Watching Bibi making his noise and Obama responding to the noise with irritation was surreal. This is really happening/something like this can be happening in United States say a lot about the state of U.S. This is not very encouraging. This Boehner/Natanyahu show is a farce and quite entertaining if not for the serious nature of the business and the pomposity of the two men. Simply put, House speaker John Boehner invited Prime Minister Natanyahu to speak to the joint session of Congress while knowing that Natanyahu'll oppose President Obama's policy on Iran. Boehner and Natanyahu have done this with the total disregard to the protocol of getting consent from White House. Even with just common sense, this breach of international protocol looks very wrong.
Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister's delivery of his speech was very good. But the content was as expected, highly critical of the diplomatic approach of the President. This was no surprise because that has been his position all along. Natanyahu said that the diplomatic negotiation is a "bad deal," "could well threaten the survival of my country." Here are some more of quotes from his speech: "We must all stand together to stop Iran's march of conquest, subjugation, and terror." "It would be a farewell to arms control, and the Middle East would soon be crisscrossed by nuclear tripwires. A region where small skirmishes can trigger big wars would turn into a nuclear tinderbox.
John Boehner
With visible irritation, like the last time Bibi visited White House, President Obama responded. "The prime minister didn't offer any viable alternatives. The alternative that the prime minister offers is no deal, in which case Iran will immediately begin once again pursuing it's nuclear program, accelerate its nuclear program, without us having any insight into what they're doing and without constraint. If we're successful in negotiating, then, in fact, this will be the best deal possible to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Nothing else come close. Sanctions won't do it. Even military action would not be as successful as the deal that we have put forward."
This unnecessary commotion concocted by Boehner and the Israeli ambassador to U.S. has created only problems for Republicans and Jewish community, and, unlikely but possibly, U.S. and Israeli relationship. The old cliche that "be careful what you wish for," comes to mind.
But the essence of this commotion is the difference in the core values of the President Obama and Bibi/extreme right wing of the republican party. One is the time tested "live and let live" principle and the other is "take no prisoners." This is a complicated stories with a lot of historical baggages/historical PTSD. There are a lot of emotions. But vision and hope (even though some people may call it naivety) trumps historical PTSD any time. If not, we got to make it that way.
Factually, Natanyahu pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2002, and predicted that the invasion will weaken Iran and Middle East would be more stable. He did this in the Congress with great confidence and charisma. The delivery was beautiful. But he was wrong, very wrong. We're all paying for the mistake that is the invasion, "the shock and awe," of U.S. military power.
뉴욕 : 
파리 : 
서울 : 
