The following article from Ben Stein offers an Iranian strategy for the United States concerning Israel based on what Richard Nixon would do. His opinion is based on his personal experience working for President Nixon and his actions as outlined in the article. I read this article and wondered what will president Obama do based on his record? After all, he has been in office for three years and has been engaged in military or kinetic actions in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Uganda and Syria. Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Netanyahu and Israel is tentative at best. Mr. Obama’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and Islam is also well documented. Iran stands in the way of establishing the new Caliphate that the president is encouraging through his Muslim Brotherhood ties. His actions in Libya, Egypt and now Syria have shown his ideology in the Middle East.
What will Obama do for Israel? Anything that will help establish the new Caliphate. But he will never help Israel to help Israel itself or maintain good foreign relations with a country which was a strong ally.
What will Mitt Romney do based on his record? Mr. Romney has no record concerning military action but he does have a long, established history with Mr. Netanyahu:
In 1976, the lives of Mitt Romneyand Benjamin Netanyahu intersected, briefly but indelibly, in the 16th-floor offices of the Boston Consulting Group, where both had been recruited as corporate advisers. At the most formative time of their careers, they sized each other up during the firm’s weekly brainstorming sessions, absorbing the same profoundly analytical view of the world.
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When Mr. Romney was the governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Netanyahu offered him firsthand pointers on how to shrink the size of government. When Mr. Netanyahu wanted to encourage pension funds to divest from businesses tied to Iran, Mr. Romney counseled him on which American officials to meet with. And when Mr. Romney first ran for president, Mr. Netanyahu presciently asked him whether he thought Newt Gingrich would ever jump into the race.
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Mr. Romney has suggested that he would not make any significant policy decisions about Israel without consulting Mr. Netanyahu — a level of deference that could raise eyebrows given Mr. Netanyahu’s polarizing reputation, even as it appeals to the neoconservatives and evangelical Christians who are fiercely protective of Israel.
As Mr. Stein points out, he could be wrong. As Mr. Obama’s actions have pointed out, America was wrong in 2008.
David DeGerolamo
What Would Nixon Do?
We face some extremely serious problems today in the foreign policy realm. But now we face a uniquely serious threat from Islamic Iran. They are belligerent. They sponsor terrorism and violent repression everywhere they can, currently on display in the bloodbath in Syria. Far, far worse, they seem to be getting close to having a nuclear bomb. They have promised to use that bomb on Israel right away, and Israel cannot permit that. There can be no second Holocaust. But Israel is restrained by the U.S.’s caution and by the long distance to Iran from Israel.
I keep thinking in this context about my old boss and friend, Richard M. Nixon. Obviously, he had serious problems on the domestic side. But in foreign affairs, he was a wizard… got our prisoners back from North Vietnam, ended the war there, opened relations with China that basically encircled Russia and ended the Cold War, signed the first strategic arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.
As he said he would do, he left us with “a generation of peace.”
What would RN do about Iran? Well, he’s been gone now for 18 years, so it’s just an educated guess, but here it is.
Richard Nixon above all did not like to see America pushed around. He responded strongly when he felt we were being pushed around — with bombing, especially. He also did not like to see our allies being pushed around. That’s why he sent a lot of highly advanced aid to Israel roughly 40 years ago during the Yom Kippur War to save Israel when things were looking bad. Then peace came between Israel and Egypt.
I think he would do the same now. He would say to Israel, “Look, you have an existential threat. You are our closest ally on the planet. We will let you use our refueling apparatus to get you to the nuclear bomb making sites in Iran. We will let you use our super satellite imaging to find the right spots to hit. We will lend you our superb anti-ground to air missile defense systems. Not only that, but we will let the world know we are doing this. The Europeans will complain, but they always complain. We won’t be pushed around by the Mullahs and we won’t let you be destroyed. If show and tell doesn’t work, we’ll be behind you in the UN after you do the bombing.
“Strength works. After strength, we’ll use diplomacy. That’s when diplomacy works best.”
And that might just do it. Richard Nixon made many mistakes, but he was a superstar in war and peace. What would Richard Nixon do? What makes for peace in the long run, which is sometimes action in the short run.
Or, I could be wrong.
Ben Stein
