Words Fail Me Dept.

     The Right is almost entirely in accord that Man’s propensity to violence is independent of his possession of any particular weapon. The Left takes the opposite position: that the possession of weapons increases the probability that Man will act violently. So it’s consistent that the Right should view “arms control” and “disarmament” initiatives with a jaundiced eye, while the Left regards them as the sole path to a Utopia of international harmony and unblemished peace.

     Which brings us to this new specimen of Leftist irrationality:

     Assistant US Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, Thomas Countryman, recently visited Israel and held talks with senior Foreign Ministry officials, about the possibility of making the Middle East nuclear-free.

     Washington seeks to advance the idea after reaching agreement with Russia about the matter.

     The State Department confirmed Countryman's visit and sources in the US Administration said that Israeli agreement to the idea would be a catalyst for bringing additional countries into discussions on the matter.

     You don’t have to be terribly old to remember the attempts by Israel’s neighbors to wipe her out with “conventional” forces: 1956, 1967, 1973. Israel survived those onslaughts largely due to superior martial prowess and her “back to the wall” mentality. But the prospect of having to remain eternally a garrison state is unappealing, for which reason, with the assistance of the Nixon Administration, Israel “went nuclear” in the mid-Seventies and hasn’t looked back since then.

     Needless to say, Israel’s neighbors view that development unfavorably. It greatly increases the potential price for another invasion of the Jewish state. Most especially, it puts the satraps and potentates of the Muslim Middle East on the battlefield with their soldiers. Being the “let’s you and him fight” sorts so commonplace among today’s political elites, that’s a possibility they’d rather avert.

     As I wrote in On Broken Wings:

     "Kings used to lead their own armies. They used to lead the cavalry's charge. For a king to send an army to war and remain behind to warm his throne was simply not done. Those that tried it lost their thrones, and some lost their heads -- to their own people. It was a useful check on political and military rashness.
     "It hasn't been that way for a long time. Today armies go into the field exclusively at the orders of politicians who remain at home. And politicians are bred to believe that reality is entirely plastic to their wills."

     So Israel’s nuclear deterrent is their number-one target – and Barack Hussein Obama, whom no one believes when he protests his dedication to the well-being of our sole true Middle Eastern ally, would be happy to help them dispose of it.

     The Israelis, of course, are otherwise inclined:

     The Disarmament Conference in New York has come and gone (ended May 22), while Western diplomats claim proposals could torpedo the process and push Israel to walk away!

     For the first time, Israel took part in the NPT meeting as an observer, ending a 20-year absence. The regime has the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal and is not a signatory to the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

     That's why failure to reach an agreement on the issue could kill the Mideast nuclear ban initiative. The developing nations say the UN should convene another conference on a regional ban of nuclear weapons. They also demand Israel immediately join the NPT.

     The problem is that Israel has no intention to give up its nukes and any talk of NPT membership is but dirty politics. The regime has conditioned its participation on an agenda being agreed in advance and says it wants to discuss regional security, conventional weapons and the Mideast peace process instead.

     And so it shall remain, for as long as Israel has reason to believe that it’s neighbor states still desire its annihilation – given the rhetoric that routinely issues from imams, mullahs, and Tehran, a belief that will be very hard to extinguish. But you may be sure that the American Left will be solidly behind this new Utopian vision of a Middle Eastern fairyland.

     Every Obama Administration foreign-policy measure or pronouncement aimed at the Middle East has been to Israel’s detriment. Expecting the Israelis to surrender the sole weapon that has even a chance of deterring their neighbors from further genocidal invasions is pure insanity. But that won’t stop Obama or his lieutenants from trying to curry favor with the anti-Semites of the Muslim states. They’re far more his constituency than the Jews of Israel...or of America.