs) does not make those Arab regimes decent nor does it make them reliable allies.
I suspect that much of the anti Israeli animus on the American left is virtue signalling rather than reasoned analysis.
I suspect that Europe's anti Israeli sentiment is a combination of virtue signalling and anti antisemitism.
In neither case is the anti Israeli behavior admirable.
Steve, yes, I agree that there are "American lefties" who are more critical of Israel than they are of (Assad and Iran regimes)." That does not mean that all Americans do or should support/agree with policy decisions made by Israel, in particular the war against Hamas and Hizbullah, and regarding settlements on the West Ban.
In case I am not clear, the US has disagreements with allies other than Israel, too, and manages to deal with them. The process is called "diplomacy."
There has certainly been a rise of anti-Semitism (in the US and Europe), and most typically on the Right, not the Left.
Jews are easy targets for bigots; then again, slapping the anti-Semite label on people who criticize Israel is the lazy man's way of distracting from serious discussion. WHen accused of being anti-Semitic, most people naturally go into self-defense mode to deny the accusation and all discussion of the original disagreement (e.g., does the IDF's bombing campaign in Gaza constitute genocide?) becomes subordinate. It's a rhetorical bait-and-switch rhetorical tactic.
I revert to my original point about the world population of Muslims (not Arabs as you mistakenly recast my comment): like it or not, Muslims constitute the second-largest religious segment of the world population, and therefore it behooves the United States to engage with majority muslim states -- where possible, and consistent with our policy aims.
American policy must not blindly follow that of other governments, regardless of how closely allied we may be.
> I have never understood why American lefties (almost all of whom loudly declare that they are not anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic) are so much more critical of our ally Israel than they are of those murderous regimes in Syria (now gone) and Iran.
Because lefties like murderers. Same reason they liked the Soviet Union back in the day.
He's not. Back in the Thirties, the Western Left was quite enamored of J.V. Stalin and his regime. Only in 1939, with the Nazi-Soviet Pact, were the eyes of some of them opened.
And even then many went along through both the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Hitler's subsequent betrayal in "Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia" fashion.
Where Iran is concerned, having good relations with the ghoulish Islamofascist regime that oppresses that country is to have miserable relations with the Iranian people. What, do you want to put America on the side of the oppressors of the Iranian people?
Thomas, I know you are being disingenuous when you ask if I "want to put America on the side of the oppressors of the Iranian people." Nevertheless I will try to answer in a way that is serious and not facetious..
I'll start by facing the fact that the US does have a relationship with the Iranian regime; we each have something we want from the other. Amongst many other things, the US wants the Iranians to give up their nuclear program, and Iran wants an end to US sanctions.
In diplomacy it is often necessary to build a relationship based on some area of where an agreement can be regarded as a win by both parties. Before we try to settle a big issue like nuclear armaments, we work on persuading the Iranians to release the Americans they have arrested on spying charges, for example.
Iran is the world’s leading terrorist state. The idea that the United States can find common ground with such a state is delusional. Nothing the US could do would induce the Iranian regime to give up its nuclear ambitions. The ayatollahs would simply pocket any American concessions and continue on course to the Bomb.
As Israel had just demonstrated, the only way of dealing with a terrorist state is to defang it.
What the IDF has been doing in Gaza is right and necessary, not only for Israel but for the Gaza Palestinians. What has Hamas ever brought down on them but misery and bloodshed? What hope have the Palestinians for a better life while Hamas remains in existence? None.
And yes, “anti-Zionism” = antisemitism. Everything that has happened since 10/7 proves that to be the case. And really, it’s elementary common sense. “Anti-Zionism” preaches that the Jews, uniquely among the peoples of the earth, have no right to a national existence, not even on a tiny sliver of land surrounded by Arab states, of which there are many.
I'm going to disagree with your statement that "What the IDF has been doing in Gaza is right and necessary...." but leave it aside for now, as I ewant to get back to this "anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism."
I don't buy the argument you lay out; it is too proscriptive
Your argument conflates any disagreement with Israeli policy with opposition to the establishment of a Jewish state in the traditional homeland of the ancient Hebrews, i.e. Zionism. Since Zionism is manifestly a Jewish political philosophy, you conclude, therefore, that disagreement with a matter of policy means Jew-hatred.
