The President may think that his single-digit approval ratings in Israel are simply because his middle name is “Hussein,” but he’s wrong.

In mid-July, the President gave his first interview with Israel’s Channel 2 news, and he was asked to explain why he thinks he has only a single digit approval rating in Israel. He suggested that much of the animosity towards him was because his middle name is “Hussein” inferring some anti-Muslim bigotry on the part of the Israelis, and he ruled out anything having to do with his policies or his behavior. Truth is, he was initially quite popular in Israel prior to his election (as July 2008 polls indicate) so the issue of Israeli religious bias against him because of his name is a non-starter.

Could it possibly be that the Israelis have serious disagreements with his policies, or are we to believe that they suddenly woke up one morning, discovered his middle name was Hussein, and decided to distrust him? If the man is polling in the single digits in Israel, could it be because other issues are bothering them?

Perhaps it’s because as candidate Obama, he stated unequivocally that Jerusalem would remain the undivided capital of the Jewish state, yet almost from the get-go, he has demanded that east Jerusalem be the capital of a new Palestinian state.

Or perhaps it’s because the Israelis perceive that he has a fundamentally different view of the world and world affairs including the Arab narrative than previous U.S. presidents, and is determined to change U.S. foreign policy in ways detrimental to Israel’s security.

Or, perhaps it’s because his first interview as President was with Al-Arabiya TV, and his first phone call was to Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.

Or perhaps it’s because he called Mahmoud Abbas in early July and thanked him for his “strong support” and his “commitment to peace” after Abbas had told an Arab League Summit in Libya (in Arabic): “If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor,” and stated directly to the President on his June visit to the White House: “I say in front of you, Mr. President, we have nothing to do with incitement against Israel, and we’re not doing that” . . . this from a man who not only refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, demands a return to the unacceptable 1967 borders, insists that international forces be placed on the West Bank (no doubt recognizing that UNIFIL has singularly failed to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon as did the European monitors who fled from the Rafiah crossing between Gaza and Egyptian in 2005 when they were threatened by Hamas), and continues to support “armed resistance” against and the destruction of Israel (which was confirmed at the 6^th Fatah General Conference in Bethlehem last August*), and allows his Palestinian Authority (despite its undertakings made in the Oslo Accords) to spew anti-Semitic blood-libels through its controlled media, glorify terrorism by honoring murderers as martyrs in Palestinian schools, mosques and public squares, create children’s television programs that praise the religious war against Israel, use Palestinian textbooks to teach Palestinian children that Tel Aviv and Haifa are part of Palestine, and design maps that do not show an entity called Israel as documented in detail byhttp://www.memri.org/ and http://www.pmw.org/. So far as Israelis are concerned, and the President must recognize this, the key test of the Palestinian commitment to peace is not what Abbas and his colleagues say to Americans in English, but what they say to the Palestinians in Arabic – about Israel, about terrorism and about desiring a real peace.

(*It should be noted that the English version of this Conference has been removed from Fatah’s website while the Arabic version remains!)

Or perhaps it’s because he pledged to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh on June 3^rd, 2009 that the United States would force Israel to withdraw from east Jerusalem and the entire West Bank by 2012 in exchange for Abdullah’s help in arranging an end to the war in Afghanistan – this undertaking having been made despite the April 2004 letter of commitment and principles between President Bush and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stating that the issue of final defensible borders, major Jewish population centers on the West Bank, a possible token return of some Palestinian refugees, and perhaps even ceding east Jerusalem would be subject to end-of-conflict negotiations and an agreement with the Palestinian Authority pursuant to the parameters set by UN Resolution 242 and the Roadmap – as opposed to being dictated by the U.S. – all of which implies that concessions made by Israel are to be considered permanent, but concessions made to Israel by the U.S. can be withdrawn at any time.

Or perhaps it’s because in his Cairo speech, delivered the day after he met with King Abdullah, he failed to mention the four-thousand-year Jewish connection to the Land, suggesting instead that Israel was a consolation prize given by the Europeans because of Holocaust guilt (confirming the myth pervading the Arab world that Israelis are merely colonial invaders with no history in the Land), focused on his plan to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank, and empathized with Palestinian suffering (which he compared to Jewish suffering under the Nazis) without making one reference to the suffering of the Israelis who have endured years of Palestinian missile attacks, and buried more than a thousand men, women and children who died as a result of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Or perhaps it’s because he supports the so-called 2002 “Arab Peace Initiative,” which demands that Israel return to the pre-1967 borders (what Abba Eban once termed “Auschwitz borders”), give up half of Jerusalem and permit Arab refugees and their millions of descendants to move to Israel effectively making Jews a minority in their own country – in return for Arab promises of “normalization” – whatever that means.

