Barack Obama's Unyielding Support

Last week, Jeffrey Goldberg noted a report that Sen. Joseph Lieberman was “working hard to make the Hamas endorsement of Barack Obama a campaign issue,” to which Goldberg responded as follows:

I would point the senator to Obama's interesting, and credible, answer to me on the question of why Hamas's Ahmed Yousef would say what he said.  Please take careful note of the last sentence:

"It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, 'This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,' and that’s something they’re hopeful about.  I think that’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security."

Which part of "unyielding support for Israel's security" is unclear?

Case closed!  But I’m not sure “unyielding” means what he thinks it means.

Obama attributes the endorsement of Hamas to its “perfectly legitimate perception” that he will (1) hold unconditional talks with its sponsor in Tehran, and (2) no longer engage in George Bush’s “cowboy diplomacy.”  And in Obama’s mind, “cowboy diplomacy” includes a public warning to Iran about Israel. 

On “Meet the Press” earlier this month, Obama criticized Hillary Clinton’s statement that she wanted the Iranians to understand a nuclear attack on Israel would produce an American attack that would obliterate them. Obama’s objection was that it was important to send “a signal to the world community” that we’re shifting from “cowboy diplomacy.”  “When Iran is able to go to the United Nations complaining about the statements [Clinton] made and get some sympathy, that’s a sign that we are taking a wrong approach.”

This is the global test on stilts.  The U.S. cannot warn a potential nuclear aggressor against Israel of devastating consequences, if the warning would lose us points at the UN.  No wonder Hamas is not worried about Obama’s “unyielding” support for Israel. 

The Wall Street Journal today has an article by Sen. Lieberman entitled “Democrats and Our Enemies,” based on his May 18 speech at the COMMENTARY dinner, in which he asks “How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?”

[W]hat Mr. Obama has proposed is not selective engagement, but a blanket policy of meeting personally as president, without preconditions, in his first year in office, with the leaders of the most vicious, anti-American regimes on the planet.  Mr. Obama has said that in proposing this, he is following in the footsteps of Reagan and JFK. . . . can anyone imagine Presidents Kennedy or Reagan sitting down unconditionally with Ahmadinejad or Chavez?  I certainly cannot.  If a president ever embraced our worst enemies in this way, he would strengthen them and undermine our most steadfast allies.

But they could take solace in his “unyielding support.”