Many of us remember reading, or watching, the great Shakespeare
play, Romeo and Juliet.
In the scene of street brawling in the Italian city of
Verona, Romeo comes between his dear friend Mercutio and Tybalt,
one of the leaders of the teen gangs. Tybalt, we know, is
actually fair Juliet’s brother, so Romeo sincerely wants to end
the incessant violence.
While Romeo’s arm is extended, Tybalt stabs Mercutio — and
flees the scene. The Prince has vowed dire punishment to any who
continue their roistering ways. Romeo was trying to protect his
friend, and does not realize how seriously Mercutio has been
wounded.
“Courage, man,” he says to the stricken Mercutio, “the hurt
cannot be much.” Mercutio replies, at first, with his
characteristic wit about his stab wound:
No, ‘tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve: ask for
me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
Mercutio’s jests end with this bitter rebuke to his dear
friend, Romeo:
…Why the devil came you between us? I
was hurt under your arm.
Realizing at last how grievously his friend has been
injured, Romeo says pathetically, “I thought all for the
best.”
This scene comes to mind as I view President Obama’s policy
toward the mortal threat Israel faces as Iran’s nuclear ambitions
proceed unhindered toward a bomb. The leading ayatollah in Tehran
has described Israel as “a one-bomb country.” About that, he is
right. One nuclear weapon is all that it would take to kill
millions of Israelis. It would be a twenty-minute
Holocaust.
President Obama has wasted his first year in office
“reaching out” to the mullahs in Tehran. Even now, he absurdly
says that the Iranian clerics and the United States have a
“mutual interest” in stopping the Taliban in Afghanistan. Just
who does he think is now aiding the Taliban? Can he really be so
naive?
For the past year, although they would never admit it,
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been
pressing a “re-set” button on U.S. policy toward Israel.
Clinton — at Obama’s urging — has demanded that Israel
submit to UN oversight of its investigation into the violent
boarding of the Turkish supply ship that tried to run the Israeli
blockade of Gaza.
Hamas, the terrorist organization committed to the
immediate destruction of Israel, runs Gaza. From Gaza, Hamas has
launched thousands of missiles into Israel.
The world, including the UN bureaucrats, yawned as Israeli
cities and farms came under this rocket attack. Tehran, it is
widely known, is arming Hamas, just as it is supplying Hezbollah,
the terrorist outfit that rules in Southern Lebanon.
The Israelis were determined not to allow the
Turkish ship to enter a Gaza port without being inspected. If
even one of those cargo containers held weapons of mass
destruction — anthrax, nerve gas such as that released in the
Tokyo subway, or some other biological or chemical agent — the
densely populated Jewish state would be in mortal
jeopardy.
A year and a half into this administration, we see the
utter failure of Obama foreign policy. He left our Eastern
European allies — Poland, Hungary, the Czechs — in the lurch,
yanking away an anti-missile defense program that would have
protected them not only from Iranian missiles but also from
Russian pressures.
This was done, the very smart Beltway types told us, so
that Russia would join us in putting pressure on the Iranians.
Russia did vote for watered-down economic sanctions
against Iran.
Then, promptly, it signed an agreement with the Iranians to
help them develop nuclear power plants. If you can build
a nuclear power plant, you can build a nuclear bomb. Russia is
playing a double game.
President Obama says he wants to avoid a nuclear
arms race in the Mideast. That would be nice.
But under his policies, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan,
Egypt, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have all announced
plans to develop nuclear power plants.
It’s hard to imagine what Hillary Clinton must be thinking
of all this. She left a safe seat in the U.S. Senate to join this
administration. She has been taunted — on left-wing blogs, of
all places — for allowing Barack Obama to put her in a “foreign
policy burka.”
When Hillary ran against Obama in 2008, her most effective
campaign ad was one that showed a telephone ringing at 3 a.m. It
was intended to warn Americans of the dangers of having an
inexperienced president taking that crisis call in the middle of
the night. Little did Hillary realize that she might be
the one making that crisis call.
It seems as if we are sleepwalking into danger. Is there
anybody in this administration who is awake?