Or perhaps it’s because (despite pledges to the contrary) he has rejected virtually every Israeli request for U.S. weapons platforms, delayed decisions by the former Bush administration to deliver attack helicopters, air transports, and Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, imposed an embargo on equipment needed in Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor, and diverted promised bunker-buster bombs from Israel to a military base in Diego Garcia to insure that Israel wouldn’t attack Iran’s nuclear facilities without his blessing – something unlikely to be given.¹

Or perhaps it’s because he’s spent the past year-and-a-half dithering with Israel’s arch-enemy Iran over inspection procedures for its nuclear weapons program, while allowing critical deadlines to pass without serious consequences – this, to a regime that threatens to annihilate Israel, establish a Middle East Shiite caliphate, is absolutely committed to replacing the U.S. as the new hegemon in the Middle East, and is on the brink of achieving a nuclear bomb despite recently imposed sanctions.

Or perhaps, it’s because the Israelis view his overtures to Iran’s messianic, apocalyptic regime as not only naive but dangerous (since it has created the perception of American weakness among our enemies and our friends), a betrayal of the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom, and as signaling Washington’s diminishing resolve to confront terrorism by rewarding groups and countries that sponsor it.

Or perhaps it’s because of his constant coddling of Syria by appointing a new U.S. ambassador to a country that not only arms Hezbollah, trains and exports terrorists to Iraq, allows foreign terrorist organizations to set up shop in Damascus, snuffs out Lebanon’s embryonic democratic revolution, assassinates its pro-democracy leaders, establishes a military alliance with Iran, suppresses criticism by filling its prisons with political prisoners, journalists, and human rights activists, and has massacred hundreds of Syrian Kurds with Turkish and Hezbollah help while the U.S. administration has remained silent.

Or perhaps it’s because it took three visits to the White House by Israel’s PM before he condescended (under pressure from Democratic Congressmen and Senators who fear being decimated in the upcoming November elections) to “make nice” to Netanyahu after humiliating the man on his previous visits.

Or perhaps it’s because, in the immediate aftermath of the Gaza flotilla incident (according to the Globes News Service), Netanyahu was instructed by his officials not to come to Washington for his scheduled visit because he didn’t want Netanyahu to use the White House as a stage upon which to present Israel’s side of the flotilla story lest it interfere with his engagement efforts with the Muslim world.

Or perhaps, it’s because his administration is resisting attempts by the Senate to investigate the Turkish terrorist front, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (I.H.H.) – and possibly classify it as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) – an organization that is known to have extensive ties both to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party and with Hamas, and was responsible for the deadly May 31^st violence against Israeli Navy commandos on the Mavi Marmara flotilla ship that, upon investigation, happens to have been carrying no humanitarian aid at all.

Or perhaps it’s because the Israelis simply don’t trust a man who is so concerned about political correctness that, rather than trying to delegitimize Islamic extremism by empowering moderate Islamic voices and contesting extremist narratives, he hedges or ignores the problem by issuing an internal gag order directing his Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, to refer to it as “man-caused disasters” and directs his Attorney General, Eric Holder, to skirt around the words “radical Islam” or “jihad” at a House Judiciary Committee hearing (when referring to the Fort Hood massacre, and the Christmas Day and Time Square bombing attempts) for fear of offending Muslim sensitivities.

Or perhaps it’s because both in the Feb. 1, 2010 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the words “terrorism” and “violent extremism” are mentioned, but no mention is made in any context of radical Islam as a motivating factor.

Or perhaps, it’s because when the Department of Homeland Security Domestic Extremist Lexicon listed Jewish extremism and various forms of Christian extremism as threats, it made not one mention of any form of Muslim extremism, leaving the Israelis to ponder how the U.S. intends to defeat an enemy it’s afraid to identify.

Or perhaps, they question the wisdom of an administration determined to make terrorism a law enforcement issue, and try enemy combatants like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists in civilian courts as opposed to military tribunals for crimes relating to the jihadist war against the West.

Or perhaps it’s because they’re concerned when the President sends U.S. generals to train and build a Palestinian army, which may very well turn their weapons against Israeli soldiers . . . and civilians.

Or perhaps it’s because he has travelled to Riyadh, Amman, Istanbul, Ankara and Cairo, but has yet to visit Israel as President, and hesitates to do so until after November though having been invited by Prime Minister Netanyahu on July 6^th.

