The United States lacked a goal in Afghanistan. Speaking thirty-three days after 9/11, Bush demanded of the Taliban a single thing: render Osama to America. They actually agreed, provided that Bush would offer them a shred of evidence which would allow them to rescind guest protection for Osama. But Bush had no evidence and refused negotiations. The Taliban cooperated with the West in removing the poppy plantations until sanctions left them drugs as their only income. Plausibly, a solution could have been found that would have allowed them to surrender Osama, and in any case ousting the Taliban had nothing to do with American interests in the region. On the contrary, the Taliban provided stability and an accountable government in Afghanistan, one that was much easier to deal with than anyone else, and plausibly an understanding could have been reached on the terrorist camps, just as an understanding was reached on drugs.

Interestingly, the United States employed in Afghanistan the strategy of squeeze, the very approach it refuses to allow Israel to use in Gaza. The assumption is that by inflicting sufficient hardship the population can be forced into changing its government. In both cases, that is unlikely: the Afghanis and Palestinian Arabs cannot realistically fight the Taliban and Hamas. And decrying the death toll from Israeli reprisals against Gaza, the Americans would better recall some places whose names most of them have never heard: Chowkar Karez, Mudoh, and Kama Ado—the villages where American jets obliterated the civili

The Americans only exacerbated the offense by appointing Khalilzad to oversee Karzai; overbearing Khalilzad made Karzai look like a nobody. Later, Maliki was similarly happy to get rid of Khalilzad as the US ambassador to Iraq. Like Kissinger and Brzezinski, Khalilzad is a schemer by birth and stirred up events in a country which needs to be calmed down. He enjoyed engaging the maximum number of players and encouraged the warlords with American assistance rather than suppressing them as a strongman must do.

The American Army failed in the occupier’s most important task: quickly ensuring the safety of the population. With bombs falling and order cracking all around them, people long for stability, however oppressive. The invasion failed on that account, and the population would accept the Taliban back. Common Afghanis won’t be overjoyed with the return of the fundamentalist Taliban, but they would see it as the least of a number of evils. Like in the West Bank, the American success in enforcing safety will eventually turn against the occupiers as the population discounts safety and longs for national freedom. Both in Judea and Afghanistan, the key to successful control is not letting the locals forget that they need the occupier for their basic security needs. Fatah and Hamas, mujahedeen and Taliban must keep fighting on the outskirts while order and curfews are enforced in towns. Too much peace is bad for occupation.

Having invaded Afghanistan out of sheer arrogance and without much thought, the Americans quickly found that they had no natural allies. So they reverted to their Cold War-era alliances and formed the Kabul government from the criminal thugs ousted by the Taliban. This is hardly a way to earn popular goodwill or even trust, as the Afghans see a gap between the Americans’ democratic pronouncements and the installation of the hated mujahedeen in the government. The mujahedeen often, make a good impression on Western news networks because they tend to speak softly. In the culture of mountain people, Afghanis in particular, one does not speak rudely because the next moment he would be killed. So even the worst thugs look as nice as Roosevelt.

Common Afghanis cannot oust the militias, which have been armed and financed by America for a decade. Also, there is the factor of affinity: the warlike Pashtuns fought the British invaders but are more reluctant to go against their own warlords, who are perceived as legitimate strongmen rather than occupiers. In any moral calculation, America ought to clear the mess it created in Afghanistan.

Destroying Israel militarily or politically is in no one’s interest. For the Arab regimes, Israel offers a welcome vent for their masses’ discontent. For the Christian powers, Israel creates a slight tumult in the Middle East, providing them with numerous opportunities for political intrigue and profitable rapprochement with Arab countries.

Islamists despise Israel as the Great Satan’s associate. Without Western influence, Jews and Arabs could have fought each other out long ago. Arabs have submitted to various humiliations throughout their history. Arguably, they were more rational then, untouched by modern nationalism, but submission to a prevailing power is the core of their mentality. Instead of recognizing Israel as a strong and valiant power, worth submitting to, Arabs see her as Uncle Sam’s weak client and despise her, thus they cannot submit to her.

The price for US aid is Israel minding US interests. Obviously the US has no interest in Israel’s ownership of Judea or Jerusalem, nor even in her security: Israel’s destruction wouldn’t affect any president’s chances of reelection, as the Holocaust demonstrated.

America’s interest in Israel soared during the Cold War rather than for any metaphysical reason. America uses Israel as a currency to pay for oil and dominance.

Superficially, America sometimes upholds Israeli interests over Arab ones, but only to the extent of maintaining mild unrest in the Middle East, which America can arbitrate. For the dog’s owner to be feared, the dog must keep barking.

Not even once has America supported Israel unreservedly. In 1967, they twisted our arms to refrain from preemption. In 1973, the resupply of weapons came only after we had turned the tide and Russian resupply to Egypt had rallied the Arabs behind the communists. Even so, America forbade us from destroying the surrounded Egyptian army, though the 300,000 Egyptian dead would have left Israel with Sinai by obviating the need for a peace treaty. Instead, Israel’s indecisive victory allowed Sadat’s government to tell his people that they had won the war, and paved the way to Israeli capitulation; a victorious state giving away most of its land. We could have won the 1973 war on our own; the American weapons supplies remained mostly unused. The only effect of the American involvement was to deny Israel a clear-cut victory. Since then, the only sign of American friendship consists in pushing us down the road of “peace process” capitulation with occasional benevolent permissions to attack the terrorists—permission which we wouldn’t need in the first place if we parted with our imperial master.