This is a straw man argument for, logically, it is quite possible and even natural to disapprove of Israeli policies while still providing diplomatic and other support for the State of Israel. People on the Right and Left do so, Jews and gentiles alike.
As I have argued in other comments, I try to avoid tossing labels around and instead focusing on policy points when discussing these complicated issues. Partly this is due to my not being au fait with Middle East politics -- I am just trying to write from the viewpoint of an average American citizen who cares about such things.
My argument is based on bedrock reality. To be "anti-Zionist" is to deny the legitimacy of the Jewish state. And such denial is tatamont to antisemitism, because it tacitly accepts the legitimacy of genocide, i.e. the destruction of the Jewish state. We know this to be true because it's the actual position of "anti-Zionist" demonstraters on our university campuses.
Outside the IRGC, everyone in Iran hates the regime, even more conservative and religious Iranians. The regime for a couple of decades now has had to import non-Persians to help it rule a restive population and supplement a conventional military of questionable loyalty. These come from Hezbollah, as well as Hamas and the Houthis -- Iran's ethnosectarian empire.
As for the world's obsession with Jews, we know for sure that it's a reliable signal of civilizational breakdown, as in the 1930s. We're unequivocally seeing that now.
Outside the radical Islamic message pushed by the governments of Qatar, Iran, and (to an extent) Turkey, there's little left to the Arab-Israeli conflict, apart from a strictly local dispute. At this point, most governments in the region have accepted the nation-state principle, not a caliphate or jihad or the pan-Arab fantasy.
Though I’m appalled by the upsurge of antisemitism in the United States, I do not and cannot believe that it reflects broad public opinion. A robust majority of Americans stand with Israel in the current crisis. I can well understand that American Jews might be questioning their safety and security at this time. But honestly, I think that can trust in President Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island:
What's happened with the Democratic party, and also with the Tucker Carlsons, does not reflect American support for Israel and opposition to antisemitism. Much of the problem is that social media acts as a giant megaphone for fringe views. And on the left, we cannot ignore the large influence of the billionaire-funded radical groups on campus and these donors' influence on administration policy, as well as hostile foreign influence (Qatar and its front groups, CAIR, SJP/BDS, etc.) penetrating into various institutions.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/ottoman-american-empire
This five billion dollar appeasement also stands some new scrutiny as this appears to support Obama’s fantasy and support of Iran.
Obama didn’t really care if there were no moderates in Iran. His goal was to strengthen Iran which he certainly did. He enabled the Iranian nuclear program, paid for it and the proxy wars in the Middle East.
Gratuitously destructive narcissist ... classic profile.
If Obama had left office the day after he was elected, he would have accomplished everything he set out to do, in becoming the first black president. He really ran out of ideas that day, and it showed in all the superficial, second-hand policies he later adopted. His Cairo speech was nice, and it won him a Nobel, but it had all the depth of a very serious half-hour TV show. All that mattered to him and his people was the ratings.
The funny thing is that by the time he left office in 2017, almost everyone in the Middle East, who otherwise could agree on little, loathed him as a shallow idiot.
We were in Arab East Jerusalem in the early days, and the shocker for us was that the most popular American was still George W. No, he didn’t favor the Arab cause, but he was credited with knowing what he was doing and with being fair to all sides. All downhill from there.
I encountered this in 2011 when I visited East Jerusalem. I saw pictures of W in multiple places, and one of his father in the outdoor market of the Old City (suq, or shuq in Hebrew).
Then I ran across an Ethiopian Jewish soldier of the IDF, and we fell into a conversation about Obama. In his halting English and me in my halting Hebrew, he explained his annoyance with liberal Americans who assumed that he must like Obama because, as an Ethiopian, he's black.
Such is the idiocy of identity politics....
Obama is and was always a pathological narcissist, of the "cerebral" or "cool" type, pegged as such by observers such as Sam Vaknin and others as far back as 2008. Such people always express their delusions of grandeur in pseudo-intellectual theorizing and expect to be admired for it. They always end with gratuitous destructive behavior. With a very different sort of narcissist, we saw the same nonetheless with Trump in 2021.
One easy measure of Obama's delusionality was the gap between the "smart," cool thinker image he projected and his actual history. At Harvard Law, he was the president of the law review, a purely ceremonial position, unlike the editorship. As a professor of constitutional law, he was expected, like all academics, to published refereed research, in the form of articles, monographs, and books. Not only did Obama publish nothing of the sort, the two times he was contracted to write and submit a book on the topic of race and constitutional law, he instead produced the two ghost-written memoirs, a mishmash of fact and fiction, that the world knew of him in 2008.