Or perhaps it’s because he ended the U.S. boycott of the UN Human Rights Council (that has spent 90% of its time vilifying Israel) in the naive belief that he can moderate its positions – a pipedream given that the Council is controlled by dictators, despots and tyrants whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of the U.S. and Israel.

Or perhaps it’s because of the President’s apparent abandonment of a 40-year understanding between the U.S. and Israel over maintaining Israel’s ambiguity about its reported nuclear arsenal by failing to veto an Egyptian proposal last May during the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NTP) review conference in New York – a proposal calling for a General Conference in September on a “nuclear-free Middle East” that’s expected to single-out Israel so its nuclear facilities can be exposed – regardless of the fact that NPT signatories like Iran, North Korea and Syria have reneged on their own obligations and, in the case of North Korea, proliferated nuclear technology around the Middle East.

Or perhaps it’s because of Israeli fears that the President will force Israel into making nuclear concessions as part of any deal the U.S. might strike with Iran on its nuclear program, or worse, will blame Israel for rejecting such a deal when Iran goes nuclear.

Or perhaps it’s because he bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia last spring – viewed in the Arab world as an act of fealty to the king of a nation that treats women like chattels, forbids the public practice of any religion other than Islam, permits floggings, amputations, and executions by beheading and stoning, imposes imprisonment or death on homosexuals in accordance with strict Islamic law, and has spent an estimated $100B of our petro-dollars over the past 25 years spreading radical Islamic doctrine globally – not to mention having educated 15 of the 19 September 11^th terrorists at Saudi-funded Islamist universities and madrasses in Saudi Arabia and around the world.

Or perhaps it’s because he constantly blames Israel for the lack of progress in bringing peace to the Middle East despite the fact that the Palestinians have been offered statehood many times and have rejected each offer; have failed to keep one single promise they made since the Oslo Accords, and have rejected every compromise that would have required them to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Or perhaps it’s because senior administration officials have commented that American soldiers in the Middle East were being targeted because of the failure to end the Arab-Israeli conflict – comments implying that Israel may be more of a strategic liability to the U.S. than a strategic asset.

Or perhaps it’s because Israelis are frustrated by senior administration officials who continue to equate the IRA with Hamas without recognizing that the latter is a jihadist organization seeking to create an Islamic state in place of Israel, while it was never the desire of the IRA to deny Britain’s right to exist, to conquer it, and to force its population to submit to Catholicism.

Or perhaps, in line with the above thinking, it’s because his chief national security advisor for counter-terrorism, John Brennan (no doubt motivated by the belief that Hamas’s Islamist zeal can be moderated through dialogue and more concessions), is holding not-so-secret meetings with Hamas and Hezbollah to lay the foundations for a new U.S. policy the President is expected to initiate after the November elections (of course) that would remove both terrorist organizations from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, opening the door to an Iranian base of operations on Israel’s borders.

Or perhaps it’s because of his endless series of demands for more and more concessions from Israel while there are never consequences for the Palestinians who continually break their commitments such as ending the incitement of hatred against Jews and Israel or promoting terrorism.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because of the President’s $400M pledge in aid, a significant amount of which will be used in Hamas-controlled Gaza – the effect of which will be to empower Hamas, legitimize its position, assist in its recruitment and fundraising efforts, facilitate its takeover of the West Bank, and solidify its control over Gaza without regard to the fact that it’s a genocidal Islamist terrorist organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction and serves as Iran’s proxy in the Middle East.

The President may think that his single-digit approval ratings in Israel are simply because his middle name is “Hussein,” but he’s wrong. The Israelis have plenty of reasons to distrust the man and his promise of an “unbreakable bond” between our two countries. From their perspective, he’s been doing everything possible to break that bond for the past year-and-a-half. In reality, his middle name could have been “Smith” and the Israelis would still distrust him because his actions have spoken louder than his words, and no charm offensive or eloquence can change that perception. It’s the substance and the results of his policies that count for them not his name, and by that standard, he’s come up short on the issue of trust.

ENDNOTE

1. In July, Israel successfully conducted a test of the new “Iron Dome” mobile missile-defense shield designed to protect Israeli towns and cities from incoming enemy missiles from Gaza or Lebanon – half the cost of which is being borne by the U.S. The U.S. also provides 50% of the funding for two other Israeli missile-defense systems – Arrow and David’s Sling. The apparent contradiction suggests that while the U.S. administration may be supportive of Israel’s critical need to defend itself from enemy missile attacks, it is seeking to restrict Israel’s access to offensive weapons and weapons systems that would enable it to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities preemptively.

