Washington – US President Barack Obama told an American news magazine earlier this week that he was not naive about the threats against Israel made by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
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“His ideology is steeped with anti-Semitism, and if he could, without catastrophic costs, inflict great harm on Israel, I’m confident that he would,” Obama told journalist Robin Wright of The New Yorker.
Nonetheless, the president said that the Iranian government’s behavior was not as extreme as its rhetoric suggests.
“It is possible for leaders or regimes to be cruel, bigoted, twisted in their world views and still make rational calculations with respect to their limits and their self-preservation,” Obama told The New Yorker. “And what we’ve seen, at least since 1979, is Iran making constant, calculated decisions that allow it to preserve the regime, to expand their influence where they can, to be opportunistic, to create what they view as hedges against potential Israeli attack, in the form of Hezbollah and other proxies in the region.”
In the interview, Obama denied that the nuclear agreement negotiated by his administration with Iran is a radical shift in US policy toward the Islamic Republic.
“This does not represent a strategic rapprochement between the United States and Iran,” the president said. “This is a hardheaded, clear-eyed, calculated decision to take—to seize our best opportunity to lock down the possibility of Iran getting a nuclear weapon.”
“There is nothing in this deal that is dependent on a transformation of the character of the Iranian regime.”
When asked how Obama could stomach negotiating with a country that regularly adheres to the mantra of “Death to America,” he said: “It’s not appealing to deal with countries that express hatred towards us. It wasn’t easy to negotiate arms agreements with a near military peer [like the Soviet Union] that could blow up every American city.”
“But, when it comes to arms-control agreements, or nonproliferation agreements of any magnitude, by definition you’re generally dealing with those folks. I don’t have to negotiate an arms agreement with Great Britain or with France.”
Yet our failure in chief decides to make a deal with him. Tell me this makes sense
what Obama meant to say is I WISH “He Would Inflict Great Harm On Israel,’. he is less rational than the COMPETENT “minority” South African government that the US brought down and put in the terrorist Mandela.
So quick! Give them access to $150,000,000,000. Oh wait a minute. That doesn’t make any sense.
# 5 has said it all,exactly on the mark
Again one may not like Obama and politics in general. I am not defending him or the US in general. I never said so in my earlier comment. Accepted. But simply read the undignified way of reactions on VIN. That’s the Chilul Hashem. Like a lot of the frum world today behaves. We became low lives. And as a so called professional shame on you to again hit someone who wants to just bring back some level of dignity in the discussion (visible also by other people besides the community). “Chilul Hashem descibes you well”? That’s how you have a meaningful and dignified discussion? That’s the level of a “professional”? It’s more like an uneducated person or child. Look a moment at yourself and remember me and my comments on Rosh Hashona and Yom Kipper. Think about how low we have sank and the way we behave…….
History? Why are Jews forgetting that FDR also had issues with the European jews? We know we cannot always rely on the US. Carter is another example. But we have to show that we always behave.
Then let’s be honourable people and not be afraid. Trust on Hashem and the capacity of Israel (remember what I said with respect to Pakistan etc). I forgive you if this was a slip of the pen and hope you will join me in an effort to bring back a level of discussion here on VIN that shows we are the Oir Lagoyim (which does not mean we have to agree on everything). We can only benefit from that as a community. Are you joining? Anybody else? Oygevald? Yankee96?