Those who are moved by America’s selfless aid to Israel should ask themselves why does America aid Egypt and Palestine, which obviously don’t share any of its democratic ideals, culture, or religion? Why did America fight for Kuwait and defend Saudi Arabia? It’s all about power politics. Likewise in Israel, America only watches out for its own interests—a reasonable policy but one contrary to Israeli goals.

There is just no way to make them congruent. America, an imperial power, needs regional influence. If, however, Israel were to become safely dominant, she could spurn the American hand. Poor Arab countries, which lack meaningful economies and military technologies, will depend on America forever. Naturally, it makes sense for America to support the Arabs while paying lip service to Israel so that she won’t overrun America’s real clients. Unquestionable Israel dominance of the Pax Romana type would pacify the region, leaving no space for American involvement. The last thing any US administration needs is Israel’s safety, because in this region, as perhaps in any other, safety only lies in dominance.

Jews won the War of Independence despite the American embargo on Israel and British aid to Arabs. For decades Israel had been playing Russia and France against each other, and has received support from a broad circle of countries. Our exclusive reliance on America, at the cost of alienating everyone else, made Israel not just an earthen-legged colossus, but a single-legged one.

Scores of countries stand against major adversaries without US aid or despite its opposition. How come Fatah and Hamas have prevailed despite America’s firm opposition? In Korea, Vietnam, Palestine, and many African and Latin American countries, steadfastness and determination prevailed against massive American aid to the regimes. Israel needs nationalism, not aid.

The aid is humiliatingly insignificant, too. Is Israel a hundred times less important to America than the lost war in Iraq? That’s what the budgetary allocation suggests. Egypt, Palestine, and Lebanon together receive more aid, including military aid, than Israel. Israel would benefit from the cessation of all aid, to her and her enemies alike, because the aid is much more important to them than to Israel. All in all, the American aid falls below 2 percent of the Israeli GDP.

It is more profitable to be America’s enemy than its friend. Look at how the US courts North Korea, which spurns all attempts to take away its nuclear bombs. Of the two Middle-Eastern nuclear rivals, America gives aid to virulently Islamist Pakistan rather than peaceful India. The PLO laid its hands on American aid due to the very fact of its hostility toward American policies. Now the Palestinians receive as much American aid per capita as Israel, and much more aid if all sources are counted.

The US courts North Korea because of five bombs in an unimportant region. Israel with 200 bombs in the world’s oil underbelly would garner all the concessions she needs. Jews just need to establish their nuclear credibility.

It is understandable the empire of Alexander the Great broke down on the day of his death as his heirs quarreled. But how odd is it that Pinochet’s rule or Soviet empire ended despite them being firmly in power? It takes a single wrong decision to break a tyranny. Pinochet succumbed to the Pope’s plea for democratic elections, and Gorbachev made fatal mistake of allowing withdrawals of hard cash from corporate bank accounts; neither regime ever recovered from their errors.

Rigid regimes cannot last forever because states necessarily make many political decisions. Just as casino players go home broke not because of a small difference in chance, but because the longer they play, the greater their chance of suffering a bankrupting string of losses, so a state that makes many decisions will sooner or later make an unbearably wrong decision or an unbearable string of small errors. Developed societies with complex economies and complex foreign relations have to make many political choices, and in the end they invariably lose.

Good regimes suffer the same problem. The United States can safely adopt mistaken economic policies, go down a bit, and then recover. But foreign relations are unforgiving: once a giant steps on a slippery slope, everyone gathers to destroy him. In 1945, the US had a choice to remain the world’s only superpower or to become the leader of the developed world. It opted for the later, and subsidized the recoveries of Germany and Japan, which eventually became its major rivals. The lesson was not learned, though. The US actively traded with communist China, and so essentially financed China’s path to superpower status. Instead of supplying Western Europe with American oil and African uranium, the US allowed Russia to protract its superpower claim by oil and gas exports. Instead of forcing the Arabs to sell oil at low prices in return for American protection―a major issue for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia―the US bowed to the interests of its liberals and oil corporations, and allowed Arab sovereigns to jack up the price. This American procrastination resulted in a mammoth Muslim bloc in the UN. Instead of formally requiring allegiance in return for aid, the US supplied aid to African states unconditionally; as usual, the recipients came to hate their benefactor and acted in the UN against American interests.

It should have been easy to prevent nuclear proliferation. Closing US markets to Chinese imports would have brought China to its knees within a matter of months. Banning US investment and outsourcing in India would have pushed India to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Cutting off humanitarian aid to North Korea and blocking its air and sea traffic would have made even hardline communists close Yongbyon. Sealing the Persian Gulf to Iranian oil exports would have finished off the ayatollahs fairly quickly. Pakistan could be blackmailed into dismantling its nuclear facilities by the threat of military aid to India. A thoughtful, aggressive policy could have prevented the current situation, in which every radical regime strives for nuclear weapons capability.

But states make errors, and errors bring them down.

Yet, despite the tremendous importance of establishing rapport with American presidents and public figures in general, very little effort is invested in the meetings. Compared to high-profile police investigations and interrogations, summits amount to childish performance. Psychologists, psychoanalysts, body language interpreters, marketing professionals are not involved; presidential background, soft spots and sensitive points are not studied extensively. Israeli ideas are not packaged suitably for the intended recipient, be it in the terms of religion, nationalism, democracy, war on terror, or any other such interest he might share. No significant attempt is made to manipulate the interlocutor into a position favorable to Israel. For example, we do not even know the effect our PMs’ Israeli accent has on American presidents: are they amused or irritated by it, do we need to emphasize this peculiarity or subject our PMs to phonetic courses. What body language does any particular president prefer? Would he like us using metaphors or speaking straight? Every advertising professional knows the tremendous importance of such seemingly minor things to achieve sales. Selling political points is no different.

