At the risk of controversy (always a possibility with Israel/Palestine diaries), I will state what I think is the obvious - Binyamin Netanyahu, the warmongering Dick Cheney of the Middle East (and possibly as corrupted as Cheney, his onetime partner in Middle Eastern sabre rattling), is about to be the latest thorn in Obama's side.
With the Israeli elections just completed, Netanyahu now gets to lead his right wing coalition into continued proxy war battle with Iran. Instead of trying to make a good faith effort to negotiate with the Palestinians and with Israel's neighbors, Cheney Netanyahu is about to pursue the one and only course that he's ever known - war, violence, and destruction along with right wing, extreme nationalistic ideology.
How will Obama respond?
The Times Online has this hint of ongoing arrogance by this neocon Prime Minister to be.
The new administration would also run into immediate conflict with President Obama who has urged a speeding up of the peace process and has tried to cool hostile rhetoric with Iran.
Instead of territorial compromise, Mr Netanyahu has indicated that he prefers economic development measures in the West Bank that allow Israel to maintain continued security control over borders and no dismantling of settlements.
Netanhayu was once once described by Joe Lockhart, Bill Clinton's White House spokesman, as
"one of the most obnoxious individuals you're going to come into - just a liar and a cheat. He could open his mouth and you could have no confidence that anything that came out of it was the truth"
(And in the same article, Clinton himself is quoted as saying, with much exaspiration, "Who the fuck does he think he is? Who's the fucking superpower here?")
Anyway, as to Obama, who I think has little use or patience for obnoxious neocons, while Obama has recenly offered a pretty strong public gesture of support to the Israeli state, his relationship with Israel's incoming government - at a moment in which he aims to gather support to take on militants in the Afghan/Pakistan border region and to ease our way from Iraq - is about to be tested. Obama seems to favor much more of a "carrot and stick" strategy of diplomatic overtures toward Iran; whereas Netanyahu seems likely to live up to his true warmongering nature.
One hint as to Obama's approach might be found in this statement by our Middle East envoy, George Mitchell responding to the Netanyahu's peace proposals, that
"One cannot talk about economic development on the Palestinian side when you are not moving forward with diplomatic moves at the same time."
This is all occurring at a time in which it is now being announced that Iran now has enough U-235 to make A-bombs
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Iran has confounded the U.S. intelligence community yet again: New revelations from the International Atomic Energy Agency suggest the Islamic Republic is far closer to being able to make its own nuclear weapons than the most recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate published last year imagined.
A new report from the IAEA, based in the Austrian capital, Vienna, said Iran's production of enriched uranium had been underestimated and Tehran has enough material for a nuclear weapon.
The report said Iran has now produced 1,010 kilograms of low-enriched uranium -- almost a ton. And more is certainly on the way. The IAEA said Iran now has 4,000 centrifuges operating to separate nuclear-usable uranium-235 from uranium-238, an increase in 200 centrifuges in only two months. And another 1,600 centrifuges are being constructed.