Let’s imagine possible fallout from the Obama attack on Israel. If the effort was merely a miscalculation, similar to so many of the other missteps Obama has made foreign policy-wise, can the damage be limited? Problem is, much like the ‘settlement freeze’ demand made by Obama at the beginning of his presidency, it may be a miscalculation, maybe even one they’d wish to take back - but once out there the Palestinians adopt it as ‘valid’ and therefore it becomes part of the math going forward regardless of whether or not the math is actually workable. The Palestinians weren’t looking for an absolute settlement freeze - but once Obama foolishly put it on the table, they had no choice but to adopt it as their new starting position viz negotiations. So to with this UN resolution - yes, many UN members already considered Israeli land grabs since ‘67 illegal - and I have absolutely no doubt Obama has always shared that viewpoint in private - but that was never an official US position for obvious reasons - various administrations may have viewed the settlements with disfavor, but none would have thought it a good idea to join with the jackals and call them illegal - until now. And as with the ‘settlement freeze’ miscalculation, this ‘illegality’ now becomes part of the math going forward as far as the Palestinians are concerned regardless of how unworkable it makes any future negotiations - Obama has offered them a gift and from their point of view they can’t turn it down. The Trump administration can push back, pressure countries to rescind their support for the resolution, threaten to punish the UN - all good and well and will work to some degree to undo the damage done - but you’re never gonna be able to unring the ‘Israel is an illegal state’ bell in the minds and machinations of the Palestinians and all the others out there who wish israel and America ill. Highly problematic.

But what if is this wasn’t simply just some miscalculation - what if it’s the first part of a deliberate attempt by Obama at the end of his Presidency to isolate and delegitimize Israel? [Obama would defend himself here, and Kerry made this clear in his speech, by contending he’s only trying to isolate and delegitimize the ‘extremists’ on the Israeli right - but that would be a pretty shallow and disingenuous rationalization - I’m sure he and his fellow leftists would view this as a necessary lie that is in essence true, but the vast majority of Israelis and right thinking non-progressives everywhere would not agree] If this is part of an ongoing plan to delegitimize the Israeli right [that will continue on into Obama’s immediate post-presidency] then this becomes much more than highly problematic - it risks serious escalation into a full out foreign policy crisis. If that’s what this is, the Trump administration, right out of the starting gate, will have no choice but to do something ‘dramatic’ to try and upend the plan before it gains too much momentum - and that’s where things can really get dicey - Obama and his acolytes will have essentially declared war on the Israeli right [but in reality all of Israel] and the Trump administration - and as with shooting wars, once you open that door, no one really knows what devils will come rushing through.

So I’ve given a sort of take on the UN/Kerry speech slap down of Israel - short form - these people are leftist ideologues free from constraints of having to win another election and therefore preaching at Israel in the way you’d expect leftist ideologues to do - short form of that: Israel bad [ie America bad], Palestinians victims of this badness, must make common cause with ‘victims’ of American/Israeli badness if only because the optics of it are just so flattering to our egos - so let’s see if we can shame Israel into accepting the dictates of a progressive worldview that embraces this kind of simple-minded, solipsistic, self-righteous, self-indulgent, sentimental, ideologically cloistered thinking. Or something like that.

But I guess one could say that misguided ideological preening is not explanation enough - or argue there’s value to be added by going beyond the mere manifested stupidity of progressives - or at least why not what the hell ask: is this just an ideologically driven hissy fit by Dear Leader et al - or maybe a badly executed bit of theatre that sort of got out of hand - or do these people imagine themselves having a plan?

The story is the planning for this goes back several months, when everyone thought Hillary was gonna win - the thinking seemed to be that Obama gets to get some revenge on Bibi while making a ‘big’ statement about ‘principles’ that makes him look like the sage enlightened guy looking to do good - and then after Hillary wins she gets to come in and play ‘good cop’, reel things back in a bit but ostensibly now in a better position to ‘force’ Israel into making significant compromises [as if they already haven’t]. I suppose that’s plausible - question, why continue on with it once Trump had pushed Hillary aside?

Certainly, the idea that the Obama administration didn’t orchestrate the whole UN vote is utter bull shit - the notion that they just showed up for a vote and, surprised by how ‘moderate’ the language of the resolution was [!!!] decided to what the heck abstain is patently absurd - Obama wanted to do something like this and therefore there’s nothing about this that wasn’t planned and pre-arranged - I’m sure back in his Hyde Park days he and all his radical leftist friends would sit around for hours riffing on all the awful things they’d do to Israel if they ever got the chance - with no more elections to win, he got - rather, orchestrated his chance and there ya go - infamous anti-Semite rev Wright must be so proud of his protege.

