Friday, November 9, 2012

The Party of Victory

From Caroline Glick, at National Review:
Next to the American people themselves, Israel is no doubt the biggest immediate loser in the U.S. presidential election. President Obama’s foreign policy is predicated on the false notion that the U.S. and Israel themselves are the principal causes of the Islamic world’s antipathy toward them. Consequently, Obama has cultivated the anti-American, genocidally anti-Jewish Muslim Brotherhood and facilitated the Brotherhood’s takeover of Egypt and Tunisia and its gains in strength throughout the Middle East. In addition, Obama has appeased Iran’s Islamist regime and has enabled it to reach the cusp of nuclear capability.

Obama’s policy of relying on the United Nations has placed Israel’s diplomatic viability at risk as the Palestinians and the international Left that supports and feeds on their cause use the U.N. to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. Finally, Obama’s animosity toward Israel has strengthened the hand of anti-Israel forces within the Democratic party. In the coming years, Israel will become an increasingly partisan issue in American politics.

While Obama’s reelection clearly places Israel in jeopardy, the plain truth is that the inevitable continuation of his foreign policies places the United States at risk as well. The jihadist assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi must be viewed as a sign of things to come, just as al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole were precursors of the 9/11 attack on the U.S. mainland. Obama is empowering the United States’ worst enemies in the Sunni and Shiite Muslim worlds alike. Thereby emboldened, they place America at increased risk.

Israel can and must take the actions necessary to mitigate the dangers that Obama’s reelection poses to its national security and indeed its very survival. It must embrace its advantages in economic growth, the domestic support it can count on from its deeply patriotic populace, and its demographic advantages — it is the only Western country with a high and growing fertility rate. It must boldly assert its national rights. In its relationship with the U.S., it must move from being a dependent to being an ally. It must take the military steps necessary to prevent Iran from making good its promise to annihilate the Jewish state. It must deter the Muslim Brotherhood–led Egyptian military from making war against it.

As for the U.S., Israel’s allies in the Republican party and the conservative movement must now take a serious look at their own foreign policy positions and reassess them in the light of the Republican defeat in Tuesday’s elections and in the face of the growing dangers to the country that are the inevitable consequence of Obama’s reelection. This is not merely a partisan interest. It is a matter of the United States’ own national security...

...today and in the coming months and years, there will be a lot of soul-searching in the Republican party and the conservative movement over what went wrong in the 2012 elections. And with that soul-searching will come the inevitable temptation to adopt the Democrats’ policy of appeasement in a bid to woo various constituencies — suburban mothers, for example, and perhaps Muslim communities in Michigan, Tennessee, Minnesota, and other states. But Republicans must understand that, while this is tempting, it is a recipe for repeated electoral defeats. Democrats will always and forever be able to out-appease Republicans. And so constituencies that want the American government to appease our enemies will always and forever vote for them. If the Republicans wish to return to power in the foreseeable future, they must boldly draw a distinction between themselves as the party of victory and the Democrats as the party of defeat.
More at the link.

PREVIOUSLY: "Obama Supporters Celebrate: 'No More Israel...'"

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