Obama's Gotta Squeeze Box?

by Eric Martin

Yet another episode of quotable Daniel Larison:

One of the most irritating memes in conservative commentary these days is the idea that Obama subverts allies and aids rivals. They have been pushing this one right from the beginning. This is a pretty blatant accusation of treachery and/or naivete, and it isn’t true. Naturally, this latest quarrel with Israel has become another entry on the indictment against Obama for the supposed "squeeze” he puts on allies. The only trouble with this argument is that there is no real squeeze. There is a lot of talk that I assume everyone involved knows will lead to nothing. It’s as if all of the parties know that the entire quarrel is a charade, but now that it has started it has to be played out.

Incredibly, despite the absence of any meaningful consequences for Netanyahu’s government from Washington, the administration is supposedly being very “hard” on Israel while it is being equally “soft” on Iran. There is an Iran gasoline embargo bill pending in Congress, where it has overwhelming support, and it seems unlikely that Obama would veto it if the bill came to his desk. On the other hand, the administration is throwing a public fit over the treatment of the Vice President during his visit to Israel and not doing much more than that. No honest person could conclude from this that it is Israel that has been getting the squeeze.

One thing that I have been noticing over the last few days is how readily foreign policy hawks have been adopting arguments that are normally made by opponents of Iran sanctions but have been applying them to the U.S.-Israel relationship instead. All of a sudden, the hawks have realized that public condemnation and political pressure might backfire and cause the population of another country to rally around the government Washington is trying to pressure. At last they have discovered that hectoring rhetoric and attempts to push a government into doing something it believes it has every right to do are counterproductive! Of course, this insight disappears the minute it might actually be useful in improving our Iran policy.

There are also a few crucial things that the hawks are missing that make these arguments a poor fit for Israel policy. Israeli settlement policy really does violate international law, Israel really is “flouting the will of the world” (to the extent that such a thing exists), and Israel really is more isolated today than it has been in decades. All of the things that the administration has falsely claimed about Iran’s nuclear program and its diplomatic and economic position in the world are far more true of Israel’s international position in the wake of Lebanon, Gaza, Dubai, the latest settlement announcement, and the serial incompetence of Lieberman’s Foreign Ministry. Unlike in Iran, the U.S. actually has leverage and influence in Israel, but while Washington strives mightily to conjure up some way to punish Iran it refuses to use the means available to it to try to make Israel stop doing what Washington has called on it to stop doing for decades.

It’s quite possible that the “pressure track” wouldn’t work on Israel any better than it would work on any other state, but it isn’t even part of the discussion.

CNN's Ed Henry tried to brush off criticism of the Erick Erickson hiringg by arguing that the left would object to any conservative that they hired.  Perhaps, but there's something to be said about the volume and validity of the complaints.  Erickson's critics have a lot of ammunition courtesy of Erickson, and that repertoire alone should have given CNN pause.

I, for one, would not have objected to the hiring of either Larison or Conor Friedersdorf, for example (even if the latter would bristle at the attempt to affix a label).  Heck, I even put in a kind word for Ross Douthat when he got the Times gig (Douthat being considerably better than Erickson, though I would have, again, preferred Larison or Friedersdorf).

Comments

[cleek]

knee-jerk partisan wingnuts and think-tank warmongers disapprove of a Democrat?

strange days have found us.

[Phil]

Those guys aren't likely to go and say something that is going to embarass CNN. It's pretty obvious that it's only a matter of time before Erickson gets fired for some comment Erickson makes on air. Like when Limbaugh was hired to do football analysis. I mean, I see that you're going for a demographic, but don't you see how you're going to piss another one?

[Andrew R.]

You know, at this point, I suspect that if Obama were to nuke Tehran and stride through the ruins feasting on the still-beating heart of Ahmadinejad, conservatives would *still* say that he grovels before the nation's enemies and abandons its allies.

[Mike]

Daniel Larison, Times columnist? We can dream. His stuff is even a little too straight-up for The Nation I'd say, though. He'd be more at home somewhere like Dissent if foreign policy were all he was going to be writing about. I'd have been impressed if the Times had offered it to them. It would serve them right to get savaged from their foreign-policy left (esp. on Israel) by their conservative columnist. Bobo would have had an aneurism. Or, more likely, vetoed it (since I think it was his call anyway).

Look at it this way: it could have been McMegan.

[Mike Schilling]

Obama's Gotta Squeeze Box?

Who?

[Eric Martin]

Heh.

[Hogan]

Biden never sleeps at night.

[liberal japonicus]

geez, a song reference I know. It is the end of days.

[Eric Martin]

I was kickin it old school...

[Marty]

in and out and in and out.....

yeah, pretty old school

[Mike Schilling]

I was kickin it old school...

and by the numbers.

[Ginger Yellow]

"CNN's Ed Henry tried to brush off criticism of the Erick Erickson hiringg by arguing that the left would object to any conservative that they hired."

Yes, of course they would. But that doesn't have any bearing on the decision to hire a particularly stupid and hateful conservative. I suppose they needed someone to fill the gap Beck left.

[jonnybutter]

I suppose [CNN] needed someone to fill the gap Beck left.

Exactly. BTW, I was in Europe recently, and had the unfortunate experience of watching the new 'CNN International'. As some of you may remember, CNN Int. used to be (or try to be) sort of like the BBC - completely different from the infantile US version. Not anymore. It's still less crappy than the US version (how hard is that?), but it's become more like it, with doctrinaire neo-liberal 'financial analysis' and loud-mouthed, hectoring hosts.

CNN was the first 24 hour cable news channel, but they failed to understand what Fox grasped from the start: that they are in the porno business, not the news business (a very weird kind of porno, but there you go). I don't think CNN will ever catch up. They're between a rock and a hard place: their positioning obliges them to pretend at being a 'serious news outlet', but know they need to trash-out at any opportunity.