“It’s almost as if no one believes us.”
Washington, June 30 – Former officials of the previous presidential administration voiced puzzlement today at the limited impact of their alarm-sounding on potential application of Israeli law to areas beyond the 1949 armistice line, noting that no one could have predicted their cautionary statements would lose their compelling rhetorical force after that administration moved its Syrian intervention goalposts multiple times over the course of its eight years and refused to lift a finger to prevent Iran from securing regional hegemony and Basher Assad from using chemical weapons against his own people.
John Kerry, Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, and other international relations fixtures of Barack Obama’s presidency conceded Tuesday they cannot explain the deaf ears on which their warnings fall when they speak of the dire consequences of Israel annexing territory taken in the 1967 Six-Day War, even though those same officials repeatedly allowed Assad, Iran’s proxy forces, and Russian military moves free rein in Syria to violate Obama red line after Obama red line: to commit genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, among other offenses, in the service of inducing Iran to agree to a nuclear weapons deal.
“I don’t understand,” wondered former Secretary of State Kerry. “We were quite clear on our red lines when it came to unacceptable behavior on the part of Syrian forces and their allies. We shifted those red lines as necessary to keep from putting any pressure on Iran, so Tehran would sign the JCPOA. Now, after we redrew the red lines several times to avoid having to confront Iran and possibly undermine the deal, no one of consequence heeds our warnings about the disaster for Israel, Palestinians, the Middle East in general, and American international standing if Israel does go through with annexation as planned. It’s almost as if no one believes us, and that’s not fair.”
“I can’t help but think we may have cried wolf over the embassy move,” allowed Rhodes, referring to President Trump’s 2018 compliance with a 1995 law mandating the US transfer its embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s declared capital of Jerusalem. “We warned of unimaginable violence if the move happened, but what we got was the same violence as before, only with a new talking point behind it. Well, that appears to have confused some people, who don’t understand that it’s OK to exaggerate the potential downside of something and sell out longtime allies if you’re of the ‘correct’ political persuasion, as determined by the Democratic-leaning media. The media were fine with our ignoring the repeated violations of red lines in Syria, but the Jerusalem thing might have soured some folks on our tone. We’re still right, though.”
“Also it might not have been politic to have the New York Times mark the names of Jewish opponents of the Iran Deal in yellow,” he added. “Little things, but they add up, unlike Iran’s repeated violations of the JCPOA that we never called out.”
Please support our work through Patreon.
Fabulous Facebook Comments!
Glorious Google+ Comments!
Wordpress Comments