There’s a remarkable exchange from a May 2009 presidential press conference that is extraordinarily revealing.
Question: “Aren’t you concerned that your outstretched hand has been interpreted by extremists, especially [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, [Hizballah leader] Nasrallah, [Hamas leader] Meshal, as weakness?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it’s not clear to me why my outstretched hand would be interpreted as weakness.
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Yes, that’s the problem, isn’t it? I have often written that Obama does not accept the most basic principles of international relations. Why should he know any better since he lacks any experience while the advisors he most depends on usually also lack experience? In place of understanding and experience, they have an ideology that so distorts reality as to ensure failure.
(If you say that Obama is doing it on purpose, I would suggest that if that were true he’d be doing a better and less obviously incompetent job than he’s doing now.).
I think the above sentence from him is pretty sincere. He has no idea at all why apologies, unilateral concessions, undermining friends, and rewarding enemies doesn’t work. A lot of the problem is the absolute refusal of politically correct (but factually incorrect) politicians and intellectuals to understand that other people in certain parts of the world think differently from them. Indeed, this has been defined as “racist” thinking.
If Obama were to offer an “outstretched hand” to Canada, for example, of course it wouldn’t be “interpreted as weakness.” The two countries have a relatively similar history, system, and worldview. Both sides accept the other’s good intentions and desire for friendship. Neither seeks to conquer the other or institute a system that would dominate the region or even world.
That commonality doesn’t apply across certain cultural-intellectual-historical lines. Yet the previous sentence in this paragraph is not (or only barely) permissible. By being deprived of any understanding of these fundamental differences, students and the public simply cannot understand most of what’s going on in the Middle East.
Of course, a lot of the public has enough life experience to see what’s obvious. But the more “education” (consider “conflict resolution” training) one has under the current indoctrination, the harder for them to comprehend reality of this sort.
My education on this point was considerably advanced about 35 years ago when a very “Westernized” and “moderate” Egyptian fellow student explained to me that Israel and Ugandan dictator Idi Amin cooked up the hijacking of a passenger plane and all of its passengers to Entebbe. The goal of the plot was to let Israel rescue them and thus make that country look good. He really believed this to be true.
Contemporary behavior in the West (media, academia, government) rewards and humors such thinking. A turning point in my life came more than two decades ago when I was in a meeting with high-ranking Egyptian officials in Cairo. They were spouting the most incredible nonsense about the region, U.S. policy, and Israel.
What was the point for me, a researcher, to sit there and hear this recitation of propaganda, lies, and conspiracy theories that I’d already heard so many times? I wasn’t a diplomat there to flatter or befriend but rather to find out things. So I challenged them. The other members of the delegation were shocked and I was promptly disinvited from the rest of the trip.
This is excellent, although I would like to suggest another facet to Dr. Rubin’s diagnosis of Obama’s pathology:
Even if Obama might not believe all the scurrilous, hate-soaked rhetoric issuing from the Muslim world regarding Jews, Israel, the U.S. and the West (although he did sit through a lot of Rev. Wright’s sermons), such rhetoric does sit well with his own prejudices against those bulwarks of tradition and Western Civ. Thus, he probably doesn’t hear them and is probably not concerned, offended, or outraged by them, in the same way that a typical middle class, religious American Christian would be (you know, the sort of under achiever who clings to guns and religion and volunteers for the military rather than hang out at Columbia with Rashid Khalidi). In fact, I would not be surprised if Obama, upon hearing the worst such lies, nods to himself and thinks, “it may not be true, but they deserve it”.
You are leaving out the possibility that Obama wants to reduce the ability of the US to interfere in world affairs. He is trying to destroy our ability to afford any control of other countries, and has joined with the far left as a matter of belief both in their ideas, and that he can keep them from gaining total control. Of course, he may wish to just punish the US for it’s previous actions by making us as useless as Europe.
That President Obama either does not understand anything about the Middle East or his views simply coincide with those of the enemies of the US is clear. What is less clear is how is it possible that so many people in the US administration and the State Department continue to follow his policies rather than resign. Case in point is the outgoing US Ambassador to Israel
James Cunningham in his interview to the Jerusalem Post . http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=228430
Wikileaks showed that the US diplomats across the globe know what is going on and are informed and capable people. Yet none seems to have resigned so as not to be part of these weird policies of the Obama administration. They probably think that they just need to keep a low profile until Obama gets kicked out of office, even if that means letting the threat of a nuclear war with Iran increase enormously . There is no discussion on the infectiveness of MAD and Iran. The US is establishing contact with the Muslim Brotherhood ,Taliban and is supporting Assad. So what is going on? Where have all the experts from the time of the Cold War gone? Would they have permitted the USSR such a free hand?