We need much less restraint with lower-level American officials, especially the State Department folks who greatly influence presidential policy on Israel, usually in the vein of overt anti-Semitism. Their psychoanalysts’ records and motel bedroom recordings are among the easiest stuff to obtain – and some of the most rewarding one. They can be influenced through their numerous friends and associates. They are not hiding or protected. Peddled through a bunch of such officials, Israeli influence on the president is not ready to detect, yet it can be very strong, especially because the commander-in-chief trusts the collective opinion of his (corrupted) advisors.

The United States makes no secret of it influencing foreign elections. American politicians and ambassadors commonly voice preference for one of the candidates. USAID, CIA, and the foundations close to the White House pour money into some elections abroad. Israel, likewise, should have no qualms at influencing American elections. This is not unthinkable: Rabin nurtured great goodwill in Nixon by supporting him over the Democratic nominee. The ways to influence elections are manifold: Israeli retired officials can appeal to common American Jews, AIPAC can line up Jewish donors, the other candidate’s views unfavorable to Israel can be criticized openly.

Israel must take part in curtailing the activities of subversive Jewish groups in the United States. Our major trouble with Nixon was the fact that Jews spearheaded anti-Vietnam war protests. Less important today, Jewish liberals are still highly irritating to conservative presidents and their constituencies. When such groups voice their irrelevant opinion on the peace process, the WHite House mistakes them for the voice of Jewish donors and gets wrong signals, such as in the case of J Street.

Whatever anti-Semites say, Jews as a group do not control American media. Journalists and media owners of Jewish origin, full of self-importance, egoism, and arrogance do not act in the Jewish interest. Changing that unacceptable situation would not be any more difficult than any large-scale intelligence operation, and more profitable. Besides the regular instruments of bribe and blackmail, Israel can use many others against this particular category. Tease their snobbishness by offering meetings with Israeli leaders, red-carpet welcome including. In so doing, it is imperative to drive a wedge between them: invite some, but not others, make them jealous and eager. Operating a network of media professionals, Israel can guarantee the complying journalists career promotion. Access to exclusive leaks, available to friendly journalists only, would be another boon. Journalists, people of simple mind and over-inflated ego, are some of the simplest targets for our intelligence efforts.

Foreign correspondents in Israel are ripe for falling under the government influence. They spend a lot of time here, are easily accessible, and would sell their souls for exclusive information. They currently rely on rank-and file Arabs and ultra-left Jews for rumors and unreported stories, but there is nothing which inherently binds them to our enemies. Instead of dry facts, the government must feed them blood and action they really want. Inside stories of Arab terrorists targeting Jewish civilians would be no less attractive to foreign media than the false, tired images of Jewish settlers shooting at Palestinians kids who, everyone suspects, are not exactly innocent bystanders. Reporters are mostly ignorant and too lazy to investigate or analyze their facts. Give them analytical digests, essentially their talking points or scripts. Be careful not to give the same story to all, but keep it exclusive. In this land of rapidly changing news we always have a good story for every reporter who wants to be friendly. Not the stories we like, but reportable stories, love and blood; touchy facts of the victims’ families, blood-stained photos of the dear ones, that sort of things which media thrive on. The stories must be with a radical tint: in 2006, journalists preferred the Arab version of Israel bombing Beirut to Israeli version of bombing Beirut’s dual-use infrastructure; journalists want to report crime rather than normality. Okay, give them crime – the Arab crime, such as attacking Jewish civilians. Sderot, not Gaza must be made a household name in the West. Forget rebuttals: they always addressed the already preconceived minds. Whatever you do, issue our version of the events immediately, before the Arabs venture theirs. And bribe the journalists, yes. And bribe their Arab employees, their important source of allegedly impartial information.

Many people believe mistakenly that world leaders base their decisions on facts about Israel rather than on media reporting. This is a dangerous error which placates Israelis into ignoring the media. Except for really important matters, US president do not care about facts, but of their perception by his voters. If Jews do not oppress Gazans, but American voters think that they do, it is a matter of self-interest for the president to insist on Israel’ relinquishing her hold over Gaza. Moreover, in mundane matters presidents are frequently misinformed: they rely on poor-quality intelligence or politicized briefings by the State Department. Not a single American president understood history and intricacies of our conflict with Arabs, technicalities of our border arrangements, or mentality of our voters on par with even a mediocre Israeli politician. The presidents are usually less than bright, but more importantly, Israeli-Arab conflict is just too unimportant for them to study it in depth. And in a land so small, with borders so indefensible, less than perfect understanding endangers our existence. So the solution is to submit our own brief – not the morning briefs, but on monthly basis at least.

Not too rarely, influential journalists are on better terms with American leaders than Israeli officials can hope for. The journalists are not only privy to the leaders’ thoughts, often critical of Israel, but they have the leaders’ ear. Can we hope for a better contact than the one who can influence millions of American voters through his media channel and their leaders in private conversations? Such journalists are certainly more important for Israeli security than any number of enemy officials, and they are approached much more easily. Yet, no significant effort is extended to gain their, let’s call it friendship.

