Yesterday, while watching Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress, I felt as if I were a participant in a historic event of the same stature as Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” and “Tear Down This Wall” speeches. Even as Reagan confronted the evil of totalitarian communism, Netanyahu forcefully focused our attention on the current totalitarian evil of radical Islamism.
Reagan succeeded in toppling the Evil Empire and the Wall came down. Will Netanyahu’s speech lead us to a similar success against Islamism?
Netanyahu was very politic in praising Obama and John Kerry—he had to be—but he made it quite clear that not only Israel, but America as well, was facing a firestorm should Iran get nuclear capability.
The speech was filled with poignant quotes.
“The greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons.”
“When it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy.”
“Iran’s regime is not merely a Jewish problem, anymore than the Nazi regime was merely a Jewish problem.”
Commentator Stephen Hayes summed up the message well: “This is the clearest description of the threat from Iran presented to the American people in the last decade. Long overdue.”
Congress, on both sides of the political divide, applauded his words continually. There’s hope. However, there remains the one greatest hurdle:
In effect, rhetoric notwithstanding, President Obama has conceded the inevitability of Iran’s nuclear desires. The only problem, of course, is that Iran has publicly stated it wants to wipe Israel off the map, and that it seeks to develop ICBMs that can be used to direct nuclear bombs at faraway targets, i.e., the United States. Yet we are supposed to believe his assurances that this will never happen? What is there in his history of his pronouncements that would give us such assurance?
He’s not exactly a tough negotiator:
He pushes for a deal with Iran that is clearly not sufficient, yet he tells us to accept it. Again, his ideological blindness takes over. Unfortunately, the rest of us suffer for it:
Frankly, I agree with another comment I heard—Obama probably wouldn’t shed one tear if Israel no longer existed. In his view, that nation is the main agitator in the Middle East, even as he sees his own country as the primary abettor of everything he considers evil in the world.
If only we had a Netanyahu in charge of our nation at this perilous time. Before he spoke, House Speaker Boehner presented Netanyahu with a bust of Winston Churchill. I think that is most fitting. He is the new Churchill, warning the world of the coming holocaust.
Does anyone recall that one of the first actions Obama took as president was to return a bust of Churchill to Britain? That was fitting as well. It was only a sign of things to come.