Obviously, the Palestinian idea is useless without US support. However, it could form part of a build up of US leverage over Israel. I think this is the process Obama is going through at the moment, and why a deal with Iran is so important to him. If the US starts doing business with the Iranians, the open flank the Israelis are exploiting now, and could escalate at will, is closed.

The other aspect is Hamas/Fatah reconciliation, which has been largely impeded by the US and Egypt. There are signs that this was getting close, and I suspect the Israeli killing of the Hamas man in Dubai was designed to upset it again.

Obama in a sense has just received a boot up his ass to get his act together.

Baker Accuses Obama of “Caving In” on Israel-Palestine
http://www.lobelog.com/baker-accuses-obama-of-caving-in-on-israel-palestine/

Baker, the architect of the Bush family dynasty was the sole reason the shrub became president in 2000. Then in 04 I read an article that reported Baker was “scathing” in his comments regarding Bush and his administration in private conversations among the wealthy and powerful.

James Baker the III is a patrician among the elite in the US ‘establishment’ of power. He represents our version of what Europeans would readily recognize as an aristocrat, though in America are versions acquire this status by merit, not birth or inheritance. He is not someone you toy or to put it more plainly, @#$% over.

Apparently Bush Jr. pissed the man off, and though many people here would find this unfathomable, I believe Baker lost his faith in Bush, recognized a mistake and diligently worked behind the scenes to diminish Bush and his presidency.

Back in April of 09 Baker gave one of his rare interviews lauding Obama. Actually, this shouldn’t be too surprising since many of Obama’s policies were adopted from Baker’s play book. I also wouldn’t be surprised that Baker played some role behind the scenes in getting Obama elected too.

Obama is getting reamed and taken over the coals by progressives in the demo party and foreign policy establishment. He has just received a public critique from the dean of the ‘realist’ school. Lately there has been a lot of travel activity of cabinet principles to the Middle East and may be the push behind a proposed Quartet meeting in Moscow next month.

Whatever or however, the fact remains the president received some advise from a personality foolhardy to ignore. What many Americans don’t know and all foreigners can be forgiven for not knowing, is the US presidency is not the only powerful office or personality in the republican order and scheme of US governance. And I am not talking about the Republican party.

For Condaleeza Rice to say at the time of Israel’s attack on Lebanon that we were “witnessing the birth pangs of a new Middle East” can only infer regional plans, and it was long established that Israel/US felt they needed to take out Hizballah to close the flank before an attack on Iran. In my opinion, the thinking is wrong anyway, because Hizballah are far too smart to launch that kind of assault on Israel in the event of Iran being attacked, but wrong thinking was hardly a shock when it came to Bush and his bunch of numpties.

I totally agree Obama doesn’t share the same fantasies, but there are still serious blindspots in his regional policies. I still think there is a masterplan at work here, but it needs to reveal itself soon, because it is simply despicable to continue to participate in what is being done to Gaza.

Hezbollah and HAMAS are existential threats to Israel, not the US. And however Obama’s M/E policies are described, the one thing such are not are the parked out in orbit, loser fantasies neocons are famous for. No one in Washington D.C. is pursuing such rubbish, though time to time as the need may arise a principle may give lip service to.

ephor n. One of a body of five elected magistrates exercising a supervisory power over the kings of Sparta.

Good or bad depends upon whether a person believes this or any future POTUS needs supervision regarding foreign policy and the national security interests of the US. The NSC is targeted for transformation because Congress has no oversight or approval of nominations to this committee. That raises the hairs on the backs of some peoples heads who see the persona’s of Jones, Mullen, Petraues and McChrystal as the prototypical precursors to Sulla, Marius, Pompey, Crassus and finally Caesar of the later republic.

What’s an Ephorate? Is it good or bad?

It was the success of that opposition that FORCED the nomination of Robert Gates as SecDef in 2006, who in turn TOLD Bush to formerly nominate Mike Mullen as Chairman of the JCS in 2007. By then pay back time was in full swing as the worm turned for the neocons, but more importantly for good or bad a new assertion and awareness of power on the part of generals and the long suffering and much abused career civil servants of the ‘national security state’ in the executive branch had dawned. Though I had an inkling of trouble when CentCom Commander Gen John P. Abizaid declared he would not be the “fall guy” for Bush/Cheney/neocon meddling in military affairs in the latter part of 2003, it was abundantly clear that a new class of power was in town by 2007.

Eisenhower’s famous speech was a warning regarding the corruption and greed of the Congressional/Corporate elites who were in the brainless process of creating a monster, which may have been fully accomplished by the incompetent, loser, Bush/Cheney/neocon regime. Congressional/Military/Industrial/Complex probably no longer adequately describes what now exists within the executive branch of the federal government, if it ever did. NSA advisor Jones and others are rapidly transforming the NSC, an ad hoc affair under the authority of the President into a permanent institution within the architecture of the chief executive. One general referred to it as an Ephorate within the presidency.

Interesting times.

The other side of the equation would be that the hardware providers were fat enough after Iraq so didn’t need another war so soon. But hey, it’s been 7 years now. We gotta get killing again.

John – part of the prospectus for invading Iraq was to pump their oil, and bank the money to pay for it all. Which is precisely what they did at the start. Who was that accountant in La Jolla that was doing the books for it all in his spare bedroom? Didn’t $12bn or so disappear in the first 6 months of the CPA? Of course the maths all went wrong when Iraq couldn’t be recreated in the right image.