The Times of Israel is leading Sunday evening with a profile of Amos Yadlin, the Israeli left’s choice for defense minister if the Zionist Union wins Tuesday’s election and is able to form a coalition government. Though Yadlin was a pilot during the mission to destroy Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, and allegedly helped destroy Syria’s reactor in 2007, he suffers under some of the left’s more destructive policy delusions.
Chief among these is the conviction that U.S. President Barack Obama is committed to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. “I still belong to those who believe that President Obama won’t let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon,” he says. That is mere wishful thinking.
Yadlin also believes, erroneously, that Netanyahu’s recent speech to Congress “led to the breakup” of the effort to pass new Iran sanctions through Congress.
Yadlin, like many Israelis these days, appears to be drawing conclusions from information that is filtered through a decidedly left-wing media lens. He promises that a government led by Isaac Harzog “will work in parallel in Congress and in the administration to influence them so that the line at which they will be willing to compromise [with the Iranians] will be different.”
That is not just wishful thinking; it is pure fantasy.
Obama’s foreign policy goals will not change based on who runs the Israeli government. He is committed to a “new equilibrium” in the Middle East that sees Iran as a regional power, of which the nuclear issue is only one aspect.
Yadlin would be replacing Netanyahu’s defense minister, Moshe “Bogey” Ya’alon, whose outlook has been grounded in a grim assessment of strategic reality. It is a contrast that makes clear what is at stake Tuesday.
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