Still, once the fail safe of Hillary coming in as the ‘good cop’ had been undone, why continue on with the game? Well, I think I’ve already answered that, partially at least - he really wanted to do it - sure, without Hillary being around it became a much riskier move - but so was trusting Iran, empowering Russia in Syria, giving China free rein in the China Sea etc etc - foreign policy dangers have increased across the board under Obama in his push to marginalize American power and influence - what’s one more? As I’ve said before, if Obama is convinced this move is right and serves the progressive worldview's agenda - and ideologues are always convinced the things they do are ‘right’ - then rationalizing your way around the ‘risks’ is easy. If this leads to bad outcomes does anyone believe for a second Obama will blame himself or that any who think like him will hold him at fault? No fucking way. It will all be the fault of the Israeli right, even though the settlements have pretty broad based bipartisan support in Israel. Indeed, the whole point of this may be to enrage the Israeli right, thereby goading them into some extreme rhetoric, and that rhetoric will then be used to justify the next move, something that may show up in Paris in January in the form of another UN resolution, this one recognizing a Palestinian state.

If that turns out to be true, the astounding thing about this is that an outgoing President will have deliberately manufactured a foreign policy crisis for an incoming President - that’s astounding. Immediately on taking the oath Trump could be saddled with a significant crisis deliberately set in motion by his predecessor - set like a trap - I mean, what are the words one would use to describe behavior like that? Mutinous comes to mind - subversive - frighteningly arrogant. Certainly in keeping with the way a progressive zealot would behave.

The false moral equivalency - Kerry’s moronic ‘Israel’ speech - people seem to marvel at how easily the left conjoins Israeli settlements and Palestinian terror as ‘equivalent’ coequal impediments to some fanciful ‘peace’ [even though the implied equivalency is a canard in that only the Israelis are required to make real compromises relative to the imputations while the Palestinians are merely ‘scolded’ by Kerry the simpering fool and never held to account for their actions] - we wonder how can these progressive simpletons engage is this false equivalency and not see how misguided it is, and not just misguided, wholly injurious to Israel and its security because it in essence legitimizes not only terror but the anti-semitism and intolerance that hides behind all anti-Zionist rhetoric? How can they not see that continuing to embrace the wrong-headed narrative of the false equivalency makes peace less likely by indulging the atavistic tribalism of Palestinian obstinacy and forcing Israel to be even more adamant and aggressive in protecting its security needs, especially in light of the dangerous, intolerant, unstable, demagogic dystopia the Mideast is turning into?

We wonder - but we shouldn’t - to the progressive mind besotted by an inculcated hatred of ‘white privilege’ and Western colonial depredations which they view as ‘uniquely’ evil, the ‘equivalency’ makes perfect sense - being a white, Christian, male capitalist is for the distempered, diseased mind of the progressive the original sin of modernity - everything bad stems from it - Israel is a proxy, a surrogate for this imagined, ideologically manufactured ‘evil’ - the Palestinians proxies for all those non-white ‘victims’ that have been ‘enslaved’ by it - therefore, to the deranged progressive mind, the false equivalency isn’t false at all - indeed, it’s probably too generous to Israel - for the progressive a truer statement would blame only Israel, making no mention of Palestinian misdeeds or transgressions - in the progressive world view, the ‘oppressed’ can never be at fault and the oppressed are anyone or any group not stained by the original sin vitiating the white, capitalist patrimony of the West.

But why the fixation on settlements? Bibi commented on this - with the Mideast increasingly being a region where nothing good or hopeful happens and where Obama’s grotesquely naive, monumentally ill-conceived foreign policy ‘ideas’ have been gutted and defiled by reality, why on earth, Bibi wondered, do Dear Leader and his myopic minions think it a good notion to obsess on the settlements as the non plus ultra of contentious issues? It seems absurd - delusional - and to a rational person it is -  but these are not rational people - these are progressive ideologues and their worldview is in ruins, revealed for being the simple minded, sentimental, self-serving palaver unmoored from reality that it is - and ideologues do not take kindly to being shown up as fools by a reality they resent and repudiate as belonging to something ignoble that is beneath them - fixating on the settlements is thus an obfuscating rationalization that hopes to ‘explain’ away the left’s egregious failings and balm their hurt egos - blaming the settlements is Obama’s way of saying to the progressive sycophants out there who still listen to his drivel that he didn’t get it wrong, he didn’t screw up, he wasn’t the intellectual lightweight who misjudged everything and who was decidedly not on the right side of history, as he likes to fancy himself, but rather history’s fop - no, it was the evil Israeli right, scorning the enlightenment he so magnanimously brought to them [ie, sought to impose on them] who are to blame. It’s a petulant, juvenile and dangerous remonstration - but pure Obama: arrogant, duplicitous, self serving and wholly driven by an idealist ideology utterly detached from reasonable, empirical analysis and any clear-eyed understanding of the real forces that govern the lives and actions of men.

