Is Obama more naive than Jimmy Carter?

Ralph Peters, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army and current military analyst, has written a column in the NY Post bashing Obama and his policies in the Middle East, among other things.

Peters writes:

Last, but not least, there's our arctic treatment of Benjamin Netanyahu and our Israeli allies. Kim Jong-Il or Hugo Chavez would've gotten a warmer White House reception than Bibi did.

Wednesday in Washington was dedicated to shooting down one Israeli compromise offer after another. Of course, we haven't asked those valiant Palestinian freedom fighters (unfairly considered terrorists by reactionaries like me) to compromise a fraction of an inch.

The Palestinians dictate, the White House obeys.

This is madness. Rewarding terror and intransigence, we're undercutting the single rule-of-law democracy and defender of human rights in the Middle East. "The rockets' red glare"? Last time I saw it, the rockets were raining down on civilians in northern Israel. But Obama truly believes that the Palestinians are the good guys.

Here's the US-Israeli-Palestinian relationship in simple terms: You run a business. And you have a brother who's worked with you for decades. A group of corrupt "partners" with criminal records, notorious for flouting every deal they've made, promises to make you rich. All you have to do is kill your brother.

The Palestinians and their Arab backers have broken their every pledge on the (blind-alley) road to a deal. Time and again, they've refused reasonable terms proposed by Israel.

They could've had a deal under Clinton. They had another chance under W. Each time, the Palestinians walked away. Because they don't really want peace with Israel. They want Israel destroyed. Either Obama gets it and agrees with them, or he's naive to an extent that makes Jimmy Carter look jaded.

As far as the trumped-up issue of settlements goes, my Israeli friends are missing a great opportunity: Since Obama's supporters insist on a history-based Palestinian right of return to Jerusalem, Jews should demand their historical right to resettlement in the Saudi-occupied city of Medina -- where their once-prosperous presence is documented by the Koran.

The ultimate travesty, of course, is that the Obama administration will spin each of Wednesday's triple-whammy debacles as a triumph. It showed those wicked Israelis who's boss; it gave treacherous Pakistanis all they demanded, and it got tricked by Russia into further weakening our strategic defenses.

This isn't a pattern of failure. It's a surrender cult.