Still better, the operations need not always be covert: Israel would be better off investing in the New York Times than F-35. For half the cost of our useless F-35 deal, we could have acquired the entire NYT; a controlling share cost something like the two planes. Beyond doubt, using American media to convince American public opinion that what is good for Israel – bombing Iran, for example – is incidentally good for the United States, too, is a much cheaper and more efficient way of conducting our foreign policy – or wars.

Israeli addiction to charity plays a trick on us. We take charity where we should be giving one. Instead of accepting meager money from Evangelical Christians, we must be financing them and other friendly groups – and ask for more of political involvement in return. The amounts involved are negligible by government standards, but the effect might be huge. Instead of sucking money from the Diaspora, a relatively small amount with very high administrative expenses, the government should be financing the Diaspora institutions to prevent ultra-left dissent, gain a hold on Jewish voters, and perhaps even develop Jewish consciousness among the rapidly assimilating crowd.

Israeli dependence on Jewish barons of the Diaspora is misplaced. We would be better of by distancing ourselves from them. They repeatedly devastated Jewish relations with American presidents, Truman and Nixon being two obvious examples. In practical terms, many Diaspora leaders are anti-Semites: they want Israel low and inconspicuous so as not to brandish their own Jewishness. Israel, a proudly different and independent country, marks them as different from other Americans, which is the last thing they want. In the effort to stamp out Jewishness, they proclaim every public mention of Jews, every innocuous Jewish joke an act of anti-Semitism. But Israel benefits from mentioning Jews more often, keeping us prominent in public discourse. The Diaspora leaders want nice relations with local Muslims, while Israel benefits from portraying herself as the West’s bulwark before radical Islam, just like we were America’s bulwark against communism in the Middle East.

A myth that the Diaspora leaders somehow secure America’s favorable treatment of Israel is grossly overstated. More often than not, those tactless Jews offend and alienate American officials. Those obnoxious Jews do not know proper humility and often push American leaders in the manner unacceptable to them. AIPAC’s famed influence in Congress makes a lot of PR, most of it negative, but hardly achieves any positive outcomes for Israel. Senators eagerly please their Jewish donors by signing meaningless letters and toothless resolutions disregarded by the executive branch. In the meantime, the United States spends hundreds times more in Arab countries than in Israel, sells Arabs dozens times more weapons than Jews, and basically uses Israel as a bargaining chip in oil deals with Muslims. A case can be made that senatorial letters and resolutions actually harm Israel by offsetting pro-Arab dealings by the president and State Department. If not for the empty balloon of pro-Israeli brouhaha, everyone would be seeing America’s anti-Israeli bias. Instead, Jews must revert to our traditional policy at foreign courts, today oddly appropriate by Saudi Arabia: silent diplomacy of bribes and golden parachutes, financing of the officials’ pet projects and offering them unreasonably priced book deals, endowing universities with pro-Israeli chairs and serving as go-between for the officials.

Diaspora leaders sometimes spoil Israeli relations with otherwise useful foreigners by falsely pronouncing them anti-Semites. The accused’ anti-Semitism generally consists in merely pointing out that Jews are a distinctive group. They can characterize that group by clannishness, allegiance to Israel, or business prowess – the features far from derisive, but Diaspora barons detest the very fact of being called Jewish and thus different from their gentile counterparts. This problem was acute with Nixon, but also present with many other officials.

One in ten Americans still cannot find work.
The government must deport illegal immigrants, reduce welfare benefits to force spongers to take jobs, and abandon the minimum wage to create many more unskilled jobs.

This recession has also compounded the burdens that America’s families have been dealing with for decades – the burden of working harder and longer for less; of being unable to save enough to retire or help kids with college.
Without resorting to the use of statistical tricks, no one can imagine that Americans today are less affluent than decades ago. Everything from cars and home appliances to health care and universities has become better and more affordable. The lower savings rate reflects high consumer confidence rather than hardship, because people are certain they can find a job.

And if we had allowed the meltdown of the financial system, unemployment might be double what it is today.
That would not have been a bad deal. Say, 15 million more unemployed for three years instead of something like two trillion dollars spent—which is the Obama bailout will cost, including interest. That’s about $40,000 per worker per annum. Even granting the most far-fetched assumptions about unemployment, the bailout was too expensive, and certainly unjust.

More homes would have surely been lost.
True, but mortgages would have gone down, and many young or poor families would have been able to afford their houses.

To recover the rest [of bailout money], I’ve proposed a fee on the biggest banks.
Great. So the stable banks will subsidize the speculative banks. An appropriate fee is already levied on the banks through FDIC insurance. Now, as the government had effectively bailed out the FDIC, it is seeking a parallel insurance scheme, which will follow the same path.

We also took steps to get our economy growing again, save as many jobs as possible, and to help Americans who had become unemployed.
Those are mutually exclusive objectives. Assistance to the unemployed beyond a bare minimum reduces economic growth and reduces the job market.

We extended or increased unemployment benefits for more than 18 million Americans.
Why increase unemployment benefits during a crisis when people must be glad they are receiving any support at all?

We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families.
Obama did not say that these cuts were minuscule.

Millions of Americans had more to spend on gas.
The administration lacked the guts to push its clients—Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia—to abandon the oil cartel that costs American hundreds of billions of dollars.

Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed.
No one can calculate that number with any certainty.

