Charles Krauthammer says “Woe to Our Allies” and, for a
moment, you believe that he has finally seen the light and decided to get
serious about something that could become crucial. You hope that he decided to
tell the Jewish lobby that the time had come to let America take its breath and
recover after half a century of tearing at the ligaments that used to connect
it to a world it was happy to lead and was universally loved for it.
Unfortunately, woe to our allies was only the title of
Krauthammer's latest column, one that also came with a subtitle which says he
does not attribute the woe to an American image tarnished by a pornographic
conjugation between the Jewish lobby and the US Congress. Instead, the subtitle
reads as follows: “America's new policy of retreat is leaving our friends
exposed” which means that he puts the blame on something else and someone else.
The column was published on December 5, 2013 in National Review Online.
You wonder who the friends are whom he mentions in the
subtitle, and you get a hint early on when you learn that the enemies are
Belarus and Kazakhstan which he calls dictatorships. From this, you deduce that
the unhappy friends must be what he would call democracies. So you give the
article a quick glance to see whom he puts under this rubric. Well, there is
Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic that some people call newly democratized
nations. But there is also the Gulf Arab states and the apartheid state of
Israel; countries that will no doubt raise the eyebrows of some people.
You still want to know: What's Krauthammer's beef? And he
tells you: There was no American response to the Green Revolution of 2009 the
way there was to the Orange Revolution of 2004. That is, he laments that Obama
did not “even rhetorically support those who sought a democratic future” in
Iran in the year 2009 the way that W. Bush supported the people of Ukraine who
rose up in 2004 and demanded independence from Moscow.
That's the recent past, says the author of the article, and
the consequence is that history is repeating itself because the same Obama that
dealt with the Green Revolution so shabbily in 2009 is still in the White House
running foreign policy as badly as he did then. And guess what, a casualty has
been that Ukraine has suddenly turned away from Europe and gone back to the
Russian embrace.
If this means there is something wrong with Obama, what
exactly is the problem with him, according to the writer? It is that the
American President wants to reset the relations with Russia, says he. But this
can only be a farce because it “yielded nothing but the well-earned distrust of
allies like Poland and the Czech Republic [that were] undercut to appease
Russia,” he goes on to say. So, that's it. Krauthammer is judging Obama's
foreign policy by what he believes Poland and the Czech Republic are feeling
even though they never expressed such feeling. Wow! This writer must be one
hell of a psychiatrist.
Any more of this kind of observation? Yes, says he, look at
the Middle East. The Gulf Arabs are stunned. This means the confidence they had
in America has collapsed. Gulf Arabs? Why worry about the Arabs now when they
were talked about with such disdain, you thought they were enemies of America?
No, no, no. That was the past when it was convenient to demonize the Arabs. But
now that we wish to demonize the Iranians, we must fake loving the Arabs
because if we don't, we'll face a situation where “America romances Iran.”
According to Jewish tradition, you modulate your love/hate relationship with
societies according to what is expedient in the current circumstances, you see?
Well then, What about these Arabs? They are stunned, he
says. But why? Because the U.S. has overthrown 7 years of Security Council resolutions
against Iran. But no such concern was ever voiced by the Arabs. In fact, they
complained about America overthrowing 46 years of Security Council resolutions
against Israel. Not only did America overthrow many such resolutions, it vetoed
many more. Yes, yes, yes. That's how the Arabs responded but that's not what
they felt. He, being a psychiatrist, he does not go by what people say they
feel; he goes by what he knows they feel. Get it? So then, he must believe that
the Arabs distrust America not because America is participating in the genocide
of the Palestinian people but because they foresaw America's eventual fall in
love with Iran. Yes, yes, yes, says Krauthammer.
What else does that say to you, Mr. Psychiatrist? It says
that Obama and the people surrounding him are adolescent because they do not
differentiate between the diplomacy of capitulation and that of pressure. Wow!
What's the difference between the two, anyway? You want to know the difference?
I'll tell you what it is. It is that “the Congress should pass new sanctions to
be implemented when the interim accord ends if the Iranians have not lived up
to the agreement.” But that's not your idea, Sir; it has been bandied about for
some time now. Yes, yes, yes, but it becomes official only when a psychiatrist
anoints it. Is it anointed now? Yes, yes, yes. And you are the adult in the
room and they are the adolescents? Yes, yes, yes.
Anything more, Mr. Krauthammer? Yes. What or where would
that be? It is unfolding in the South China Sea right now. What do you see
there? Our friends are stunned. Why? Because “when Japan told its civilian
carriers not to comply with Chinese demands for identification, Washington told
U.S. air carriers to submit.” What's wrong with that? You don't see what's wrong?
I'll tell you what's wrong. Can you imagine what would happen if China shot
down a civilian plane deliberately or by mistake? It would be war, war, war.
It's like the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 when America was drawn into
Britain's war with Germany. Ah, that sweet delicious war! Think of all the
movies that were made about it.
And you think another war would be a good thing? Yes, yes,
yes. It is also why Obama is the adolescent and I am the wise old man. Can you
expand on this a little more, Sir? Yes. “Our friends need an ally, not an
intermediary … They are seeking a reconsideration of the policy of retreat that
marks this administration's responses.” They told you this? Yes, yes, yes and
no, no, no. They did not come right out and say it loudly but they thought
about it. Being the psychiatrist that I am, I know what goes on inside their
heads.