Trust, but don’t bother to verify. That is the Obama Administration’s latest message about how the United States of America ought to manage the most fearsome weapons known to man.

There are severe deficiencies in the New START arms control treaty. In particular, the means for verifying that Russia is actually in compliance with the provisions of the treaty are grossly inadequate. Recent testimony by an Obama Administration official on this issue is stunning: if Russia cheats, America won’t terribly mind because we’re in a “good position” anyway.

On Tuesday, three senior U.S. officials tried to sell this absurdity to the Senate Armed Services Committee, but some of the Senators didn’t buy it:

[Senator John McCain]: “General Chilton [commander of U.S. Strategic Command], do you agree with the unclassified statement in the State Department Verification Assessment that ‘any cheating by the Russians would have little, if any, effect?’

[General Chilton]: Senator McCain, I do agree with that…

[Senator McCain]: There’s no logic to your statements… to say that [cheating] has ‘’little if any effect’, then we’ve been wasting a lot of time and money on negotiations.

Chilton’s response is disturbing on its own, but during the same hearing, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller added that if we detect cheating, the U.S. would raise the issue for discussion in the new, treaty-created Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC). The BCC will be responsible for negotiating and resolving concerns among parties and will not be overseen by the Senate.

New START fundamentally fails to set up verification measures that are on par with previous arms treaties:

• Inspections of Russian facilities will be reduced in number;
• Our ability to monitor the telemetry of Russian test flights will be weakened; and
• We will be unable to verify the number of deployed nuclear weapons on their ballistic missiles.

In short, New START will not help America prevent or detect even large-scale Russian cheating.

There is no need to rush New START through Senate ratification—especially in light of the treaty’s numerous problems and the failure of the Obama Administration to adequately address them. Instead, as Heritage experts Kim Holmes and Baker Spring argue that a “protect and defend” strategy would be a better way of achieving arms control. Primarily defensive, such a strategy would discourage the real problem: the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Mr Barroso believes that the relationship with the White House and the EU has been affected by disagreements on how to tackle the global economic crisis, as well as climate change and trade reform.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Barroso said the US should reach out to Europe, calling on a “mutual” relationship.

“The transatlantic relationship is not living up to its potential. I think we should do much more together. We have conditions like we have never had before and it would be a pity if we missed the opportunity.”

US officials have defended the relationship, arguing that when Mr Obama entered office, “expectations were probably so high that they could not have been met when you look at the European response to the election”.

Hugo Brady, of the Centre for European Reform, said: “Obama was always overblown as a symbol because US foreign policy interests tend not to change. The US does not understand the need for everyone to be around the table at the EU, which they find as frustrating as a mini-UN where people want to talk about the good things they have done.”

Richard Haas, head of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington think-tank, told the newspaper that the EU lacks someone of stature to negotiate with, in reference to the appointments of Herman Van Rompuy as President of the European Council and Baroness Ashton as High Representative for Foreign Affairs.

“Europe created these posts to speak for the collective as a whole. But from the perspective of many Americans, rather than building up someone of the stature of [the former Nato Secretary-General] Javier Solana, it looks as though Europe has retreated,” he said.

Ok, that’s not exactly what President Obama said during an interview this week regarding U.S.-Israeli relations, but the underlying message comes pretty darn close:

During the interview Wednesday, when confronted with the anxiety that some Israelis feel toward him, Obama said that “some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.”

Wow.  What a statement and what an ego.  Israelis’ distrust of the presidentcouldn’t possibly have anything to do with his Middle East diplomatic policies; it’s because he has a middle name that sounds “suspicious.”  If they haven’t yet grasped Obama’s brilliance, it’s just because they are narrow-minded and intolerable of others.

Obama then defended his reputation and his policies by saying How could you nottrust me? I’ve got a Jewish friend!

“Ironically, I’ve got a Chief of Staff named Rahm Israel Emmanuel. My top political advisor is somebody who is a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the U.S. Senate,” Obama said.

Just wow.

The most glaring sign that President Obama’s announcement of border funding and National Guard troops is one big, phony charade? He apparently didn’t even bother to let the governor of besieged Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer, know about it. Via Yahoo News:

The Obama administration plans to announce Tuesday that it will send as many as 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to improve border security, an Arizona congresswoman said.

Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords also said in a statement released Tuesday that President Barack Obama will request $500 million in funding for border security.

Part of Giffords’ district borders Mexico.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s spokesman said the governor hadn’t been told of the move prior to her office being contacted by The Associated Press and had no immediate comment.