You cannot claim to be on the right side of a history you clearly do not understand and whose parameters do not comport with the dictates of the ideology by which you define yourself - indeed, there may be no greater measure of just how wrong you are than the willingness with which you embrace the inevitability of how right ‘history’ will prove you to be, as if it must bend towards you and not the other way round. This is just failed Marxist historicism dug up from the grave by the neo-Bolsheviks of the left - and if allowed to fester will trample common sense and freedom underfoot all in the name of an ‘inevitable’ progress divined only by a moral calculus imposed by them. Obama obviously sees himself in such terms - and I guarantee you, his post presidency will be marked by a didactic, self-righteous zealotry that will make this clear. This is why he made the settlements an issue on his way out the door - it’s in many ways his first post-presidential act.

The election of Trump has made clear one thing, or rather, confirmed absolutely one thing that became increasingly apparent as the awful Obama presidency moved along: namely, that the left has gone insane - lefties were already at odds with rational debate unsullied by emotionalism and ideological bias run rampant, but the neo-bolsheviks of the progressive elite and the empty headed, selfie snapping minions swept along in its addled wake seem now to have completely come unmoored from anything remotely resembling reasonable pragmatism, objective analysis or thoughtful, measured interest in anything that does not immediately confirm what they believe or very much want to believe - they’ve fully revived Marxist historicism and accordingly act as if without question they alone are on the right side of history [an ‘idea’ Obama loves to give voice to] and therefore are free to ignore, abuse, delegitimize, scorn and figuratively [for now] put up against a wall and shoot anyone who doesn't share in that belief. Question the ‘settled science’ of climate change? Up against the wall. Argue that radical Islamism is a predictable consequence of Koranic law and not a mere corruption of it? Up against the wall. Support the second amendment? Up against the wall. Call debating the merits of transgender rights a ridiculous and trivial waste of time that just indulges the very worst of progressivism’s delusions? Up against the wall. Dare suggest that support for gay marriage amounts to nothing more than sentimental cant sprung from deeply illogical arguments? Up against the wall. Have the gall to contend that the rise of the despotic bureaucratic state and its agenda to stifle capitalism and roll back individual freedoms is decidedly not a universal good that will finally usher in that long promised socialist nirvana? Up against the wall. Fancy that ‘white privilege’ is not the root of all evil but rather a made up ill manufactured by the left to justify the untenable idiocies of their ideology? Up against the wall. Reject their choice for President? Up against the wall.

I’m not gonna defend Trump - I opined that he was a disastrous choice for the GOP, couldn’t t win the presidency even against someone as flawed as Hillary, but that even if he somehow did manage to win would not be a good fit for the job [in my defense I didn’t think Hillary a good fit either and back in 2006 predicted Obama would be the next president and be an awful Commander in Chief, worse than Bush - nailed that one] - but Trump proved me wrong on one of those claims and may prove me wrong on all - so I’m an agnostic on his coming ascension, wanting him to succeed of course but mostly at the moment just curious as to how all this will play out and what it will mean once it does. Clearly since being elected he’s made some good moves, some bad moves, and some marginally brilliant moves - in other words, has given me no cause to abandon my agnosticism but some cause to lean ever so slightly towards the positive - so we’ll see.

But gotta hand it to the man - if his victory produces no other good the hysteria and embarrassing histrionics his looming presidency has elicited from the left is value enough - no small achievement that he has pulled back the veil and revealed just what an absurd yet dangerous beast the progressive hivemind is. Which raises an interesting problem: Obama was the worst president the country’s ever had and I doubt Trump can exceed that awfulness - but if Trump’s presidency is viewed as a failure, that progressive beast will see its hysterics as having been justified which will make the beast ever more dangerous and increase likelihood of them nominating an extremist like Warren in 2020 - a very bad outcome. On the other hand, if Trump’s presidency is viewed more or less as a success, the current hysteria that grips the left will look even more absurd than it already does - but resulting in what? One would like to hope some sober self reflection and a reexamining of their core principles - but that’s not the way these people think - they’re ideological absolutists, politics is a zero sum game for them and such people cannot abide the thought of having been wrong about something - doubt is poison to absolutists, that is why they put so much effort into shutting down open debate and free speech. Just look at Obama’s last press conference - that’s a man utterly incapable of seeing himself as having been wrong about something - for people like him, as long as an action promotes a progressive world view it by definition must be good regardless of whether or not it actually is. This is why he still defends his Syria policy as the best choice available or the Iran deal as the best option available even though neither of those things is even remotely true - this is why in that press conference he said most countries now view America as being stronger after eight years of him - that’s not just an absurd statement, that’s downright, flatout delusional - and so even if Trump proves a wildly successful POTUS I’m not sure anything can unwind the delusions the left has swaddled themselves in - likely they’ll just burrow further and further into their safe spaces, relying on the hope that changing demographics will come to their rescue - certainly, it’s that attitude that led to the Clinton coronation and eventually the arrogance that doomed, thankfully, her campaign.

