Jackson Diehl, another of the WaPo's Israel-first foreign policy "experts," weighed in with a column yesterday criticizing Obama for being stuck in 1983 in terms of his foreign policy concerns, i.e. his desire to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian settlement and to get the START treaty with Russia ratified. According to Diehl, this is the result of hopeless nostalgia for the cutting edge issues from when Obama was in college. In Diehl's world, securing loose nukes and resolving the festering sore in the Middle East is the equivalent of listening to "Flock of Seagulls" records.
Evidently, the fact that Netanyahu says he supports the idea of a two-state solution is enough to render it done -- there is no need to stop settlements, no need to go about the difficult work of hammering out a deal, it's a fait accompli. Talk about magical thinking.
And the idea of getting better control over the world's second largest nuclear arsenal -- according to Diehl, it's "at best an indirect benefit."
And what are the cutting edge issues that Diehl wants Obama to concentrate on? Why stopping the expansion of Iranian influence and keeping the likes of Syria (Syria??) from getting nuclear weapons. How forward thinking and revolutionary.
Best of all, Diehl criticizes Obama for not having a foreign policy visionary like Henry Kissinger or, and I do not jest, Condoleeza Rice, in his administration. The mind boggles.
If Diehl is not on Likud's payroll, he is a profoundly stupid man.