Two hundred thousand work in construction and clean energy; 300,000 are teachers and other education workers. Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, first responders.
Obama contradicts himself: the alleged two million jobs are either saved in the private sector or, as he says here, were added in the public sector. Such policies are socialist rather than Keynesian. Keynes advocated temporary increases in public spending during crises, but increased hiring enlarges the state sector in perpetuity. No one is going to lay off those police offers or teachers once the crisis is over.

Talk to the window manufacturer in Philadelphia who said he used to be skeptical about the Recovery Act, until he had to add two more work shifts just because of the business it created.
Can we get a phone number, please?

I’m proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat.
Community banks are generally more conservative than large banks. Why would they start financing small businesses when large banks see that as too risky? Obama will have to resort to government guarantees, thus effectively distributing the $30 billion as grants to minority businesses.

I’m also proposing a new small business tax credit, one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages.
The last thing you need to do during a crisis is to raise wages. The objectives of hiring more workers and increasing wages are contradictory.

Let’s also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment.
The government is going to discriminate against businesses based on their size. That’s a trademark socialist policy—to tolerate small manufacturers, but not “exploitative” big corporations.

I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act.
If the railroad were feasible it would not lack for private investment. Revenues from high-speed railroads do not come from nowhere, but are chipped away from airlines and car manufacturers.

We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities.
That means American goods will be more expensive than those manufactured in less eco-friendly countries.

And to encourage these and other businesses to stay within our borders, it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas.
If the administration pushes clean energy, the remaining business will flee en masse. In the corporate legal structure, it is impossible to ascertain whether jobs have been “shipped overseas” or outsourced. Tax breaks make too small a difference for these companies to be willing to suffer Obama’s clean-energy regulation and pay higher wages in America than they would in China.

These steps won’t make up for the seven million jobs that we’ve lost over the last two years.
So why increase benefits for the 18 million who are unemployed? Most of those seven million Obama refers to have found new jobs, so the fallout from the crisis is perhaps two to three million jobs. A two-trillion-dollar bailout seems like too much to prevent that figure from doubling.

We can’t afford another so-called economic “expansion” like the one from the last decade… where the income of the average American household declined… where prosperity was built on a housing bubble and financial speculation.
Why then does Obama support that housing bubble instead of allowing it to burst? If the bubble is that bad—and indeed it is—then by all means allow the irresponsible homeowners to default, and bring housing prices down. Looking at the number of new cars and houses in the last decade, it is hard to believe that incomes have declined since then.

Germany is not waiting [to revamp its economy].
Germany would be a very bad example for the United States to follow. Its economy is crippled by trade unions, government regulation, and welfare, and is only supported by hordes of immigrant workers. The German economy is quickly losing its engineering edge as the younger generation opts for fashionable MBA specialities.

[China and India are] making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.
Not in my universe.

We can’t allow financial institutions, including those that take your deposits, to take risks that threaten the whole economy.
Regulation won’t achieve that end. Financial institutions have long proved their ability to outsmart governments. The only solution is to set up separate currencies licensed for real markets and speculation. This way the real economy will be largely insulated from financial gambling.

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need… [to build] a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.
Offshore oil development is the opposite of clean energy.

It means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.
Clean energy, in Obama’s weasel words, can only become profitable if the government subsidizes it and institutes punitive taxation of traditional energy producers.

I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.
Like the evidence forged by East Anglia University.

Third, we need to export more of our goods. Because the more products we make and sell to other countries, the more jobs we support right here in America.
In today’s technological economy, added value is concentrated in R&D. Manufacturing is outsourced to undeveloped countries precisely because it is not a feasible occupation for citizens of developed countries.

We will double our exports over the next five years.
That recalls the Soviet five-year economic plans.

We’re launching a National Export Initiative that will help farmers and small businesses increase their exports, and reform export controls consistent with national security.
American farmers are heavily subsidized, so increasing their exports means increasing subsidies and constitutes a net loss to the economy. The part about export controls is very suspicious: what kind of technology does Obama seek to export without restrictions?

We have to seek new markets aggressively, just as our competitors are.
Obama the liberal has embraced mercantilism and is willing to apply political pressure in the interests of American corporations.

We will strengthen our trade relations in Asia and with key partners like South Korea and Panama and Colombia.
Panama and Colombia are by no means America’s important trading partners.

And let’s tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after twenty years.
Students, accordingly, will be given a free pass for taking many of the economically worthless courses available in community colleges. They will be able to study just for the fun of it, without prospects of employment, on public account.

But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums [on healthcare], bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.
Easy: end the AMA monopoly on licensing doctors, set limits on malpractice suits, and allow insurance companies to sell coverage for less-than-ideal treatment. Regulation drives costs (premiums) up rather than down. It is completely implausible that government expenditures would decrease while coverage increases.

Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. (Applause.) Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected.
Those are the largest part of the budget.

We’ve already identified $20 billion in savings for next year.
On the background of the expected $8 trillion deficit over the ten years.

That’s why North Korea now faces increased isolation, and stronger sanctions—sanctions that are being vigorously enforced. That’s why the international community is more united, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated.
This is important. Obama uses North Korea as a model for Iran. His idea is that Iran managing to build a nuclear bomb or two does not spell apocalypse. The Ayatollahs won’t be able to use their nuclear weapons, and in the meanwhile will face increasing sanctions that would eventually force them to dismantle those weapons. That strategy so far has not worked with North Korea, which keeps its nuclear stockpiles and exports nuclear technology. Iran’s case would be similar to India and Pakistan’s. The International community cannot afford to isolate politically and economically important countries, and will come to terms with Iran’s nuclear weapons.

