The Obama Paradox

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline deftly sums up the central paradox of an Obama presidency:

There are two possibilities here. First, Obama might turn a deaf ear to key Arab leaders when they urge him to undercut Israeli interests. In that event, the summit almost certainly will be a failure, perhaps a spectacular one. Obama will come away with nothing. Our nation's standing...as an arrogant power unwilling to listen to others will be reinforced. The great agent of change will have changed nothing, except that, by enhancing the status of the dictators of Syria and Iran, he will have undermined the standing of the domestic opponents of those dictators.

The second possibility is that Obama’s interest in avoiding the above consequences, coupled with his inclination and that of his main advisers, will cause him to appease Israel’s opponents by tilting significantly away from Israel.