An President Obama?"If the dictators and terrorists are smiling, it means everyone else is crying.

An insightful column in the Israel Insider today by Barry Rubin, "LEBANON TO WEST: WAKE UP FAST!"

Anyone who has read my dissertations and rants knows I have the utmost disdain for our western media, our Congress, and the lazy American voters who insist on rejecting in depth education before forming opinions and casting votes. The media, charged with the education of voters on current events, constantly casts the US as the villain in the ongoing battle between the global Islamic jihad movements and western cultures and freedoms. The voters do not care to learn differently... takes too much time for "homework" and research. Spoiled US citizens are too easily distracted, and demonstrate little pride or aptitude for learning

Yet the path we insist upon traveling is fraught with danger of losing all we hold dear. What happens in the Middle East has an effect here, to the stubborn denial of average Joe and Josephine Blow. Each press headline offers more tinder to the fire that fuels jihad. Even tho their appeal is dwindling amongst Muslims for their brutal methods, it doesn't take many militants to inflict the damage and gain ground. It takes one suicide bomber, well placed in a public venue, to make an impact. It takes only a few well armed brutal leaders to subdue a nation into fear.

Rubin's article is a plea to humanity. Wake up, before it's too late. Much of his content revolves around Lebanon, too weak to stand up to Hezbollah. On the flip side, with 1/3 of the Shia Lebanese willing to fight back, Hezbollah leaders know they can't defeat the government militarily. But, as Rubin says, they don't need to. They merely need to control the government, forcing it to do their bidding.

Why should Lebanese Sunni, Druze, and Christians risk their lives when the West doesn't help them? Every Israeli speaking nonsense about Syria making peace; every American claiming Damascus might split from Tehran; every European preaching appeasement has in fact been engaged in confidence-breaking measures.

Hizballah doesn't need to win a military victory but only to show it can win one, using that position of strength to try to force its demands on the moderate government. . The government has already accepted Michel Suleiman, Syria's candidate for president. But Hizballah and the rest say this is not enough: they want veto power over everything.

This much is obvious to those of us who read. We have our own puppets in government with non-elected officials behind the scenes, controlling the marionette strings.

Rubin, blasting the western leaders and media for their inaction on behalf of Lebanon, and lack of urgency, reserves his strongest criticisms for the leading DNC candidate, Barack Obama.

If you want to know what's wrong, consider Obama's May 10 statement on Lebanon. He starts out playing tough, talking about "Hezbollah's power grab in Beirut. This effort to undermine Lebanon's elected government needs to stop, and all those who have influence with Hezbollah must press them to stand down immediately." He calls for supporting the Lebanese government, strengthening the Lebanese army, and to "insist on disarming Hezbollah."

But how to do this? By "working with the international community and the private sector to rebuild Lebanon and get its economy back on its feet."

In other words, according to the Obama world view, it's a problem of development. If people have more money they won't be terrorists. Of course, that was the policy of Hariri, which was countered by Syria blowing him up. In politics, bombs trump business. And any way you can't have a strong economy with no government and chaos. Part of the mistake here is Obama's assumption that Hizballah (and other radicals) want stability and prosperity. In fact, they want to use instability as blackmail in their pursuit of They don't want conciliation. It's a military-strategic problem, not one of community organizing.

The underlined statements (by me) drive a huge misconception home. It's true that a thriving economic Arab democracy is less a hotbed of terrorist recruitment. But what so many miss is this is the exact reason AQ and ilk cannot afford for Iraq to be in anything but chaos.... to keep instability and violence as such a level that the denizens cave in, relinquish all freedoms to oppression merely to live more easily through another day in hell.

Obama continues in his naivety, suggesting that the UN resolutions must be implemented. Terrific... this is the group that could not, and will not, even disarm Hezbollah. The UN and NATO are nothing but a history of one failure after another. The absolute irrelevance and corruption can be simply noted by the fact that the human rights committee is headed by Libya. Right....

But then Obama, with his Marxist views, speaks the soothing words that sound so good to gullible westerners, and strikes fear in the hearts of Arabs and Lebananese who desire freedom over Hezbollah oppression.

"It's time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment."

Aptly translated by Rubin, Obama is "endorsing the Hizballah program." . Obama's largest failure as a leader is that he finds nothing in this battle worth fighting for. Diplomacy is, in his opinion, the answer.

Rubin then provides some the sarcastic comeback by Lebanon's government supporters to Obama's nonsensical suggestion.

"Oh the time we wasted by fighting Hizballah all those years?. If only we had engaged them and their masters in diplomacy?sitting with them around discussion tables, welcoming them into our parliament, and letting them veto cabinet decisions. If only Obama had shared his wisdom with us before, back when he was rallying with some of our former friends at pro-Palestinian rallies in Chicago. How stupid we were when, instead of developing 'national consensus' with them, we organized media campaigns against Israel on behalf of the impoverished people who voted for them.

"During that time when we bought into the cause against Israel, treating resistance fighters like our brothers, we really should have been 'building consensus' with them. Because what we did . . . was . . . unnecessary antagonism, a product of a 'corrupt patronage system and unfair distribution of wealth.'"

"We stand today regretting the wasted time that could have been wisely spent talking to them, to the Syrian occupiers who brought them into our system, and the Iranian revolutionary guards who trained them."

The Lebanese see thru Obama's vision of "unity", and the serious damage following his Pied Piper vision can wreak. Why is it American's cannot?

But, as the sage and astute Rubin aptly says...

When Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama says he will negotiate with Syria and Iran over Iraq's future, he signals every Persian Gulf regime to cut its own deal with Iran. When his stances convince Hamas that he's the guy for them; when Iran and Syria conclude they merely need stand defiant and wait until January 21 for any existing pressure vanishes, the U.S. position in the Middle East is being systematically destroyed.

Note that this does not make Obama the candidate favored by Arabs in general but only by the radicals. Egyptians, Jordanians, Gulf Arabs, and the majorities in Lebanon and Iraq are very worried. This is not just an Israel problem; it is one for all non-extremists in the region.

If the dictators and terrorists are smiling, it means everyone else is crying.

Amen to that....