Hillary Clinton told the AIPAC conference this past Monday that, after fifteen months of his presidency, President Obama was about to launch, with our allies, "sanctions with bite." I commented on this earlier in the week. But a top front-page dispatch in this morning's Wall Street Journal tells us just how little pain Iran would incur when the political psychodrama finally unfolds at the Security Council. The fact is that the Obami have been courting Russia and China all this time unsuccessfully while, in the meantime, Tehran is make steady advances in the acquisition of nuclear weapons and even steadier advances in destabilizing the Middle East.
Now, you have to understand that the president needed to make a choice. He couldn't push Iran too hard while he was relentlessly bludgeoning the State of Israel. And, by the way, he was already bludgeoning the Jewish state even before Jerusalem had foolishly stumbled further into two neighborhoods, one already Jewish and the other on the road to the Hebrew University, Hadassah Hospital, and the Mount of Olives. Why shouldn't Jews live on this road? Anyway, bludgeoning Israel was actually a part of his grand design to entice the whole Muslim orbit into counting America as a friend.
Alas, that counting was a flop. Even with Turkey. Certainly with Saudi Arabia. And, to be sure, the Palestinians from whom nothing has been asked and nothing received. Nothing.
So I believe that Obama was delighted to have had the opportunity to break with Israel fall into his lap.