Alea: Yours is a wonderfully balanced and reasonable position, but I would highlight your last sentence as characteristic of the sort of messianism whereby all that is best about us we think we see reflected in Obama, the mirror of political and moral goodness.
Intrinsically, I don't think it is the US' duty to be pro-Israel, just as I don't think it is in the US' interest to be against it. At the international level, these are two different countries and there is no obvious reason I can think of why the US is quite so obsessive about Israel's problems. But there is a coherent place in principle where the US is friendly with Israel as a democratic and business partner, but neither takes its side in a knee-jerk fashion, nor sides against it. And I suspect that is what Obama is reaching for.
As to your suspicion, how do we know this? As for the general Obama messianism, is he really all that? No one can be. Obama looks to stand a good chance of winning, and thereby becoming the vessel of our inevitable disappointment.
matt25
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