Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Palin: Obama treating Israel as a enemy; 'Second Holocaust' if Iran gains nuclear weapons

(CNN).Just minutes after the clock expired on the first day of the Jewish holy day of Passover, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin issued a biting critique of the Obama administration's Middle-East policy via her Facebook page.

In a post entitled "Peace Not Possible if Iran Escapes Real Sanctions," Palin accuses President Obama of dropping the pursuit of "crippling" sanctions against Iran and treating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu like an "unwelcome guest" during a recent visit to Washington.

"[J]ust as the Obama administration inexplicably gives up on imposing crippling sanctions on Iran, it's taken an uncompromising hard line against one country in the Middle East: Israel," Palin writes. "On his recent visit to Washington, the Israeli Prime Minister was treated like an unwelcome guest, as shown by White House actions such as refusing to be photographed with Israel's Prime Minister."

Palin argues that the Obama administration's actions have failed to rein in Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and that more than one year into Obama's presidency, his administration has made "no progress" on sanctions.

... While President Obama once said a nuclear-armed Iran would be “unacceptable,” after more than a year in office it’s sobering to have to acknowledge that his administration has made no progress in implementing “crippling” sanctions on Iran, let alone halting Iran’s nuclear program. Even the rhetoric moved in the wrong direction — recently the administration downgraded their call for “crippling” sanctions to sanctions that “bite.” Shockingly, as we learned last week, these “biting” sanctions will no longer include actions that could actually change Iran’s behavior, including limiting Iran’s access to international capital markets and banking services or closing air space and waters to Iran’s national air and shipping lines. So the issue is not when the so-called sanctions will come (President Obama promised them in “weeks” today) but whether they will even “nibble.” And while the Obama administration was more than willing to use every parliamentary trick in the book to ram its government health care takeover through Congress, conversely, it has worked hard to stall bipartisan efforts to pass the Iran Sanctions Act. ...

"The Obama administration has their priorities exactly backwards; we should be working with our friend and democratic ally to stop Iran's nuclear program, not throwing in the towel on sanctions while treating Israel like an enemy."