Newt Gingrich's Burning Desire To Start Two New Wars

Good thing Newt Gingrich isn't fanning flames of discord between the United States and Israel or anything.

Former US House speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday blasted the Obama administration for setting itself on a collision course with Israel and endangering the Jewish state, ahead of his address that day to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference.

"They are systematically setting up the most decisive confrontation that we've ever seen," the leading Republican politician told The Jerusalem Post, referring to news reports about the administration's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"There's almost an eagerness to take on the Israeli government to make a point with the Arab world," he said.

He called US President Barack Obama's program of engagement on Iran a "fantasy," and his Middle East policies "very dangerous for Israel." He summed up Obama's approach as "the clearest adoption of weakness since Jimmy Carter."

That's just incredibly irresponsible talk, and Gingrich followed it up by comparing talking to Iran with talking to Hitler, as well as calling for two more wars in Iran and North Korea.

He comes from the serious, big-thinker wing of the Republican Party.

These are the views that did nothing but push Iran and North Korea further toward a nuclear weapons program under Bush and Cheney. They are both bad for American security and Israeli security. And they come on a day when, oddly enough, Middle East hopes were raised by Hamas' insistence that they have stopped rocket attacks, and their claim that they seek only a Palestinian state under 1967 borders (which intimates that they accept the existence of the Israeli state). Peace in the Middle East would harm Republican fortunes electorally, so they would rather sow belligerence, discord and terror.

I signed this J Street petition supporting the Obama Administration's agenda in the Middle East instead of failed policies that make us less safe. You should too.