What would Henry Kissinger do?
That is what Secretary of State Antony Blinken ought to have requested earlier than making his fourth fruitless journey to the Mideast to cope with the Israeli War in Gaza.
Talk a couple of waste of time. He would have been higher off disappearing with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Joe Biden wouldn’t have identified anyway.
Kissinger is, after all, the legendary former U.S. secretary of state who died in November at age 100 whereas Blinken was on his third go to to Israel searching for peace in all of the mistaken locations.
Now Blinken has concluded his fourth journey the place he carried out “productive” conferences with regional leaders that went nowhere towards ending the brutal preventing in Gaza, liberating the Hamas held hostages, together with ten Americans, or relieving the struggling of the Palestine individuals in Gaza.
In addition, if Blinken’s position was to work towards heading off a regional conflict, he struck on the market too.
Not solely is Israel preventing the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, however Israel is confronted with elevated fight with the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
And the Houthis will proceed to bombard industrial vessels off the Red Sea coast with drones and missiles regardless of the assault launched towards them by U.S. and U.Ok naval forces.
Hardly had Blinken arrived within the area than the Houthis in Yemen launched their largest missile and drone assault to this point on industrial delivery, prompting the allied response.
A day earlier Blinken stated there can be “consequences” for the Houthis in the event that they continued their assaults on the industrial ships.
The Houthis, like everyone else, ignored him and attacked anyway.
It was the twenty sixth Houthi assault on industrial delivery within the Red Sea since Nov. 19 earlier than the U.S. retaliatory assault on the Houthi launching websites in Yemen.
Meanwhile terrorist teams proceed to assault U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq over 100 instances with none critical retaliation from the Biden administration.
What have they got in widespread?
All are Iranian proxies, financed, armed and educated by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the militant mullahs round him.
But reasonably than maintain Khamenei and the Iranian mullahs to account, Blinken (Mr. Weak) and Biden (Mr. Weaker) give Iran a cross.
They not solely ignore Iran, however hardly even point out Iran’s culpability in supporting the Hamas Oct 7 bloodbath of Israelis that led to the present destabilization of the area.
Kissinger, who fifty years in the past negotiated the peace settlement amongst Israel, Egypt and Syria to finish the Yom Kippur War, would have scoffed at Biden and Blinken’s newbie hour of Mideast diplomacy.
Kissinger’s concept of diplomacy was marked by a shrewd carrot and stick method in conferences with decision-making rules, like Mao Zedong in Beijing and never assembly with individuals simply to satisfy individuals.
Given a reliable president, Kissinger would have gone to Tehran and met with Khamenei, persuading him to stop and desist, or in any other case face the implications.
Instead, Mr. Weak and Mr. Weaker are content material to search for peace the place it will probably’t be discovered.
Instead of going to the supply of the issue—Iran—and addressing it—Biden and Blinken are content material to nibble across the edges.
Blinken’s newest itinerary reads like a person operating away from an issue reasonably than towards it.
After conferences with Greek officers in Crete after which Turkish officers in Istanbul, Blinken on Sunday held talks in Amman, Jordan with King Abdullah II and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. Then he flew to Doha for a gathering with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.
Blinken will meet with anyone besides the Iranians.
In Saudi Arabia he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at Al ‘Ula, an Arabic oasis city, and later with PLA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and the appropriately named Gaza Kaag, the UN’s senior Gaza humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator.
They have been all “productive” conferences.
And issues received worse.
It’s Iran, silly.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”