President Barack Obama has finally decided to get tough with world leaders amid criticisms he’s weak, naive and in desperate need of lessons in statecraft. However, rather than showing his backbone to Russia or Iran, Obama gets mad and instead demands an apology from Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon.
Ya’alon angered the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon when he made comments that Secretary of State John Kerry said were “not constructive.”
“Look what’s happening in Ukraine, where the United States is demonstrating weakness, unfortunately,” the defense minister said. His latest comments of candor come after he was quoted by the Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonoth as saying Secretary Kerry was “obsessive and messianic,” and that he hoped Kerry “gets a Nobel Prize and leaves us alone.”
In response to Russia staging a referendum to annex Crimea, which was later followed by a Russian-backed resolution approved by Putin, Obama slapped 7 Russian and 4 Ukrainian officials with sanctions, freezing assets and affecting travel bans. The move was immediately criticized by members of both parties as being too weak.
One Russian oligarch officials said “I quite like the company,” shrugging off the seemingly nil damage Obama’s sanctions will have. Most of these Russian oligarchs had already moved assets into safe havens before the crisis.
Ya’alon, other Israeli official and U.S. allies, including the less-public Arab allies in nations like Saudi Arabia, say the U.S. can no longer be counted upon to effectively deal with Iran. Now, Russia said Wednesday that they will likely rethink their position on the Iran nuclear talks, a predictable move since they didn’t follow through with ensuring Syria complied with their chemical weapons disposal promise.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, voicing his objections to Ya’alon’s comments. Netanyahu did speak with Ya’alon later Wednesday, though we do not know what was said and the prime minister’s office did not return our requests for a comment.
An official from Ya’alon’s office, however, stated that the defense minister told Netanyahu he does, in fact, have plans to clarify his statements during scheduled meetings with senior American officials.
