This is the real "fierce urgency of 'now'" rather than that of which Obama speaks eloquently but incorrectly in sounding a call for retreat oratorically disguised as policy of "aggressive diplomacy."  Our adversaries, who are ruthless but not stupid, would sensibly interpret such policy of "aggressive diplomacy" as  America's return to her pre-911 somnambulance.

            The political face Obama tries to show American voters and the world is that of a person capable of superior judgment flowing from an ability to remain cool under pressure.  Our adversaries see his true face as one imbued with a professorial view of the world favoring diplomacy with religious fervor no matter how often he might recite what they perceive as his empty rhetoric in "firmly" asserting that he would never take "the option" of "military" action "off the table."   He may be deceived by his own oratory, but they wouldn't be.  They know he would talk the talk but not walk the walk.  

            Obama (and his supporters) took umbrage that Bush and McCain equated his professed faith in "talking" to adversaries such as Iran's Ahmadinejad with Neville Chamberlain's faith in diplomacy for dealing with Hitler, but the entire premise of Obama's philosophy is to avoid a military response to a threat until it has become imminent.  He continually falsely claims that in 2003 George Bush characterized the threat posed by Saddam Hussein as "imminent" even though Bush (and virtually everyone in his cabinet) explicitly said Saddam Hussein remaining in power constituted not an "imminent threat" but rather a "gathering danger."   Indeed, Bush rested his "preemption" argument virtually entirely on the assertion that in the post-9-11 world, America cannot afford to allow dangers to gather until they become "imminent."  Obama, and those who share his philosophy, seem to think that America -- like James Bond in Goldfinger-- can always afford to allow the time-bomb to tick-down to "007" seconds before disarming it.  He and they fail to grasp what Donald Rumsfeld explained best  (I paraphrase):  In assessing when a terrorist-supporting state may acquire a nuclear weapon, we can never know precisely when it will occur; therefore, we're doomed to be either too soon or too late, and being too soon is better than being too late.

            Israel (and McCain and Lieberman) understand that in such context, too soon is better than too late; Obama and his supporters do not.  They cling to their Hollywood/Academia articles of faith that pursuit of "aggressive diplomacy" will somehow always preserve our ability to act decisively before it is "too late."   In the time immediately preceding the Six Day War, if Israel were to have practiced such faith in "aggressive diplomacy," it's doubtful that Israel would still exist.  Instead, we would by now have had hundreds of meaningless U.N. resolutions for "restoration" of some small enclave to serve as "Israel."  The Israelis chose not to let the bomb tick-down to seven seconds.  

            The Israelis (and McCain and Lieberman) understand (as Bush understood) that the only time-table we should set is the time for commencing effective action against a threat and not a time-table for completing such action.  Extinguishment of the threat, not the duration of the action to suppress it, is the only acceptable measure of success.

--Jim Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.

Permanent links to this installment: 

http://polisat.com/DailyPoliticalSatire-Commentary/Archives2008/du20y08m06d06-01.htm .

end.

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