Obama’s Muslim roots might possibly work for us. He’s similar to the Jewish cosmopolites who turn against the Jewish values that taunt their identity. Obama easily abandons his relatives: he clearly didn’t know of his aunt was staying in the US illegally (for he could have easily adjusted her status) and did not bring his Kenyan brother to America. He doesn’t even care enough about his Kenyan fatherland to use his newly acquired power to help it.

The ultra-left anti-Semites Obama brought it on his team will probably go soon, evicted by the career bureaucrats he also brought along. Arabs will reject his overtures: Iran has already refused to put any brakes on its nuclear program, Syria continues its support for terrorists unabated, Turkey and Iraq are turning increasingly anti-American, and Pakistan is becoming overtly Islamist. Faced with real-world threats and non-conformism, Obama may become militant, as leftists usually do when their attempts at changing the world fail. When Roman democracy failed and became replaced with monarchy (like the Bushes and Clintons) and eventually accepted foreigners as emperors, hysterical aggression was the norm.

Israel should exploit Obama’s weakness of nicety by flatly refusing to make concessions. It took James Baker to tell an Israeli PM that a refusal to accept American terms would have consequences. With pro-Israeli democrats firmly in control of the Senate, Obama cannot scale down American support for Israel no matter what we do. Obama cannot push like Baker did; unable to push Israel, he might as well go along with us.

Netanyahu is well suited to convince Obama to strike Iran; they share the culture of top US universities and speak the same language. Barak’s overpowering personality is also an asset against weak Obama. Obama’s acquiescence to an Israeli strike on Iran might be coming, as the mullahs insult his Harvard classroom mentality by rejecting debates. Even if he disagrees, Israel can make do on her own.

IAF has some refueling aircraft, which should suffice to return the most expensive planes home. Other planes can be landed with some risk in Kurdistan and perhaps Azerbaijan and Turkey. Under onslaught from the Islamist government, the Turkish military might show defiance and allow IAF to use their landing strips. In the worst-case scenario, the planes can be abandoned: sacrificing a hundred jets at $3 billion is not a prohibitive cost to end Iran’s nuclear program. The Jew-dominated US senate would rush to replenish Israeli stocks as the world applauded the daring operation.

An attack by Tomahawk-type missiles is another option. Israel can launch her Popeye missiles with a 900-mile range from submarines, or longer-range missiles directly from the land bases. Given the necessary quantity of several hundred missiles, a mid-range air or submarine strike is a viable option. Israel has to retain a limited quantity of long-range missiles for a possible retaliatory strike on Iran in case of counter-attack, or at least to threaten such retaliation in order to prevent an Iranian counter-attack. A missile attack would make US approval for overflight of Iraq unnecessary.

Nor are the bunker-buster bombs essential for the operation. Though the United States refused to supply them, Israel can use a large number of conventional missiles or tactical nukes against Iranian targets. In any case, some radiological contamination will occur, as Israel has to bomb the plutonium-producing Bushehr reactor: its eighty-two tons of enriched uranium will be pulverized. Tactical nukes would produce comparable contamination. But why do we even care to discuss such irrelevant consequences?

Here is the key to understanding the Obama-Chavez embrace: they feel like cousins. Like most rulers, Obama’s allegiance is to his fellows in the ruling class rather than to his people. Especially in Obama’s case, what are his people? He ignores his paternal nation and even his Kenyan relatives to the extent that his brother is left to sell drugs. He cares not for Indonesia where he went to school. He is hardly mindful of Britain, whose citizenship he received at birth and has not renounced since. A Muslim apostate and a friend of Christian radicals, a supporter of AIPAC and the anti-Semitic left, a Harvard graduate posing as the people’s president—whom can he have allegiance to?

Dangerously, rootless Obama instinctively leans toward leaders with strong roots. At the G-20 summit he bowed down to the Saudi king. It is highly likely that he respects Chavez and Ahmadinejad.

Hugging Chavez would come naturally to Richelieu or some other Machiavellian politician, but it is rather odd for Obama the idealist and paragon of honesty. Here is the problem: for high-flown idealists, our earthly problems are negligible. The ideal of friendly relations between the liberal United States and some of the worst dictatorships justifies Obama’s closing his eyes to the very reason why the relations were bad in the first place. The hosting of Russian strategic nuclear bombers, strong cooperation with Iran, nuclear aspirations, the breaking of ties with Israel, and the persecution of political opponents are just minor deficiencies which cannot prevent Obama from developing an ideal relationship with a fellow president. Likewise for Iran: the extortion arrest of an American journalist, support for Iraqi terrorists who kill American soldiers, nuclear and ballistic missile programs, gross violations of civil rights, a professed desire to annihilate America’s only true ally in the Middle East—all those minor issues do not bear on the negotiations.

Importantly, the thugs must be big in order to merit Obama’s goodwill. American rapprochement with Syria remains low-profile because Assad lacks the international prominence of Ahmadinejad; the Iranian acutely senses that and drums up his militant rhetoric to draw Obama’s attention. Bubbles are empty, so at least they have to be huge. The bubble of Obama’s ideals calls for mega-solutions: from the three trillion dollars of aid in his first three months in office to engaging the world’s most notorious dictators.

