The appointment of Samantha Power as America's UN ambassador, combined with recent US foreign policy statements reinforces concerns the administration is accelerating its policies of global withdrawal, engaging rather than confronting rogue states, and appeasing Islamic extremism.
Power is on record dismissing concerns about the Iranian nuclear threat.
In addition, while favoring greater US assertiveness in relation to human rights issues, she seems to have a somewhat jaundiced moral relativist approach, jointly bracketing Israelis and Palestinian "crimes." On one occasion she even called for the US to intervene militarily on behalf of the Palestinians against the Jewish state.
Indeed, in an article published 10 years ago titled "Why do they hate us?" Powers perversely compared US behavior to that of the Nazis. While describing former chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling in the Warsaw ghetto to demonstrate atonement for the crimes of the Nazis as "ennobling and cathartic for Germany," she implied that the United States should make a similar apology for its global policies.
In view of her exceedingly harsh former condemnations of Israel, the enthusiastic endorsement of her appointment by pro-Israel stalwarts such as former senator Joe Lieberman, ADL head Abe Foxman and Alan Dershowitz was somewhat perplexing. We hope their confident predictions that she will confront the ongoing anti- Israeli onslaughts at the UN will be realized. But considering her previous statements on the subject, one would have expected them at least to have suspended judgment.
President Barack Obama was always upfront concerning his intention to reduce America's global interventionist role and "engage" rather than confront rogue states. His recent choice of personnel reflects this.
Secretary of State John Kerry, a friend of Israel, has a checkered and messy foreign policy track record including a disastrous effort, immediately before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, to rehabilitate Bashar Assad, whom he regarded as a reasonable, open-minded leader.
His naïve efforts to promote the peace process are respectfully tolerated by the Israelis, and met with outright contempt by the Palestinians, who mocked the $4 billion private investment project he recently unveiled. Last month, Kerry quietly waived the US requirements of Egypt to "implement policies to ensure freedom of expression, association and religion," and approved a $1.3b. arms grant to it. A few weeks later, the Egyptians displayed their appreciation by sentencing 43 NGO workers, including 16 Americans, to five-year prison terms for having funded pro-democracy groups.
Obama's defense minister, Chuck Hagel, was an isolationist who harbored anti-Israel views and John Brennan, who heads the CIA, is the principal architect of the policy to appease Islam.