David Garrow, Obama's biographer and not a conservative, summed it up well in this interview a couple years ago:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/david-garrow-interview-obama
Birtherism: "It was about foreignness, un-American-ness. I think that what Obama feared was that showing the birth certificate would make his Hawaiian-Kenyan-Indonesian outsiderness even more plain." These are actually attributes of the cerebral, "cool" narcissist.
"The protagonists of the grand drama of race in America are the cultural and actual descendants of the Puritans, not Black people—who, as Americans, mainly desire the same things that other Americans do, like safe streets and decent jobs and health care and not to die prematurely from heart disease. White Puritans have more elevated concerns [virtue signaling]."
With respect to Iran, Obama cooked up a mishmash of revisionist, neo-isolationist, and New Left ideas with little substance and no factual support, believing that these theories made him superior and more insightful than people in the Middle East or any number of experts in the West (not that those experts always know what they're talking about). This is the reason why Obama was widely reviled in the Middle East by the time he left office, by all sorts of people. They could see he was phony and had no clue what he was talking about. The last four years and the defeat of Harris has just confirmed this correct perception in a way that makes it obvious to even dense liberal true believers who fell for this fake "race man" messiah and his billionaire-funded campaign in 2008.
The following article sums it up brilliantly:
https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/rapid-onset-political-enlightenment
Both articles are amazing stuff that the legacy media simply wouldn't touch. They made it to Tablet's "best of the year" for 2023 and 2024, respectively, and showed what a brilliant publication Tablet is, BTW.
An important clarification about the conflict over Palestine: Obama was not "pro-Palestinian" -- for and about the Palestinians, he did exactly nothing, unlike Bush Jr., or Clinton, or Bush Sr., or Reagan. His fantasizing was centered on Iran, and it was the echo chamber constructed from monopolistic social media platforms that made it look like Obama was a genius, when he in fact he was a delusional crackpot, as well as a many-times-over lawbreaker with his misuse of intelligence powers and domestic spying on journalists and Congress.
You touch it with a needle. And I would add that his appeal to white progressives was based on exactly what you note. To them, Obama was not some black vulgarian like Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton. He was just like them, a denizen of the seminar room, the Acceptable Black Presidential Candidate, white in all but skin color. And I always thought that Obama understood this quite well, and despised those white people who sucked up to him. He was vain, but not stupid.
Yes, vain is a close cousin of narcissist, which term the headshrinks like better -- it's in their big book of mental issues and possesses a technically precise definition :)
And you, sir, have hit the nail on the head as well, similarly to Garrow's responses in the interview. "Authentic African-American" (whatever that means) is not what the increasingly white, upscale Democratic party wants. It wants a passably black but exotic, post-modern version of Woodrow Wilson, the denizen of the seminar room, wielding bad theories with fancy jargon.
Obama despises those white people (these are reflexes of his troubled childhood with a racially prejudiced white grandmother), but he nonetheless owed his presidency to them.
Exactly…
Two creeps with daddy issues to block.
Thomas, I think your essay hits the nail on the head. Obama was motivated almost exclusively by animus towards Israel and to Netanyahu. Obama’s animus is reflected widely in the Democratic Party.
The irony is that Netanyahu may be the only leader of a current western democracy who is modestly competent. Compared to Biden, Starmer, Macron, Scholz and Trudeau, Prime Minister Netanyahu is Churchillian. Since the October massacre, Netanyahu has gotten almost everything right; he’s a maestro. He’s destroyed Hamas and Hezbollah which is the proximate cause of Assad’s fall. It’s pretty obvious that Iran is next.
Obama was the most destructive American President since World War II though admittedly, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush gave him a run for his money. Happily Obama’s foreign policy legacy has now been destroyed thanks to three men; Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
The smartest essay you will ever read on the rise and fall of Barack Obama can be found here.
https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/rapid-onset-political-enlightenment
I highly recommend it to you and your readers.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, your family and your audience at this Substack.
Thanks. I'll check the article out. Oh, and not being a fan of Forever Wars Theory, I'd strike George W. from your list of most destructive modern presidents and substitute Joe Biden.
