US foreign policy fails again
The US initiative on Gaza has only alienated its friends in the region.
Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama’s latest foreign policy initiatives have just crashed and burned, in the most easily predictable fashion.
After direct talks between Kerry and Iranian foreign minister Zarif, and without consulting with the other five negotiating powers, the US agreed to a four-month extension of the talks deadline set last November. This gives Iran four more months to continue to work on achieving the ability to produce nuclear weapons and for the sanctions regime to deteriorate further. Of course, it also puts off the deadline until after the November Congressional elections so that the Administration won’t have to admit failure before the voters go to the polls.
Now Secretary Kerry, after failure in Cairo and Jerusalem, met in Paris with the foreign ministers of Turkey and Qatar, Hamas’s strongest supporters, and “negotiated” a cease-fire proposal that incorporated all of Hamas’s demands and none of Israel or Egypt’s, following which Obama called Netanyahu and “demanded” that Israel agree to a cease-fire “without conditions.”