Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:08 pm
Perhaps it is because Republicans are embroiled in a race to see who can be the most extreme, or because of their intense desire to allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fear monger Americans into fighting another war against Muslims for Israel, but whatever their motivation, religious freak Mike Huckabee made a statement that rivals Donald Trump over the weekend. While he was at it, Huckabee took the time to compare President Barack Obama’s support of the United Nations’ P5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran to Adolf Hitler’s crusade to exterminate the Jewish people off the face of the Earth during the Holocaust.
In an interview on Saturday, Huckabee said the P5+1 Iranian nuclear President Obama supports will have the same impact as the Holocaust. Regardless that President Obama has said, ad nauseum, that he or the P5+1 coalition in no way trusts the Iranians, Huckabee said “It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. He will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal. It should be rejected by the American people. I read the whole deal. We gave away the whole store. It’s got to be stopped.” On his campaign website, Christian Huckabee has an entire page dedicated to serving the interests of his favorite nation that declares “the enemies of Israel are the enemies of America.” He also pledged that when he is president, “America will stand with the Jewish people in our shared fight against radical Islam and confront and stop Iran.”
Although all Republicans hew closely to Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu’s belief that unless Americans fight and die in another Middle East war at Israel’s urging, that was not Huckabee’s mindset prior to Barack Obama becoming President. Republicans, like most Americans, have always supported Israel regardless it has a substantial nuclear arsenal or its record of inhumanity toward innocent Palestinian civilians, it took Americans electing an African American President to transform Republicans into pseudo-Israelis; even after Netanyahu crusaded for America to wage a war against Iraq on behalf of Israel.
During a 2007 speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Huckabee had a different take on dealing with Iran that he did not equate with “marching Israelis into the ovens,” or call for what Republicans and Netanyahu want now, war with Iran. The preacher Huckabee said, “We haven’t had diplomatic relations with Iran in almost 30 years, my whole adult life. A lot of good it’s done us. Putting this in human terms, all of us know that when we stop talking to a parent or a sibling or a friend, it’s impossible to accomplish anything, impossible to resolve differences and move the relationship forward. The same is true for countries.”
So in 2007, two years before Americans would have an African American President that Huckabee and Republicans claim is Israel’s mortal enemy working tirelessly to march Jews into the furnaces, preacher Mike believed diplomacy was necessary to “move the relationship forward.” He also said in an essay in Foreign Affairs in 2008 that “the only way to contain Iran is through “aggressive diplomacy; especially working with China, Russia, and Europe using sanctions.”
It is exactly what President Obama and the United Nations’ P5+1 coalition have done that has Republicans, Netanyahu, and Huckabee crying ‘holocaust.’ A less extreme Huckabee wrote that “many Iranians are well disposed toward us,” and he noted that “Iran helped the U.S. during the Afghanistan war;” like they are helping the U.S. combat the dreaded Muslim extremists in ISIS. In fact, preacher Mike starkly contrasted Iran with Muslim extremists in 2008 and said, “Whereas there can be no rational dealings with al Qaeda, Iran is a nation-state playing the game of politics we understand and can skillfully pursue. We cannot live with al Qaeda, but we can live with a contained Iran.”
Huckabee also said in 2008 that if he is president, “Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons. But before I look parents in the eye to explain why I put their son’s or daughter’s life at risk, I want to do everything possible to avoid conflict. We have substantive issues to discuss with Tehran. Recent direct negotiations about Iraq have not been productive because they have not explored the full range of issues. We have valuable incentives to offer Iran: trade and economic assistance, full diplomatic relations, and security guarantees.”
So what happened to semi-rational Huckabee between 2008 and now that drives him to ardently condemn the President’s “aggressive diplomacy” to “do everything possible to avoid conflict?” Something horrible must have happened to send pastor Mike so off the rails that he accused the President of marching Israelis “to the doors of the ovens” for conducting “direct negotiations” and “exploring the full range of issues” to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Only Huckabee knows what gave him a change of heart, but unless his god whispered in his ear to do an about-face and join Netanyahu in seeking another Middle East war on behalf of Israel and the defense industry, it must be because President Obama is not a white guy. Or he has seen the dividends of extremism that keep Donald Trump in the news and very popular among Republican voters.
Although Netanyahu is in the midst of exerting his considerable influence as a Republican leader to stop the United Nation’s deal with Iran, former Israeli security leaders expressed support for the deal. Those Israelis had better curtail their support of the deal before Huckabee, Republicans, and Netanyahu accuse them of “marching Israelis to the doors of the ovens.” A former Israeli deputy national security adviser, Chuck Freilich, read the terms of the same Iran agreement that Huckabee did, but he did not fear-monger about President Obama leading Israelis to the doors of the ovens. He said, “the inspections provisions provide a high degree of confidence that Iran will not be able to renew the nuclear program without its being detected.” The former head of Israeli Army’s Operations Directorate, retired Major-General Israel Ziv, said of the deal that “it’s the best among all other alternatives.” And as a retired Major-General that “a military strike on Iran would not have delayed even 20% of what this agreement will delay.” As an aside, the P5+1 deal Netanyahu, Republicans, and Mike Huckabee hate cuts the amount of Iran’s low-enriched uranium by a whopping 96 percent to a figure well below the level of concern Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed before the U.N. in 2012.
At this juncture, it is likely that most Americans and most of the world’s residents understand that Republicans, the corporate military industrial complex, the Republican leader from Israel, and preacher Mike Huckabee desperately want Americans to fight and die in another Middle East war against Muslims; all on Israel’s behalf. However, Huckabee went far beyond accusing President Barack Obama of throwing Israel under the proverbial bus, and claimed his support for the United Nations P5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran is tantamount to Adolf Hitler taking Jews and marching them to the doors of the ovens.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
- Opinion: Lock Them All Up. Trump’s DOJ Violated U.S. Law By Ignoring His Crimes - Fri, Oct 22nd, 2021
- Opinion: The House Select Committee Can Avoid the DOJ and Arrest Steve Bannon - Mon, Oct 18th, 2021
- Opinion: Steve Bannon Belongs in Prison For Planning Another Violent Coup - Wed, Oct 6th, 2021