I called out the Bush administration and Republicans countless times when they used border security as a campaign ploy and performed Get Tough Theater only to flake out on systemic immigration enforcement reform — and then drop the shamnesty shoe.

This is no different. Both political parties in Washington reek on the issue.

The only thing worse than open-borders Obama exploiting our illegal immigration woes is open-borders Johnny-come-lately John McCain continuing to do the same.

Until politicians with proven integrity and commitment to securing this country against invasion step into the leadership vacuum, Arizona’s DIY policy on border security is the only trustworthy one:

Do It Yourself.

***

Update: GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions responds:

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement today regarding reports that President Obama plans to request funding for 1,200 National Guard troops to be sent to the U.S.–Mexico border:

“The only thing that matters is whether the president—the Chief Executive and the top law enforcement officer of the country—is personally committed to ending illegality at the border. Announcing and taking specific steps can be helpful, but only if it’s part of a determined and consistent effort to fix the problem. The president’s decision to send up to 1,200 troops to the border, while helpful, will not fix the problem. Indeed, it is less than a third of the troops ordered to the border by President Bush.

“Just days ago, members of President Obama’s administration gave Mexican President Felipe Calderón a standing ovation as Calderón proceeded to slander the state of Arizona for its efforts to protect its citizens. President Obama’s chief immigration officer, John Morton, announced that he might not enforce immigration crimes reported by Arizona officials. And, both the Attorney General and the Homeland Security Secretary have attacked the Arizona law, though they later admitted to having never actually read it.

“It is critical that President Obama make border security a true priority and send a clear signal that his administration is dedicated to consistently enforcing the rule of law. Sending National Guard troops to the border can be an important step in the right direction, but it should be followed with a commitment to vigorous worksite enforcement, full cooperation with state and local law enforcement officials, strong support for completion of the border fence, and all other necessary border measures. If these policies are resolutely done, the massive current illegality will be dramatically improved.”

Update: Mexico tells us how to police our border:

Regarding the Administration’s decision to send 1,200 National Guard servicemen to the US Southern border, the Government of Mexico trusts that this decision will help to channel additional US resources to enhance efforts to prevent the illegal flows of weapons and bulk cash into Mexico, which provide organized crime with its firepower and its ability to corrupt.

Additionally, the Government of Mexico expects that National Guard personnel will strengthen US operations in the fight against transnational organized crime that operates on both sides of our common border and that it will not, in accordance to its legal obligations, conduct activities directly linked to the enforcement of immigration laws.

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a candidate in the 2009 Afghan presidential election, said the July 2011 date set by President Barack Obama for U.S. troops to draw-down from Afghanistan is problematic because it creates a perception of mixed messages about U.S. commitment to the country.

Dr. Abdullah explained that talks about withdrawing troops send confusing messages to the Afghan people, which in turn create the wrong perception about U.S. commitment to a stable Afghanistan.

“In the past few months, the people of Afghanistan received mixed messages,” said Dr. Abdullah at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

“Sometimes the message is already mixed, ‘we’re withdrawing; we’re leaving; yes, it’s not working; democracy in Afghanistan was the wrong proposition right from the beginning, so we shouldn’t have done it,” added Dr. Abdullah.

He continued, “Some of these things are messages [that] are confusing that, as a whole for NATO it has become a crucial test.”

Abdullah further said, “You have a partner in the people of Afghanistan and [and this is] apart from the contributions, financial support and otherwise, but it’s important that you stand by the process so, as a result, the people are empowered then [and] that [the] mission is shortened.”

As for a “timeframe, I don’t think that anybody can give a time schedule,” said Abdullah. “But the people do prefer their own institutions taking responsibility and that’s the wish of the Afghan people. And at the same time we understand we’re not there at the moment.”

He stressed that “some enemies of the process might have perceived it [the July 11 draw-down] differently and will strategize upon it differently.”

At the press conference, CNSNews.com asked Dr. Abdullah, “Do you see a problem with the July 2011 draw-down date?

“Yeah, I think the perception which [it] has created” is a problem, said Dr. Abdullah.

Abdullah, leader of the Afghan political party “Coalition for Hope and Change,” said the intention of the July 2011 date is good but the perception “is very different.”

Before CNSNews.com’s question, another reporter had asked, “I wonder if President Obama’s wish that American forces will start leaving the country in July 2011 – what’s the effect of that on Afghan government and Afghan people? Does that spread some confusion or doubts?”

Abdullah said, “Some of the adversaries of the process, like the Taliban, might have considered it as a withdrawal date rather than a draw-down date, [by] which the commitment will continue, the support will continue, and so on and so forth.”

