July 24, 2008 (LPAC)--In a side-show intended to do nothing more than discredit the candidate and demoralize the base of the Democratic Party, Obama recently finished his whirl-wind summer tour of Southwest Asia. Before arriving in Israel on Tuesday night to threaten war against Iran, Barack Obama gave an interview to CBS-TV, calling for an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and claiming that the troops and the money that the Bush Administration has put into Iraq, should have gone into Afghanistan instead. Obama also pointed out that he's been calling for more troops for Afghanistan for over a year.

Obama was also in Jordan on Tuesday where he met King Abdullah II, who told him that the US should adopt an "even-handed" policy on Israel Palestine. However, Obama proudly stressed that he doesn't intend to change the current U.S. approach.

Upon arriving in Israel, Obama made a statement supporting Israel's attack on the alleged nuclear site in Syria – something about which the Israeli government itself has been very circumspect. "I think that there was sufficient evidence that the [Syrians] were developing a site using a nuclear blueprint that was similar to the North Korean model." Then, according to Ynet, he used a line that was coined by Benjamin Netanyahu: "The Israelis live in a very tough neighborhood where a lot of folks publicly proclaim Israel as an enemy and then act on those proclamations."

Obama also visited the town of Sderot, where he gave a press conference stressing his "unshakeable commitment to Israel's security," and said that "the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

"I will take no options off the table in dealing with this potential Iranian threat," Obama said, adding that, "A nuclear Iran would be a game-changing situation not just in the Middle East, but around the world."

Besides meeting with top Israeli and Palestinian officials, Obama also met with Likud Party chairman "Bibi" Netanyahu. After their meeting, Netanyahu said that Israeli-Palestinian relations and Iran were the main points of their talk. "The Senator and I agreed that the primacy of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power is clear, and this should guide our mutual policies," Netanyahu said in a statement.