Former President Barack Obama has a powerful presence in social and other forms of media. Just last week he took to the digital airwaves to mourn the passing of US football great Dick Butkus. 

This makes his silence on the current war in Israel all the more repugnant. 

As we write, he’s said nothing. But as thunderous as the silence is, it cannot come as a surprise. 

This is the future of the Middle East that Obama, in effect, wanted, fought for and now has achieved: Iran ascendant; nascent normalization between Israel and Arab states in jeopardy; the terrorist group Hamas emboldened and abetted by Tehran to strike viciously against soft targets within Israel. 

Why? 

Because for Obama, a fundamental restructuring of the region was the paramount goal — both in policy terms and to satisfy his own sense of himself as a world-historical figure. 

The Obama administration’s vision saw an empowered Iran as a fulcrum to force action from Israel on the Palestinian question.

Thus the Iran deal, which set the mullahs on the path toward nuclear breakout and regional hegemony they are now speeding down. 

Thus Obama’s support of political Islam elsewhere — be it the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey — and his cession of Syria to Vladimir Putin. 

Obama’s White House marketed this as “realism.” 

It was no such thing but rather part of a pernicious and (as we have now seen) wantonly destructive radical idealism that blamed America and her allies, like Israel, for all global suffering. 

The Trump years saw an interruption: a withdrawal from the Iran deal and a return to close alliances with our actual allies in the region. 

Yet the Biden White House has continued the work of Joe’s old boss, handing billions to Tehran in late September and now playing the lawyer and denying Iran’s obvious involvement in the savage Hamas attacks. 

If and when the former president speaks up, remember that he fought for this. And weigh his words accordingly. 

Update: Obama finally tweeted out condemnation of “the brazen terrorist attacks on Israel and the slaughter of innocent civilians” after 5 p.m. Monday, even calling for US support of “our ally, Israel, as it dismantles Hamas.” Pointedly, he finished by calling for “a just and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”