See, great minds .... :)
Thomas, call Joe Biden names if you must, since that's your opinion, but it's wrong-headed to suggest that American policy should consist of saying "Amen" to whatever the IDF decides to do in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, especially if they are using American weapons to do it with.
We need to understand that not every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, just as not every Zionist or patriotic Israeli agrees that bombing civilians is permissible in trying to eradicate Hamas.
You are, I know, a Big Picture guy; so, zoom out for a moment.
The world population of Jews is reported to be 15.7 million , with 7.2 million living in Israel itself, and 5-6 million in the US.
The world population of Muslims is roughly 1.8 billion, many of whom are unhappy with America's continued and presumably unlimited support of Israel. Among the most hostile -- and serious about developing nuclear weapons -- is Iran.
I am skeptical about negotiating with the current regime in Tehran, but believe that Iran's demography suggests that the people want a democratic government answerable to them instead of to a small group of ultra-conservative religious leaders.
Doesn't it make sense to try and have good relations with Iran and other predominantly Muslim countries, as well as with the State of Israel? I think so.
No, it makes no more sense to try to have good relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran than it would have been to try to have good relations with National Socialist Germany. The Iranian regime is one of despotism, terror, and torture—all of which it seeks to spread beyond its borders. Good relations with a regime like that would come at the price of kicking the people of Iran to the curb—which is what Obama did, and Biden did. How did that turn out?
Nor do I think it a good idea to craft US foreign policy in such a way as to appease Muslims. i.e. to appease societies and peoples that in most cases are profoundly antisemitic and hostile to liberal democratic values, as we understand them. For instance, many of them are deeply misogynistic and homophobic. On the whole, in dealing with countries like that, I prefer the Caligula Option: Let them hate as long as they fear.
I have never understood why American lefties (almost all of whom loudly declare that they are not anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic) are so much more critical of our ally Israel than they are of those murderous regimes in Syria (now gone) and Iran.
"Pragmatic statements" (comparing 16 million Jews to 1.8 billion Arabs) does not make those Arab regimes decent nor does it make them reliable allies.
I suspect that much of the anti Israeli animus on the American left is virtue signalling rather than reasoned analysis.
I suspect that Europe's anti Israeli sentiment is a combination of virtue signalling and anti antisemitism.
In neither case is the anti Israeli behavior admirable.
Steve, yes, I agree that there are "American lefties" who are more critical of Israel than they are of (Assad and Iran regimes)." That does not mean that all Americans do or should support/agree with policy decisions made by Israel, in particular the war against Hamas and Hizbullah, and regarding settlements on the West Ban.
In case I am not clear, the US has disagreements with allies other than Israel, too, and manages to deal with them. The process is called "diplomacy."
There has certainly been a rise of anti-Semitism (in the US and Europe), and most typically on the Right, not the Left.
Jews are easy targets for bigots; then again, slapping the anti-Semite label on people who criticize Israel is the lazy man's way of distracting from serious discussion. WHen accused of being anti-Semitic, most people naturally go into self-defense mode to deny the accusation and all discussion of the original disagreement (e.g., does the IDF's bombing campaign in Gaza constitute genocide?) becomes subordinate. It's a rhetorical bait-and-switch rhetorical tactic.
I revert to my original point about the world population of Muslims (not Arabs as you mistakenly recast my comment): like it or not, Muslims constitute the second-largest religious segment of the world population, and therefore it behooves the United States to engage with majority muslim states -- where possible, and consistent with our policy aims.
American policy must not blindly follow that of other governments, regardless of how closely allied we may be.
I like the qualifer “where possible “….
> I have never understood why American lefties (almost all of whom loudly declare that they are not anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic) are so much more critical of our ally Israel than they are of those murderous regimes in Syria (now gone) and Iran.
Because lefties like murderers. Same reason they liked the Soviet Union back in the day.
Eugine N - "lefties like murderers. Same reason they liked the Soviet Union back in the day." You are joking, right?
He's not. Back in the Thirties, the Western Left was quite enamored of J.V. Stalin and his regime. Only in 1939, with the Nazi-Soviet Pact, were the eyes of some of them opened.
And even then many went along through both the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Hitler's subsequent betrayal in "Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia" fashion.
Where Iran is concerned, having good relations with the ghoulish Islamofascist regime that oppresses that country is to have miserable relations with the Iranian people. What, do you want to put America on the side of the oppressors of the Iranian people?