He added that regardless of the draw-down date, the situation is “business as usual” for the Afghan government.

On Dec. 2 at West Point Academy, Obama described his strategy for Afghanistan, saying, “And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months [July 2011], our troops will begin to come home.”

Obama also said, “We will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.”

The day after Obama outlined that strategy, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, criticized the president for setting a date for when troops are to start drawing-down from Afghanistan.

“A withdrawal date only emboldens al Qaeda and the Taliban while dispiriting our Afghan partners, and making it less likely that they will risk their lives to take our side in this fight,” McCain said on Dec. 3, 2009.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified at that hearing. They defended Obama’s decision to set a draw-down date and stressed that when the time comes, it will depend upon the military and political conditions on the ground.

On Dec. 15, when speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation, McCain foreshadowed Dr. Abdullah’s concern that the July 2011 date creates the wrong perception.

McCain said: “We have announced a date, divorced from conditions on the ground, when we will start to withdraw our troops. It doesn’t matter whether we call it a ‘cliff’ or a ‘ramp’ or anything else. It’s still an exit sign.”

McCain continued, “It sends the wrong signal to our friends, who fear – and not without reason – that the United States will abandon them before they can defend and sustain themselves. It sends the wrong signal to our enemies, who will use this July 2011 date to undermine and intimidate our partners.”

Furthermore, he said, “And it sends the wrong signal to all in the region who are now hedging their bets – Pakistani generals reluctant to cut ties with the Taliban, or Afghan civilians who ask our troops, ‘Are you staying this time?’ On this issue, the administration and I will have to agree to disagree.”

Obama’s “American Apology Tour” rolls onward.  AP reports:

The United States and China reported no major breakthroughs Friday after only their second round of talks about human rights since 2002.

The Obama administration wants to push Beijing to treat its citizens better, but it also needs Chinese support on Iranian and North Korean nuclear standoffs, climate change and other difficult issues. …

[Assistant Secretary of State Michael] Posner said in addition to talks on freedom of religion and expression, labor rights and rule of law, officials also discussed Chinese complaints about problems with U.S. human rights, which have included crime, poverty, homelessness and racial discrimination.

First of all, I need to insert a “say WHAT?”  China is complaining about human rights “problems” in the U.S.–arguably the freest nation ever known to mankind? But the Obama administration just rollllllled over:

[Posner]  said U.S. officials did not whitewash the American record and in fact raised on its [sic] own a new immigration law in Arizona that requires police to ask about a person’s immigration status if there is suspicion the person is in the country illegally.

We are apologizing to CHINA–a country that has a history of murdering its own citizens opposed to the government’s communist policies and doesn’t even know the meaning of religious tolerance. But we are apologizing for enforcing our ownimmigration laws?  WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS ADMINISTRATION?!

Oh, nevermind.  They are apparently just so mature, the rest of us cannot even comprehend:

“We’re talking about issues that are uncomfortable, quite frankly, but it is a sign of maturity that we can talk about specific cases,”[U.S. ambassador to China Jon] Huntsman said.

And to cap it all off:

In the aftermath, Assistant Secretary of State Mike Posner allowed that Arizona’s new immigration law had come up for discussion among the diplomats.”We brought it up early and often. It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination, and that these are issues very much being debated in our own society,” Mr. Posner says.

Just unbelievable.

Barack Obama has warned Israel he will pave the way for an independent Palestinian state if the peace process remains deadlocked until the autumn.

The US president is proposing to hand control of the Middle East peace process to the international community unless there is a breakthrough in the next few months, Israeli officials have said.

Mr Obama has formulated a secret plan with leading European allies to convene an international peace conference by the end of the year, according to Israel’sHaaretz newspaper.

The move would fulfil one of Israel’s deepest fears by effectively stripping the Jewish state of its power to dictate the course of talks.

The conference would attempt to end decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict by pressing both sides to accept difficult compromises on issues ranging from the future of millions of Palestinian refugees to the status of Jerusalem.

Mr Obama is also eager to gain international recognition for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Officials in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, have voiced their dismay in recent weeks over reports that Mr Obama was planning an effective takeover of negotiations by imposing his own peace deal on the two sides.

Such a step, they said, would undermine indirect peace talks, brokered by the US, that could begin as early as next month.

Mr Obama has strenuously denied considering such an idea, but observers have said it is likely the US president would have developed it as a contingency plan.