As during WWI, no amount of goodwill among rulers can solve their nations’ conflicts. Rulers have very little influence on their countries’ policies, which are dictated by media and run by bureaucrats. In a sense, good relations are counterproductive, as they force the rulers to gloss over the conflicts rather than solve them. Obama, a friend of Chavez, cannot afford to push him on any of the real issues. Indeed, Chavez embraces Obama only insofar as he tolerates the Venezuelan’s hostile behavior.

The enthusiasm for Obama expressed by Latin American leaders at the Summit of the Americas is revealing: they read him as willing to level the playing field. In other words, they are happy that the United States is stepping down to their level. Such an arrangement is unworkable. Truly stepping down and behaving as one among equals is senseless for the United States, which is not equal to Venezuela, Nicaragua, or Guatemala. Stepping down means accepting their dictates; the US has no reason to submit to the third world countries. If carried out, such a policy would betray American interests.

Obama could state honestly and forcibly that, while the United States cares about their needs and opinions, it remains a supreme arbiter rather than an equal member, and demands respect and submission as such. Honesty, however, is alien to idealist thought, which is used to rejecting the facts.

The American health problem is the overregulation of the medical profession which has led to spiraling costs and cartel prices. Filling a tooth costs upwards of $200 in America, but as little as $10 in Russia, and the quality of the work is comparable. Absurdly long medical education drastically increases doctors’ wage requirements. Plenty of medical operations can be performed proficiently enough by less skilled personnel; it doesn’t take a registered nurse’s training to administer a shot. The relatively low out-of-pocket expenses of insured medical treatment leave patients little incentive to control costs. The medical lobby demands ever higher standards, which increases costs exponentially. Medical professionals use licensing to create both a cartel and a trade union, making health provision the ultimate monopoly. Like any trade union, the medical one increases its profits by milking consumers rather than investors, who simply don’t receive enough profit to be milked. The solution is to break the monopoly: anyone should be able to practice medicine, and patients should be able to choose among various types of providers, such as those licensed by a semi-official association, less pompous licensees, or even Mexican and Indian medical graduates. Medical liability should be legally limited to a sensible amount, which would allow the number of expensive tests to be limited when patients cannot afford them. The government must stop dictating to insurance companies their policies; there is a huge demand for medical insurance that only covers low-quality treatment by non-AMA doctors.

Stories of working single mothers being unable to buy medical insurance for their kids are nonsense. What kind of mother doesn’t buy her child a $50 health insurance policy? That’s not a critical amount even for minimum-wage earners. No doubt she manages to pay $30 per month for cable TV. In order to arrange health insurance for almost all children from poor families, slap a few hundred such mothers with long jail terms for gross negligence and endangering the lives of their children. Just look at the mother’s bank statement, and if she purchases anything non-essential before buying health coverage, send her to jail. Publicize such cases. Many such mothers are paid cash, and their expenses don’t show on their bank statements; search their homes to obtain incriminating evidence. Send their ex-husbands who evade child-support payments to jail, too. Universal health coverage legalizes parental negligence. That’s sort of like the government compensating victims of robbery and abandoning prosecution of robbers.

Poverty has nothing to do with the absence of health insurance. Jews in tsarist Russia were poorer than inner-city blacks can imagine. American blacks and Mexicans are not poor in any meaningful sense, but filthy rich compared to 90 percent of the world’s population. If white society really wants to integrate the blacks, it should make them responsible. Universal health coverage enshrines personal irresponsibility. A mother who routinely feeds her children hamburgers is guilty of manslaughter.

Universal health insurance encourages negligence. People who don’t brush their teeth properly are still assured of taxpayer-funded dental coverage. Those who sit for entire evenings in front of stupid TV shows get an ophthalmologist’s help at public expense. Instead, one should have to prove due diligence when applying for public funds—prove that he exercises regularly, adheres to a reasonable diet, and overall leads a healthy lifestyle; McDonald’s customers should not be eligible. The Torah establishes the right to charity only for people who positively cannot provide for themselves, such as widows and orphans in the ancient economy. Following the biblical logic, modern states might offer charity only to people who accidentally lost the ability to work through no fault of their own. Such definition makes old people generally ineligible for public assistance: they should have accumulated enough money during their working lives to provide for retirement and should also have raised enough children to care for them. Drunkards, drug addicts, homosexuals with AIDS, and similarly degraded elements are also ineligible for public help: not only have they inflicted harm on themselves, but the costs of maintaining them are staggering; the money can be more efficiently spent elsewhere. Health coverage, like any paid activity, is subject to limited resources: societies may spend infinite amounts on health care, but can actually spend only so much. Instead of wasting $50,000–$150,000 annually on treating drunkards in emergency rooms, society can just accept the simple fact that every system produces waste—like human waste—and not all waste can be recycled. “If I’m not for myself, who would be for me?”

The government formally submits to criminals when extending free health coverage to illegal immigrants, including children. The case is often misrepresented as “illegals and their children.” No, the children are also illegals. A society has zero moral obligation to those who join it illegally: a duckling among swans must not be treated as a swan. The children might not be contentious criminals like their parents, who entered the US illegally, but they are not members of American society either. Sponsors of legal immigrants to the US are required to prove their ability to pay for the new immigrants’ medical coverage; how much longer until the illegal immigrants care for themselves instead of relying on the public purse? The American defeatism towards illegal immigrants is akin to the Israeli defeatism about the swelling numbers of Israeli Arabs. The question, “What can we do about them?” is absurd. The US keeps millions of its citizens in jails; surely it can deport a few million illegal immigrants. They would go by themselves if the government cracked down on their employers.

