This was written by Tovah Lazaroff and Greer Fay Cashman and published in the Jerusalem Post.
Economic and diplomatic pressure has failed to stop Iran’s nuclear program, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told British Foreign Minister William Hague before meeting with him in Jerusalem on Thursday.There is very little to suggest that Barack Obama was serious when he claimed to "have Israel's back" or when he claimed that he would deter Iran from the attainment of nuclear weaponry. I have been deeply suspicious of Obama administration claims to the contrary mainly because it seems entirely out of keeping with Obama's general policy of appeasement, if not friendliness, toward regimes associated with political Islam.
“The just released report of the International Atomic Energy Agency shows clearly that Iran is continuing to expand its nuclear enrichment program,” Netanyahu said.
“In parallel, it’s [Iran] working on a heavy-water reactor to build a plutonium-based bomb,” he said.
“This is the biggest challenge facing us. I think it’s the biggest challenge of our time,” Netanyahu said.
The Obama administration is a passive government on foreign policy, as former US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, could attest were he not dead precisely because of that passivity.
What this means, of course, is that Israel cannot count on the United States, under this president, to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weaponry despite its anti-Semitic genocidal screechings in the past. If the Obama administration will not defend its own people, it certainly cannot be counted on to defend Israelis. And what that means is that Israel will have to do the job, if it has the capabilities, and if it honestly intends to fulfill its mission of protecting the Jewish people from tyrants.
Two of the big questions that we need to ask ourselves, however, is just how China and Russia would respond to an Israeli attack on their ally's nuclear facilities? Both China and Russia have significant interests in Iran and neither would take kindly to an Israeli attack. On the other hand, both of those countries have significant interests in Israel, as well.
I do not know the answer to these questions, but they must be considered.
I do feel reasonably certain that Barack Obama does not have Israel's back, however.
I definitely wouldn't put any money down on that bet.