Wednesday, May 27, 2015
From: Gary L. Bauer
SPECIAL MESSAGE: Obama Excuses Iranian Anti-Semitism
President Obama’s recent interview with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg made a little news, but it didn’t get the attention it deserved. Unbelievably, Barack Obama actually made excuses for Iranian anti-Semitism.
He suggested that anti-Semitism was just a peripheral issue in Iran and that the ayatollah can be reasoned with and induced to act logically. In Obama’s mind, the regime’s anti-Israel rhetoric is just that — words designed to stir the base but no real indication of policy or national ambitions.
He couldn’t be more wrong. The Iranian regime is led by Shiite Muslims with a radical vision. They believe they can cause an Islamic messiah to come to Earth by bringing about the apocalypse.
Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal demolished Obama’s wishful thinking. Here are some excerpts of his column:
“So let’s recall some basic facts. Iran has no border, and no territorial dispute, with Israel. The two countries have a common enemy in Islamic State and other radical Sunni groups. . . .
“So on the basis of what self-interest does Iran arm and subsidize Hamas, probably devoting more than $1 billion of (scarce) dollars to the effort? What’s the economic rationale for hosting conferences of Holocaust deniers in Tehran. . . ? What was the political logic to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s calls to wipe Israel off the map. . .? How does the regime shore up its domestic legitimacy by preaching a state ideology that makes the country a global pariah?
“Maybe all this behavior serves Tehran’s instrumental purposes by putting the regime at the vanguard of a united Shiite-Sunni ‘resistance’ to Western imperialism and Zionism. . . . The likelier explanation is that the regime believes what it says, practices what it preaches, and is willing to pay a steep price for doing so. . . .
“Does it occur to Mr. Obama that Mr. Khamenei might operate according to a different set of principles than political or economic self-interest? What if Mr. Khamenei believes that some things in life are, in fact, worth fighting for, the elimination of Zionism above all?”
You can read the full column here.
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