Since taking office last year, the Mr Obama’s efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal have faltered badly. Trust between the two sides has all but evaporated in a row over Mr Netanyahu’s Jewish settlement policy in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which also triggered a noxious row between Israel and the United States.

Although both the Israelis and Palestinians have indicated their willingness to resume talks, suspicions linger and negotiations will not be held face to face.

Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat close to the Obama administration, said it seemeed plausible that officials in Washington would consider taking matters into their own hands.

“An international conference involving the EU, China and Russia is more of a recipe for chaos than a practical political blueprint,” he said. “But anything is better than the status quo.”

Fearing that it will deprive them of ownership of the peace process, the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships are both likely to oppose a conference.

“The idea that you can have instant peace like instant coffee is an illusion,” said an Israeli official.

“If you enforce a time limit and then introduce an imposed solution if they don’t succeed after a period, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: you’re going to guarantee the talks won’t succeed.”

According to Haaretz, the conference would be convened under the auspices of the Quartet for Middle East peace, whose membership comprises the United States, the EU, the UN and Russia.

It would mark the first time in 17 years of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that the United States had handed control of the peace process to the international community.

France’s tricolor, Britain’s Union Jack and even Croatia’s coat of arms have been lifted above those nation’s installations in Haiti. But in the United States camp, “whose contributions dwarf the rest of the world’s,” no flag is allowed to fly. Why? The Obama administration has forbidden it. USA Today reports:

The lack of the Stars and Stripes does not sit well with some veterans and servicemembers who say the U.S. government should be proud to fly the flag in Haiti, given the amount of money and manpower the U.S. is donating to help the country recover from the Jan. 12 quake.

The Obama administration says flying the flag could give Haiti the wrong idea.

“We are not here as an occupation force, but as an international partner committed to supporting the government of Haiti on the road to recovery,” the U.S. government’s Haiti Joint Information Center said in response to a query about the flag.

It used to be that Americans serving abroad were proud to serve oversees under our nation’s flag. Not the Obama administration.

And this is not the first time President Obama has sought to distance himself from our nation’s past. Let us not forget last year’s world wide apology tour, including:

10. Apology for Guantanamo in Washington: “There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world. … Rather than keeping us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies.”

9. Apology for the Mistakes of the CIA: “So don’t be discouraged by what’s happened in the last few weeks. Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes.”

8. Apology for U.S. Policy toward the Americas: “Too often, the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors. We have been too easily distracted by other priorities, and have failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas.”

7. Apology before the Turkish Parliament: “The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history. … Our country still struggles with the legacies of slavery and segregation, the past treatment of Native Americans.”

6. Apology for Guantanamo in France: “I don’t believe that there is a contradiction between our security and our values. And when you start sacrificing your values, when you lose yourself, then over the long term that will make you less secure.”

5. Apology for the War on Terror: “Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. … In other words, we went off course.”

4. Apology at the G-20 Summit of World Leaders: “I would like to think that with my election and the early decisions that we’ve made, that you’re starting to see some restoration of America’s standing in the world.”

3. Apology to the Summit of the Americas: “While the United States has done much to promote peace and prosperity in the hemisphere, we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms. … So I’m here to launch a new chapter of engagement that will be sustained throughout my administration. The United States will be willing to acknowledge past errors where those errors have been made.”

2. Apology to the Muslim World: “We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect.”

1. Apology to France and Europe: “Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

Now we are apologizing for saving lives in Haiti!

More from BigGovernment.com:

t’s bad enough that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is giving short shrift to American manufacturers and our economy by ordering extravagant new crystal stemware from Sweden to make the crystal cabinets in America’s embassies sparkle impressively, but now we learn that Barack Obama has told the U.S. relief forces in Haiti not to fly the U.S. flag over its own military compounds. He says that it will “send the wrong message.”

Never mind that all the other nations have their flags proudly flying above their military relief installations in Haiti. Even Croatia has its coat of arms flying outside its base. Yet not the U.S. Army. No U.S. flag fliesanywhere despite the fact that we are far and away the largest force and have supplied the most relief supplies and money to the earthquake recovery effort.

According to USAID, as of January 19, 2010 the U.S. had spent $130,864,571 on aid to the Haitian people to help them recover from the devastating earthquake. By Jan. 25 that number had alreadyincreased to $179,883,065. It is only going up from there.

So why did the Obama administration forbid flying our own flag in Haiti?

“We are not here as an occupation force, but as an international partner committed to supporting the government of Haiti on the road to recovery,” the U.S. government’s Haiti Joint Information Center said in response to a query about the flag.

