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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 16, 2009 / 24 Sivan 5769

Foreign policy as social work

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In 1980, after Soviet tanks rumbled into Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter experienced an epiphany. The former Georgia governor, who in 1977 liberated the U.S. from its "inordinate fear of communism" and pecked Brezhnev on both cheeks, declaring that he and the Soviet leader "shared similar dreams and aspirations," was shocked by this naked aggression. "… The action of the Soviets," he admitted, "made a more dramatic change in my opinion of what the Soviets' ultimate goals are than anything they've done the previous time I've been in office."


Some people are slow learners. Leave aside the 20 million dead under Stalin, the subjugation of Eastern Europe, the Gulag, and the show trials. In just the previous decade, the Soviets had tried and jailed Natan Sharansky and Alexander Ginsburg for the crime of attempting to hold the U.S.S.R. to the Helsinki human rights agreement; imprisoned countless dissidents in psychiatric "hospitals"; supported a number of terrorist groups worldwide, maintained an elaborate disinformation campaign to spread defamatory lies about the U.S.; brought the world to the brink of nuclear conflict over the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East; and armed and supplied the deadly North Korean, North Vietnamese, Somali, and Ethiopian regimes.


The liberal tendency to believe that international relations are a form of social work is unchanged. Just as liberals like Carter believed in the 1970s that tensions with the Soviets were the result of misunderstandings and "paranoia" on our part, liberals today believe that international tensions are the result of lack of respect for Islam or bellicosity on our part. Liberals are keen to bolster the self-esteem of our enemies. If we were not so provocative (didn't Bush label Iran, North Korea, and Iraq the "axis of evil"?) the world would be a more tractable place. If we demonstrate humility, our former foes will meet us halfway.


Accordingly, Obama signaled in his inaugural address a new benign approach to Iran. Without naming the regime, he declared that the United States was prepared to "extend a hand, if you are willing to unclench your fist." Following up two months later, President Obama addressed the Iranian regime directly (something previous administrations had declined to do, though they often expressed their solidarity with Iran's people) in a Norwuz (New Year) address. "We know that you are a great civilization" he purred, "and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world." Directing his next comments directly to the mullahs, the president continued "… in this season of new beginnings … my administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran, and the international community. … The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations."


As for the nettled matter of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, President Obama addressed it soothingly in his Cairo speech. Every nation has the right to pursue nuclear power, he declared (though nuclear energy is apparently to play no future role in the U.S.) and "no single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons." Though he had previously declared that a nuclear Iran was unacceptable to the United States, President Obama proposed in Cairo that the answer to an Islamist bomb was "America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons."


The Obama approach looks much less appealing following the sham election of June 12. The bromides and promises of respect look increasingly tawdry as the regime's goons speed through Iran's streets on motorcycles beating demonstrators with batons; as Internet sites are closed; as opposition leaders declare the election stolen; as dissidents including political leaders, students, and journalists are jailed; and as violence spills into the streets.


Just as the Soviets let the mask of "peaceful coexistence" slip when they invaded Afghanistan, the mullahs have revealed themselves for what they are. It has suddenly become much more difficult to pretend that by engaging with this junta, you are not betraying the Iranian people. The Obama foreign policy — hope leavened with helium — must now come down to Earth.

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