Now, if someone told you that the Congress of the United States invited a foreign leader to address it without coordinating with the president and seeking his approval, the natural reaction, I think, would be to respond that while such an invitation might be legal, it clearly is a case of the legislative branch arrogantly ignoring the executive’s prerogatives in the conduct of foreign policy. Even though the Obama administration does not have a coherent or commonsense foreign policy, the Congress’s action can only make the Obama-made overseas mess worse and thereby further undermine U.S. security. Constitutional prerogatives ought to be honored — in letter and spirit — by all three branches of government, and so this unilateral congressional invitation ought to set off some alarm bells.
Now, if the same someone went on to tell you that the foreign leader invited to address Congress is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that he is going to deliver a speech meant to promote the involvement of the United States in an unnecessary war with Iran, the ringing alarm bells ought to become a deafening nationwide clanging. Our elected interventionist representatives are giving a war-wanting foreign leader a superb platform from which to intervene in U.S. politics, and from which he will try to drag/push/force the United States into Israel’s war with Iran. If Netanyahu succeeds at some point in the future, it will be the soldier-children of American parents who will be killed fighting for Israel in a war in which the United States does not have a horse. Iran has third-rate military that is not capable of successfully attacking North America; that is, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards will not be victoriously goose-stepping down the main street of any American city. And, lest we forget, the U.S. military is still the earth’s preeminent military power and if we are attacked by Iran it could render Persia uncomfortably radioactive. If Israel wants a war with Iran, let it rip, but Washington’s only duty in the case of such a war is to stay completely away from it, support neither side, and refuse to publicly comment.
Another reason why Washington must avoid participation in an Israel-Iran is the catastrophic disaster that our immigration and border policies have wrought in terms of allowing Iran’s intelligence operatives, Revolutionary Guards, and their murderous colleagues in Lebanese Hizballah to establish a strong presence in the United States. Iran has been deploying its fighters here pretty much at will since the early 1980s, and now controls a wide-ranging set of capabilities with which to attack in the United States. (NB: These capabilities are supported by the similar ones that Iran has built in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and parts of South America.) The odds are very much against Iran using these capabilities unless we join in Israel’s war against the Islamic Republic. In that event, Tehran probably would use its U.S. based fighters to cause damage and death in the United States at a level the conventional Iranian military could never achieve. Joining Israel’s war against Iran, then, means Americans will fight a two-front war — one in Iran, the other at home — and would certainly come out the loser in both.
It is important, however, that Americans not misplace blame for this episode by damning either Netanyahu or Israel for taking advantage of the opportunity that the Congress has offered them. Netanyahu is responsible only for Israel’s national security, and that consideration apparently demands that the United States be on-board and fighting when Israel attacks Iran. The Israelis have an absolute right to defend themselves by whatever means they deem necessary, but the United States has no obligation — legal, moral, or security — to join them in their war on Iran. The U.S. government too has an absolute right to defend itself against perceived threats in any manner necessary, but it has an even greater duty — legal, moral, and security — never to become involved in other people’s wars in which no life-and-death U.S. interests are at stake and can only yield ruin for America.
There is much blame to be laid, however, and that blame lies squarely with pro-Israel Jewish-Americans and their organizations. They have been outspokenly critical of both the Obama administration’s failure to supinely do Israel’s bidding and the president’s apparent personal dislike of Netanyahu. The invitation for the Israeli prime minister to speak clearly is meant to demonstrate to the U.S. governing elite the power that the disloyal Israel-Firsters have acquired with — apparently — almost all members of both houses through their campaign contributions, their ability to arrange exclusion from the media, and their vicious eagerness to identify as anti-Semites all Americans who advocate a non-interventionist foreign policy and a resolute hands-off approach to the Middle East. The Israel-Firsters have long experience in deliberately damaging genuine U.S. national interests and silencing American citizens, beginning with their public and covert work with Britain’s information and intelligence services to push the United States into war with Germany before genuine U.S. interests were threatened, and their simultaneous defaming and ultimate destruction of the reputation of America’s last great hero, the courageous non-interventionist, Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh.
What is on the table for Americans to see, then, is constitutional disorder — who runs foreign policy? the extraordinary hyping of Iranian power, which is a marginal threat to the United States; the criminal, multi-decade negligence of U.S. governments in regard to immigration policy and border control that has yielded a serious threat from Iran’s resident operatives in America; and the astounding, disloyal, and possibly illegal anti-American activities of so many Israel-First U.S. citizens, men and women for whom Israel is their country of first allegiance and who have no qualms about suborning 535 U.S. congressmen and senators to serve as agents of a foreign power willing to involve the United States in Israel’s wars.