If it is so important to be seen as just another member of that international force, then why are all the other nations still flying their flags? Oh, I remember now… unlike the U.S. they don’t have a president that is more comfortable apologizing for his country than being proud of it, even when it is engaged in saving lives through relief work.

As far as Obama is concerned, we should be ashamed of our nation even when we are digging children and the aged out of mounds of crumbled ruins, even when we are feeding the hungry, and administering life saving medicines — all for free mind you. Even those efforts aren’t good enough for us to be proud to fly our flag above them, apparently.

The NavyTimes.com report reveals a craven attempt by the Obama Administration to pin this no-flag decision on our troops, too. Obama’s Army flak, Colonel Billy Buckner, spokesman for Joint Task Force-Haiti — “a group representing various Obama administration agency heads” the NavyTimes.com report tells us — says that our commanders are “smart” not to fly the flag.

“Our commanders are smart and intuitively understand their mission here in Haiti, and clearly the sensitivities that come with supporting the mission,” Buckner said.A U.S. flag went up at a temporary consular station set up in the first few days on the airport tarmac, according to Charles Luoma-Overstreet, a State Department spokesman in Haiti.

“Apparently, the prime minister (Jean-Max Bellerive) saw this” and thought it appeared as if the United States were taking over the airport, Luoma-Overstreet said.

He said Bellerive said something to U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merten, who agreed that flying the flag wasn’t a good idea and told the consular officials to take it down.

Notice how it went from “the commanders” being “smart” enough to understand the situation to Obama’s Ambassador to Haiti ordering the flag be removed? In other words, despite the Colonel trying to make it seem as if the commanders on the ground are all for this dearth of Old Glory, it really ends up being a political decision by Obama and his cohorts who are ashamed of America and willing to let anyone denigrate her.

Does anyone really think that PM Bellerive would have persisted in his loose observation that the U.S. was an “occupying force” amidst all the aid flowing into his country? And even if he did, so what? The aid we were supplying is obviously far more important than a cheap political maneuver by Bellerive.

Still, this shows the lack of spine Obama has when standing up to foreign criticism. Even this offhanded comment from Bellerive was enough for Obama to slight his own army and his own countrymen by removing Old Glory from sight in Haiti.

If Obama is this much of a linguini-spined sort of a leader, what will happen to us if he faces a real foreign crisis?

I wrote back in June about the shameful silence of the Obama administration during the mass street protests that greeted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent re-election victory as President of Iran. As White House spokesman Robert Gibbs ludicrously put it, the administration was “impressed by the vigorous debate and enthusiasm this election generated.” Or in Vice President Joe Biden’s words on NBC’s Meet the Press, describing Ahmadinejad’s victory – “we’re going to withhold comment… I mean we’re just waiting to see.”

Embarrassingly for Washington, even many European leaders showed more backbone in condemning the Iranian regime’s brutal suppression of protesters, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton humiliatingly outflanked by her French and German counterparts, who had no qualms about speaking out swiftly and firmly against the election result and the actions of the Iranian government.

In the six months that have followed, Barack Obama’s high-risk engagement strategy has simply encouraged more repression from the Mullahs, as well as ever greater levels of defiance over Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. As Con Coughlin noted in an excellent piece for The Wall Street Journal last month, Obama’s Iran diplomacy isn’t working:

Iranian human-rights groups say that since the government crackdown began in late June, at least 400 demonstrators have been killed while another 56 are unaccounted, which is several times higher than the official figures. The regime has established a chain of unofficial, makeshift prisons to deal with the protesters, where torture and rape are said to be commonplace. In Tehran alone, 37 young Iranian men and women are reported to have been raped by their captors.

Now once again huge street protests have flared up on the streets of Tehran and a number of other major cities, with several protesters shot dead this weekend by the security forces and Revolutionary Guards, reportedly including the nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, and dozens seriously injured. And again there is deafening silence from the Commander-in-Chief as well as his Secretary of State. And where is the president? On vacation in Hawaii, no doubt recuperating from his exertions driving forward the monstrous health care reform bill against the overwhelming will of the American public and without a shred of bipartisan support.

This is not however a time for fence-sitting by the leader of the free world. The president should be leading international condemnation of the suppression of pro-democracy protesters, and calling on the Iranian dictatorship to free the thousands of political dissidents held in its torture chambers. Just as Ronald Reagan confronted the evils of Soviet Communism, Barack Obama should support the aspirations of the Iranian people to be free. The United States has a major role to play in inspiring and advancing freedom in Iran, and the president should make it clear that the American people are on the side of those brave Iranians who are laying down their lives for liberty in the face of tyranny.