Playing Chicago politics in a dangerous neighborhood

Over at the the First Things blog David Goldman has a typically insightful look at the lopsided Obama policy with regard to Israel and the Arab world, including this:

The United States responded to Ahmadinejad’s Afghan visit by paying obeisance to Iran’s influence. “The future of Afghanistan has a regional dimension and we hope that Iran will play a more constructive role in Afghanistan in the future,” said US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley. He added in the past, the US and Iran have “cooperated constructively” and hoped that they would do so again, given that Iran has “a legitimate interest in the future of Afghanistan”.

In response, the Americans get things like this:

Ahmadinejad: “(The Americans) want to dominate the region but they feel Iran and Syria are preventing that. We tell them that instead of interfering in the region’s affairs, to pack their things and leave.”

Picking a public fight with Israel at this moment is not likely to have been merely coincidental. That the Israelis might be taking Ahmadinejad at his word about wiping out Israel as soon as Iran has the (nuclear) capacity to do so may be troubling to us all, but what should be most troubling about it is not Israel's concern but the mullahs' seriousness of purpose.