Mouth of the South Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot Again

The mouth of the South, former President Jimmy Carter can't help himself. He has this overwhelming desire to open his mouth about most any subject, especially Israel.

He thinks it's important to reveal that he thinks Israel has about 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Doesn't he forget the reason that Israel needed to develop those weapons - the fact that every other country in the region sought its destruction on multiple occasions and all but two continue down that path today? Iran is currently engaged in a nuclear program that even the Saudis think is going to result in nuclear weapons, and they don't want to suffer those consequences either.

Why reveal that information? What is gained? Israel has always maintained an ambiguity about its nuclear program; it hasn't tested nuclear weapons, nor has it said that it has them. Experts have long believed that it had a small arsenal, ranging anywhere from the low end of about 80 weapons, up to 450.

The Israelis think that Carter's statements will only encourage the Iranians. Figures.

He then goes on to call for the EU to break with the US and open economic relations with Gaza. Never mind that the aid goes right into the gaping maw of a terrorist group dedicated to nothing less than Israel's destruction, but he goes on to say that we should engage in negotiations with these terrorists directly.

Meanwhile, he thinks that the world community should force Hamas and Fatah to reconcile and form a unity government to wrest more concessions from Israel:

Carter said European countries should be "encouraging the formation of a unity government," including Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, which is the officially recognized ruling party of the Palestinian Authority.

"They should be encouraging Hamas to have a ceasefire in Gaza alone, as a first step," he told the invited guests.

"They should be encouraging Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement in prisoner exchange and, as a second step, Israel should agree to a ceasefire in the West Bank, which is Palestinian territory."

Hamas doesn't want a ceasefire in Gaza, and have repeatedly demonstrated that they have no interest in peace with Israel. They want war, and they've got one. This is precisely the situation they want. Hamas and Fatah engaged in a civil war over control in Gaza, and Fatah lost power there completely. If not for being propped up by the Israelis, the US and the West, Fatah would lose in the West Bank as well, even though Fatah is no less dedicated to Israel's destruction. Fatah has been sidetracked by corruption and graft and is willing to destroy Israel in the 1,000 papercuts strategy - negotiations that never lead anywhere because the Palestinians have never offered up a reasonable counterproposal while Israel is forced to make concession after concession.

This is the same former President Carter who met with Hamas on multiple occasions in a recent trip to the Middle East, whose fawning over Arafat at his grave marker, and whose repeated statements undermining both Israeli diplomatic efforts and those of the US shows that he has a singular interest in pursuing his own diplomatic positions despite the fact that he was a complete failure and thrown out of office by voters in the 1980 elections.

On a domestic note, Carter called for Hillary to get out of the race, and thinks that the superdelegates will press that point home in June. Never mind that Hillary continues to show that she's got serious popular support, and that Obama has serious demographics problems, to say nothing of the fact that Obama doesn't have the requisite number of delegates needed to win the nomination.

He also engaged in wishful thinking that President Bush would be put on trial for engaging in torture and war crimes should he leave the US. It's a position shared by the far left the world over. Never mind that the same groups that engage in such drivel want the US to act to stop the genocide in Darfur or engage in military operations to provide airdrops in Burma before the junta gave permission to the US and others to provide humanitarian aid. They simply have decided that Iraq was not to be successful because the US did engage and depose a brutal dictatorship whose military intentions in the region were clear even as his WMD claims turned out to be far less so.

Disgraceful doesn't begin to cover this.