Thomas, I know you are being disingenuous when you ask if I "want to put America on the side of the oppressors of the Iranian people." Nevertheless I will try to answer in a way that is serious and not facetious..
I'll start by facing the fact that the US does have a relationship with the Iranian regime; we each have something we want from the other. Amongst many other things, the US wants the Iranians to give up their nuclear program, and Iran wants an end to US sanctions.
In diplomacy it is often necessary to build a relationship based on some area of where an agreement can be regarded as a win by both parties. Before we try to settle a big issue like nuclear armaments, we work on persuading the Iranians to release the Americans they have arrested on spying charges, for example.
Iran is the world’s leading terrorist state. The idea that the United States can find common ground with such a state is delusional. Nothing the US could do would induce the Iranian regime to give up its nuclear ambitions. The ayatollahs would simply pocket any American concessions and continue on course to the Bomb.
As Israel had just demonstrated, the only way of dealing with a terrorist state is to defang it.
What the IDF has been doing in Gaza is right and necessary, not only for Israel but for the Gaza Palestinians. What has Hamas ever brought down on them but misery and bloodshed? What hope have the Palestinians for a better life while Hamas remains in existence? None.
And yes, “anti-Zionism” = antisemitism. Everything that has happened since 10/7 proves that to be the case. And really, it’s elementary common sense. “Anti-Zionism” preaches that the Jews, uniquely among the peoples of the earth, have no right to a national existence, not even on a tiny sliver of land surrounded by Arab states, of which there are many.
I'm going to disagree with your statement that "What the IDF has been doing in Gaza is right and necessary...." but leave it aside for now, as I ewant to get back to this "anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism."
I don't buy the argument you lay out; it is too proscriptive
Your argument conflates any disagreement with Israeli policy with opposition to the establishment of a Jewish state in the traditional homeland of the ancient Hebrews, i.e. Zionism. Since Zionism is manifestly a Jewish political philosophy, you conclude, therefore, that disagreement with a matter of policy means Jew-hatred.
This is a straw man argument for, logically, it is quite possible and even natural to disapprove of Israeli policies while still providing diplomatic and other support for the State of Israel. People on the Right and Left do so, Jews and gentiles alike.
As I have argued in other comments, I try to avoid tossing labels around and instead focusing on policy points when discussing these complicated issues. Partly this is due to my not being au fait with Middle East politics -- I am just trying to write from the viewpoint of an average American citizen who cares about such things.
My argument is based on bedrock reality. To be "anti-Zionist" is to deny the legitimacy of the Jewish state. And such denial is tatamont to antisemitism, because it tacitly accepts the legitimacy of genocide, i.e. the destruction of the Jewish state. We know this to be true because it's the actual position of "anti-Zionist" demonstraters on our university campuses.
Outside the IRGC, everyone in Iran hates the regime, even more conservative and religious Iranians. The regime for a couple of decades now has had to import non-Persians to help it rule a restive population and supplement a conventional military of questionable loyalty. These come from Hezbollah, as well as Hamas and the Houthis -- Iran's ethnosectarian empire.
As for the world's obsession with Jews, we know for sure that it's a reliable signal of civilizational breakdown, as in the 1930s. We're unequivocally seeing that now.
Outside the radical Islamic message pushed by the governments of Qatar, Iran, and (to an extent) Turkey, there's little left to the Arab-Israeli conflict, apart from a strictly local dispute. At this point, most governments in the region have accepted the nation-state principle, not a caliphate or jihad or the pan-Arab fantasy.
Though I’m appalled by the upsurge of antisemitism in the United States, I do not and cannot believe that it reflects broad public opinion. A robust majority of Americans stand with Israel in the current crisis. I can well understand that American Jews might be questioning their safety and security at this time. But honestly, I think that can trust in President Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island:
Thomas said, "I’m appalled by the upsurge of antisemitism in the United States, I do not and cannot believe that it reflects broad public opinion."
A point on which we are agreed!
Thank you for your supportive words.
What's happened with the Democratic party, and also with the Tucker Carlsons, does not reflect American support for Israel and opposition to antisemitism. Much of the problem is that social media acts as a giant megaphone for fringe views. And on the left, we cannot ignore the large influence of the billionaire-funded radical groups on campus and these donors' influence on administration policy, as well as hostile foreign influence (Qatar and its front groups, CAIR, SJP/BDS, etc.) penetrating into various institutions.