For once in his rather lacklustre Presidency, Barack Obama seems to have done something genuinely controversial.
It's been reported that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, requested an audience with Obama during a recent visit to the United Nations in New York and was rebuffed by the President's aides, claiming that a meeeting couldn't be accommodated in his crowded schedule. This was apparently only the second time that the Israeli Premier had not met with the Unted States President during such a visit and it seems to have caused a bit of a diplomatic row.
Netanyahu clearly wanted to talk about his country's imagined problems with Iran and Obama equally clearly did not want to be put in a difficult corner a mere two months shy of the next Presidential election. There seems little doubt that Israel is trying to build up support for possible, even probable, military action against the regime in Tehran and was looking for a green light from Washington; Obama obviously didn't want to enter the final days of a very close electoral race having committed his country in any way to yet another conflict in the middle east.
Netanyahu is a crazy fanatic and, with the military force at his disposal, probably more dangerous than the madmen who rule Iran. Why the rest of the world doesn't come down on both lots of lunatics like a ton of bricks is the only real question.
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