Power Vacuum: Obama Sits on the Sidelines in Deference to Bush, Who Refuses to End His Vacation to Deal With the Mideast Crisis & Looming Confrontation Between Pakistan and India

by Teh Nutroots | Useless to the end----that's W.  You'd think he'd be satisfied with the very long vacation he has coming up, which will last till he, like Brother Jeb, decides to run for Congress.  Meanwhile, Israel rages through Gaza and---whatever you think about the justice of its action---the US sits on the sidelines, with neither the sitting president nor the president-elect apparently willing to make a public statement. (Think Progress)

Israel is engaged in an “all-out war with Hamas,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Parliament on Monday as his air force struck at the organization’s civic institutions — the Islamic University, Interior Ministry and presidential guesthouse. The death toll surpassed 350, some 60 of them civilians, according to United Nations officials. As the conflict passed its third day, with no active diplomacy and anti-Israel protesters taking to the streets around the Arab world, there appeared to be no quick end to the largest assault on Gaza in decades. (NYT)

Respecting Bush's preference for an easy life over DOING THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB ON THE PLANET,  Think Progress acidly comments:

For someone who has enjoyed the most vacation days as sitting president — including days spent relaxing in comfort during Hurricane Katrina and in the lead-up to 9/11 — it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Bush prioritizes vacationing over crisis management.

ABC News reports:

Even an emerging crisis in the Middle East, one he pledged to resolve just 13 months ago, has not drawn President George W. Bush from his final vacation before leaving office. Despite his personal pledge at Annapolis last year to broker a deal between Israel and the Palestinians before 2009, this weekend Bush sent his spokesmen to comment in his stead. […]

Since departing Washington for Crawford on Friday, President Bush has made no attempt to be seen in public. In fact, he has yet to leave his ranch. (Think Progress)

In the meantime, he's planning to ride his bike and spend time with Laura.  How sweet.(Think Progress)  Now try to imagine Bill Clinton---did you know that, unlike a number of Republican presidents against whom there were credible accusations of violating international and domestic law, he got impeached for lying about a blowjob?--- saying he was too busy with any of that to DO HIS JOB.

You know, there's a REASON why the president-elect doesn't just take over as soon as he's elected----it's to allow for an orderly transition.  In other words, it's assumed that the president will go on DOING HIS JOB right up till the end.

And what of Obama?  Well, it isn't technically his job yet, but he's going to have to be ready to take over in a couple of weeks.  More to the purpose, many of us think he needs to speak up and soon, since some of his statements during his visit to Israel might well be taken as an endorsement of just such an action.

When President-elect Barack Obama went to Israel in July — to the very town, in fact, whose repeated shelling culminated in this weekend’s new fighting in Gaza — he all but endorsed the punishing Israeli attacks now unfolding.

“If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” he told reporters in Sderot, a small city on the edge of Gaza that has been hit repeatedly by rocket fire. “And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

Now, Mr. Obama’s presidency will begin facing the consequences of just such a counterattack, one of Israel’s deadliest against Palestinians in decades, presenting him with yet another foreign crisis to deal with the moment he steps into the White House on Jan. 20, even as he and his advisers have struggled mightily to focus on the country’s economic problems.  (NYT)

And of course it's not just Israel.

Even before the conflict flared again, India and Pakistan announced troop movements that have raised fears of a military confrontation following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. North Korea scuttled a final agreement on verifying its nuclear dismantlement earlier this month, while Iran continues to stall the international effort to stop its nuclear programs. And there are still two American wars churning in Iraq and Afghanistan. All demand his immediate attention. (NYT)

The whole world is literally waiting to hear from Obama.  Hillary too is going to have her work cut out for her.  But the two of them wanted to run things and we hope for at least a signal of where they stand on these issues, particularly---at the moment---on Israel, the scope of whose response to Gaza has incurred condemnation all around the world. (NYT)  

In the case of Israel and the Palestinians, Mr. Obama has not suggested he has any better ideas than President Bush had to resolve the existential conflict between the Israelis and Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza.“What this does is present the incoming administration with the urgency of a crisis without the capacity to do much about it,” said Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington and author of “The Much Too Promised Land,” a history of the IsraeliPalestinian peace efforts. “That’s the worst outcome of what’s happening right now.”

Dday says:

It's a terrible situation and there needs to be an immediate cease-fire. The lack of any substantive debate in the United States, which arms and funds and supports the Israeli state directly, leads to the most extreme and politically-motivated elements to drive the action in the Middle East. Obama is deferring to Bush at his own peril. He justifies the attacks at peril not just to his agenda but to any positive outlook on his character.

The only way we'll ever get  balanced and objective Mideast policy is if we also get campaign finance reform.  I reckon Cernig gets it about right as to why both the president and the president elect are unwilling to speak out in, say, the manner of the British Prime Minister. 

Gordon Brown...almost condemns Israel's premeditated assault on Gaza:

"We are appalled by the continuing violence in Gaza and reiterate our call to Israel and Hamas for an immediate ceasefire to prevent further loss of innocent life," said a spokesman for the British prime minister....

Britain was in close contact with the United Nations "to assess how best this support can reach those who need it," he added.

And he said: "There is no military solution to this situation....We must redouble the international effort to ensure that both Israel and Palestine have the land, rights and security to live in peace."  (Newshoggers)

Cernig adds:

If you're serious, Mr Brown, you'll tell Israel bluntly that it must halt its assault to allow negotiations otherwise the UK will impose unilateral sanctions and seek international partners for a more robust embargo...and be damned what the folks in D.C. think.

I won't be holding my breath waiting for any such thing to happen, though.

Me either.

Memeorandum has more....

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Israel Gearing Up for Long-Term Action Against Hamas (UPDATED: News Round-Up & Commentary)

Israeli Airstrikes Kill Hundreds in Gaza

Comments

[Alex]

I saw the press conference with the United Nations officials from Gaza on C-SPAN last night. The actual numbers they mentioned were 67 WOMEN AND CHILDREN. NOT 60 as you claim. That DOES NOT mean that the rest of the dead (who are males) are all non-civilians.

The UN explained that they are not implying that the men who were killed were ALL 'Hamas militants', they're just saying that they haven't had time to divide the ADULT MALE deaths to civilian and non-civilian categories.

I sure hope you made that error by mistake, not deliberately in an attempt to make light of the death toll.

[serge]

This is horrific. I picture a man, in public, beating one of his neighbor's children.

The cameras come, other neighbors watch, yet no one does anything about it. Not even the man's benefactor who pays so many of the man's bills. It is assumed that the man has the right to beat the child. "What right," other people ask? You have no right to ask the question, 'what right.'"

I am a supporter of Israel who is disgusted by the Israelis' actions. Tzipi Livni scares the living shit out of me.

[serge]

This is horrific. I picture a man, in public, beating one of his neighbor's children.

The cameras come, other neighbors watch, yet no one does anything about it. Not even the man's benefactor who pays so many of the man's bills. It is assumed that the man has the right to beat the child. "What right," other people ask? You have no right to ask the question, 'what right.'"

I am a supporter of Israel who is disgusted by the Israelis' actions. Tzipi Livni scares the living shit out of me.

[Buck Naked Politics]

FROM TEH NUTROOTS:

I don't understand you Alex. I am certainly not "making light" of the civilian deaths. I am shocked and angry. I got the figure of 60 from The New York Times.

I agree with you, Serge.