Well, Trump has chosen Mattis for SECDEF which is very good. How well they’ll play together is something else entirely - Mattis is known for being blunt with his opinions and his foreign policy ideas are at odds with some things espoused by Trump during the campaign - but how real were those espoused things if he’s willing to take on Mattis? And if Mattis is the tough straight shooter he’s certainly shown himself to be how likely is it he takes the job without some comfort regarding Trump’s general thinking on foreign policy? But if it works out this is a great pick - sends clear message to China et al that Obama’s weak kneed blame America first foreign policy is toast - and good riddance to it.

On the other hand, with his Carrier ‘deal’ Trump has engaged in some classic left wing top down demand style crony capitalism, the very thing market based conservative economic policy is supposed to strongly oppose. If this is a one off PR move that has the added advantage of confusing the hell out of democrats by co-opting a big government tactic of theirs but in service of the white working class that has abandoned them rather than something like ‘green tech’ that so delights the progressive elite, then it’s not a problem. If this is the first instance of something that’s about to become policy, then it’s a problem. This is not an effective or efficient way to incentivize businesses to invest in American jobs - and it sends out the misleading notion that all those manufacturing jobs that have vanished are about to magically return - a notion like that takes hold and Trump will have backed himself into a nasty little corner. What happens when a bunch of workers about to lose their jobs to Mexico or wherever step in front of the TV cameras and demand a similar rescue from Trump? Trump may have just made the first big mistake of his presidency.

And then there’s that phone call with the president of Taiwan. Only two ways to look at it - he took the call because neither he nor anyone around to advise him understood the import of taking that call - or it was a deliberate effort to send a message. If it’s the former, not a big deal I think. If it’s the latter, then it begs the question: where do you see this going? You can’t piss off China just for the sake of pissing off China - you have to have a strategy, which I’m doubting there is one given Trump’s foreign policy team isn’t a team yet. I’m guessing it’s the former - although you could see a guy like Bannon thinking it ‘clever’ to piss off China just for the sake of unsettling them a wee bit - and possibly Trump does see value in it too as some have argued it’s the opening move in an upcoming ‘negotiation’ - possible I guess.

The call also begs another question - does the one China policy still make sense? Thirty years ago China didn’t have a booming economy to protect - and we still hoped that the country could be ‘liberalized’, something which at this point seems unlikely - so why still try to appease them by pretending that we don’t actually view Taiwan as an independent  country? They will be pissed off, sure - but don’t they have too much to lose by going beyond that? The Taiwanese people clearly see themselves as citizens of an independent country - where’s the value for us in continuing to pretend that isn’t true? China is already trying to incrementally gain hegemonic control over Asia Pacific, so they can’t threaten us with that - they don’t seem to be doing much to stop North Korea’s nuke program, so can’t threaten us with that - it would certainly be counter productive for them to attempt some ‘economic’ payback - the one thing I think that they could do that would definitely hurt and be highly destabilizing is cozy up to Cuba, become Cuba’s new patron. That would be a serious escalation - indeed, the fact that China hasn’t already done something along those lines is probably due to us continuing the look but don’t touch Taiwan policy.  Gotta believe Cuba comes into play should we dump the one China nonsense [good reason, now that Fidel’s gone bye bye, for us to invade the bloody country - make Marco Rubio caretaker president while the million people who fled Castro’s evil regime return to build the country anew. I’m only half joking - seems a certainty that Cuba fits into Beijing’s thinking somehow somewhere down the road - Trump has expressed admiration for Putin, and don’t think there’s much doubt what ol’ Vlad would do if he were president of the United States - so why not start off the Trump administration with an invasion of Cuba - time seems right, and gotta admit it would send a very unObama like message to all the countries out there that wish us ill].