Universal health coverage creates an ethical impasse. Society needs healthy twenty-year-olds, but spends mostly on economically worthless eighty-year-olds and drunkards. A rational welfare society would pay for dental care and gym for poor youngsters rather than spend a million-plus dollars keeping Alzheimer’s patients alive in a vegetative state. State-sponsored health coverage forces state officials to solve unsolvable ethical problems, such as whether spend more on dental care for the young or Alzheimer’s treatment for the old; both can consume virtually unlimited budgets. In an ethical society, each person accumulates funds for his own medical treatment and then chooses how to spend them; families and charities can likewise make private choices as to funding this or that treatment. Universal health insurance socializes ethics and puts officials in charge of moral issues.

The relatively wide acceptance of universal health coverage among the American population demonstrates the extent of taxpayers’ alienation from the government. Even among the hardcore liberals, few would willingly part with money in their bank accounts to benefit the illegal migrants and irresponsible blacks. Americans, however, have no problem with the government spending the tax funds it has already confiscated. Americans have already submitted to the government’s confiscation of their money, and so they welcome spending with even the remotest benefit to them, as opposed to pork-barrel spending in Iraq, military procurement, and elsewhere.

Except in very narrow biblical terms, there’s no right to charity, but only a liberty to work. There’s no right to medical care, but a liberty to contract it. Charity is an ad hoc affair which shouldn’t be made into a universal policy. All recipients of charity must be investigated before being granted it; charity is an exception to the established order whereby every man provides for himself and his family. Universal health coverage is another way for the government to usurp responsibility for the people’s lives and rule over infantile subjects.

Abbas places unrealistic demands on Israel because he cannot push his Arabs to any concessions. He cannot sell them even the best peace offer as he is no one by now. His presidential term expired, and even Fatah opposes his government. Abbas’s weakness became his strength: the more he lacks, the more Obama gives him. Abbas gets American diplomatic support instead of the local one, Obama’s hugs instead of Haniye’s, American weapons instead of the basic hold on the ground. Obama will build Abbas into another Karzai, a despised and powerless puppet.

Obama tried a classic Harvard game of incremental confidence-building concessions: Israelis destroy outposts, Arabs partially lift the trade blockade, and so on. That cannot work because an attempt to dismantle any of the outlying settlements would kill Netanyahu’s government, and lifting the trade ban on Israel while the Gazans allegedly suffer would prompt major unrest in Arab countries.

Major conflicts imply major hostility on both sides and are closed to the goodwill path of incremental mutual concessions. They can only be finished in a sweeping agreement when one side is unquestionably defeated or both sides exhausted. These conditions do not exist now.

Hamas is split into two factions with opposite views. Hamas in Gaza is open to a two-state solution while Hamas in Syria wants nothing of it. The distinction is simple: in Gaza, Hamas leaders want a sort of the normal life, while in Damascus they are Iranian puppets paid for fanning the conflict. By cracking down on Hamas in Gaza, Israel strengthens the rejectionist camp in Damascus.

The Fatah-Hamas divide is artificial. The real difference is between the old and tired leadership and younger militants. The younger, the more militant: both Fatah and Hamas leaders face stiff competition from the younger generation of terrorists. Both groups have numerous factions; Fatah has a bit more of them. Cross-membership dulls the distinction between the groups. In a new Palestinian parliament, militants of various colors will cooperate against the moderate but powerless leaders.

Israeli concessions heavily provoke the Arabs. They have the example of Egypt which launched three wars against Israel and numerous offenses, but received 100% of its former land back. Israel’s very existence means that Palestinians get less than a 100% solution. They try to avoid the humiliation by dragging the talks. As Israel surrenders the West Bank towns to Fatah police and lifts movement restrictions, Palestinians have less reasons to negotiate. As Abbas pointed out, they lead normal life and can afford to wait indefinitely – especially so as their leaders cannot afford any concessions.

No Israeli government can dismantle many settlements. Even Ehud Barak supports natural growth of the existing villages. No Palestinian government can agree to leave them on the ground. No two nations can live with a border zipping around individual villages like a drunk’s path.

Two developments are possible. If, rather unlikely, Palestinian moderates win, they would offer Jewish settlers Palestinian citizenship, and a lot of settlers will accept it in order to avoid the dreaded Gush Katif-type eviction. More likely, Palestinians will embrace a single-state solution. That allows them to avoid conceding what they think is Palestinian land to Israel, and leaves an option of fighting Israel to death with pleasant demographic means.

Israeli government might react in three ways. It will restrict political influence of Palestinian residents as much as possible, perhaps through a confederation with the West Bank. Israel might unilaterally disengage from the territories by abandoning a few outlying settlements. Under a sensible government, Israel would realize that the West Bank Palestinians are too few to threaten her demographically, and incorporate Judea and Samaria into Israel, which is not a Jewish state, anyway.

The best thing about American pressure on Israel is that comes from a democratic government. Thanks to its short lifespan, no US administration can force on Israel a solution she does not want. Israeli-Egyptian peace was brokered frantically in Begin-Sadat negotiations with Carter claiming other men’s laurels. In a few months, Obama will enter into a deep crisis with Netanyahu, and the sides will cease productive communication. In a few years, Netanyahu’s government will collapse. By then, Obama will face reelection and won’t risk alienating Jewish voters. Then another president comes and it all starts over.

We fought with Syria, Egypt, and Iran three thousand years ago, and will continue fighting them in the centuries to come. The American democracy along with its rulers is just a blip on the radar of our history.