Maggie's Farm

Why believe in a conspiracy when stupidity is explanation enough?  With that at the front of my mind as a major caveat to my and others’ conjecture, aside from not knowing what is going on in the privacy of White House meetings, there may actually be a secret purposeful plan behind President Obama’s public undermining of Israel.

Stupidity isn’t enough of an explanation:

First off, there’s every reason to believe Obama’s pledge to be a “transformative” president.  Nearly every policy, law and appointment from him and his allies have been distinctly left of those from previous Democrat and Republican administrations.

Second, there’s every reason to believe that Obama and his counsels are aware, how can they not be, of the past refusals by Palestinian leaders to accept offerings, to obstruct negotiations, to foment violence, to foster corruption, to be divided between the violently hostile and the very violently hostile, and that repeated and continuous Israeli concessions and withdrawals have encouraged more of the same from the Palestinians.

Third, there’s every reason to believe that Obama and his advisors are aware of Iran’s impending nuclear status (even the IAEA has finally publicly woken up) and that other MidEast nations are accommodating themselves to Iran, they seeing little likelihood that the US will push for severe enough sanctions in the face of Russian and Chinese opposition and European profits or the US striking Iran’s nuclear installations.

Fourth, there’s every reason to believe that the US has more influence upon Israel, given that Israel has heavily depended upon the US as a bulwark of support, than upon the Palestinians, MidEast nations, Russia, China or even Europe.

Fifth, there’s every reason to believe that President Obama and advisors, some of whom are Jewish, depend upon the Democrat’s base supporters, some of whom are Jewish, to at worst weakly react to the Obama administration undermining Israel. (See this post.)

Sixth, there’s a big difference between occasional ignorance or mistakes and a consistent pattern of such, particularly when the facts and errors are so well known.

Secret Plan:

Yesterday, I had a brief conversation with a very liberal, very smart friend who visits Israel several times a year to study.  I shared my conjecture in an email to another very knowledgeable MSM friend:

My theory is that the O master plan, if there is one, is to force Israel to bomb Iran, then disavow Israel and further isolate it, and maybe even let it be overwhelmed.

It very well may not be true, but it does explain a lot.

This morning, Glenn Reynolds similarly conjectured:

WHY HAS BARACK OBAMA TREATED NETANYAHU SO RUDELY? “Obama would never treat the president of Equatorial Guinea that way.”

Possibly Obama just hates Israel and hates Jews. That’s plausible — certainly nothing in his actions suggests otherwise, really.

But it’s also possible — I’d say likely — that there’s something else going on. I think Obama expects Israel to strike Iran, and wants to put distance between the United States and Israel in advance of that happening. (Perhaps he even thinks that treating Israel rudely will provoke such a response, saving him the trouble of doing anything about Iran himself, and avoiding the risk that things might go wrong if he does). On the most optimistic level, maybe this whole thing is a sham, and the U.S. is really helping Israel strike Iran, with this as distraction. The question for readers is which of these — not necessarily mutually exclusive — explanations is most plausible.