Dear Bibi: STFU

The Obama administration is attempting to inch toward a tiny bit of rapprochement with Iran in an effort to make the world safer. Despite an astonishingly obdurate Congress and stuck-in-blind-hate Democratic Senators, the P5+1 has announced that it will offer Iran some sanctions relief if Iran freezes its nuclear enrichment program. Benjamin Netanyahu went ballistic, as always.

Bibi The Apoplectic--the Israeli version of Hair-on-Fire John McCain.

If you examine the steps proposed by the US administration, they do not even reach Baby's First Step. It reminds me of the Flip Wilson caricature of the black minister exhorting his congregation to give more into the donations basket, "Before this church can run, this church has gotta walk, and before this church can walk this church has gotta crawl!" [Congregation: "Let it crawl, Rev!"]. Seriously, the itty-bitty moves to temporarily relax just some of the punishing sanctions on Iran are bare motion, just enough to keep Iran from experiencing more humiliation. This is Just So Objectionable to the hawks who run Congress and former Bush regime officials who now paint the bare beginnings of sanctions relief as enabling Iran to--G-d forbid--survive by apparently selling some oil on the black market since moderate Rouhani's election.

It is long past time to cease all US military transfers, especially into the Middle East. The vast majority of those transfers go to Israel and Egypt, neither one of which uses them to do much beyond further aggrandizing power to militaristic cores of their respective governments. Obama should issue a Presidential Policy Directive banning all US arms transfers to the Middle East, which would have enormous peace incentivizing effect on Israel and democracy-promoting effect on Egypt. Would Obama face the subsequent wrath of the military dictators in Egypt and the hardliners in Israel and their allies in the US? Yes. He's a lame duck, so they could try to lame him more, but he's not going to be running for any office ever again. Just Do It, Mr. Obama. There are many other steps that would help bring peace to the region, but that would be the single most effective major first step.

We will see the pathetic alternative soon, no doubt. Not satisfied with a negotiated end to Iran's nuclear weapon program, nuclear-weapon-possessing Netanyahu will be clamoring for his hypocritical goal, to keep nuclear weapons exclusivity in the region. Bibi! It's time to face it; as long as you clearly hold at least 300 and probably more nuclear bombs on deliverable missiles--the world's most well known 'secret'--your opponents in the Middle East will also want WMD. You give them all the excuse that, well, Israel has them so we need them.

Time to end the flow of destructive instruments of death from the US to the entire world, but especially to the Middle East. We pay for it all and we vote. The American people should be able to force this. If we pay attention as much as we pay federal taxes we could help the world and this moment is one of those.