A lot of the problem is the absolute refusal of Politically Correct (but Factually Incorrect) politicians and intellectuals to understand that other people in certain parts of the world think differently from them. Indeed, this has been defined as “racist” thinking.
It’s inasne to label it racist, even if we leave aside all the philosophical inconsistencies (e.g. to acknowledge the equality of different cultures you first have to acknowledge the existence of differences between cultures, yet acknowledging some of these differences is considered racist in itself). The contemporary European culture is radically different from the medieval European culture though they were both created by exactly the same race. Is it racist of me to say that they are different?
If the multiculturalists (MCs) hold that all different cultures are equally good, they must also agree that the medieval European culture is as good as the liberal democratic European culture – that monarchy is as good as democracy, that patriarchy is as good as gender equality, that killing gays is as good as letting them live in peace, that punishing blasphemers is as good as freedom of speech. In other words they have to relinquish all the liberal values and renounce politics all together because if all cultural values are equally good there is no reason to wish that one value will prevail over its opposite. If patriarchy is as good as gender equality why fight for women’s rights? In the name of anti-racism they will also have to agree that a culture that institutes race-based slavery is as good as a culture that forbids race-based slavery – they have to value racism as much as they value non-racism or else be considered racists for saying one culture is better than another.
Facing such difficulties, it’s no wonder they prefer to deny any difference and instead opt for the option that all cultures are essentially the same since all people want the same things and have very similar values. If indeed all people want exactly the same things and have the same values then there could never have existed any culture that is meaningfully different from the contemporary Western culture, so if an American woman living today will travel through time to medieval England she’d feel more or less eqaully comfortable as in New York in 2011, except for the strange and “exotic” dress and food and some bizarre, but insignificant habits. She could get a job, go to college, have several boyfriends before getting married at 30, open her own business, publish books, vote and run for office. Except women back then couldn’t do any of it and much of it wasn’t available to most men either, but maybe that’s not a significant difference? Did medieval Euros have social security? Equality before the law? Free elementary education for all? Did they value life above honor and glory or considered it cowardice not to risk your neck to defend your and your woman’s honor? Did they oppose imperialism? Slavery? Despotism? If not, then maybe people growing up in different cultures can have different values? Didn’t pre-Christian Romans have different values from Christian Europe? Didn’t Christian Europe have different values from post-Christian Europe? Isn’t it possible then that Muslim Arabia has different values from post-Christian Sweden?
So the last resort of the MCs must be time. Time changes everything everywhere and always in the same direction, so medieval Europe changed into liberal democratic Europe, and the “medieval Middle East” changed into… liberal democratic Middle East?
No. The only possible conclusion is that different cultures don’t have to be essentially different, but CAN be essentially different. There could be many common values, and yet be many values that are not common to all cultures. Some cultures can resemble each other more closely and others can be very different. Contemporary Japanese culture is similar to contemporary Western culture (did time cause that, or the influence of Western culture?). Contemporary Afghan culture is very different from both. Do Afghans think differently from Dutch? If people in Kabul were thinking the same as people in the Hague and Amsterdam, wouldn’t Kabul look and behave more like Amsterdam?
These are simple facts. If you acknowledge them you’d be a racist in the eyes of the MCs. If you deny them you’d be a liar and a fool. Which do you prefer?
Obama is a multi-culturalist without knowing any culture other than a small progressive circle in Chicago. He doesn’t even understand America. This is typical for the breed. Ignorance piled upon ignoramce making policy and not understanding when it doesn’t work.
I beg to differ just a little, BBC. Obama is utterly unfamiliar with any AMERICAN culture outside that of the Hyde Park progressives, but he’s intimate with the culture of Islamic Indonesia, in which he spent four formative years being educated in Islamic schools. Are his sympathies today any wonder?
Yes. There’s no question that he knows very well that there’s a great deal of difference in ways of thinking — those formative years in Indonesia, of course, taught him that. Anyone who has spent time in those parts of the world comes quickly to that understanding. And he’s very aware of U.S. and Western intellectual, but ignorant P.C. thinking as well … which he manipulates to his best advantage.
His motivations come from many directions. He’s very mixed up, incompetent, has many vague notions of ideology in which America is the bad guy in the world and her powers should be greatly diminished …. There’s no one defining answer to an analysis of him …. But make no mistake … he’s very shrewd and crafty, and knows full well where his policies are leading … and right now, they’re going as far as he can get them … in exactly the direction he wants.
“If you say Obama is doing it on purpose, I would suggest that if that were true he’d be doing a better and less obviously incompetent job than he’s doing now.”
Are you kidding?
He’s done an excellent, obviously competent job of taking us down up to now, and he’s getting better at it, too.
BHO is the ULTIMATE SLEEPER CELL, so don’t be surprised by anything he says or does. He will just keep doubling down on his failed policies…
The problem is that 0 pretends to know what he’s talking about. In these situations you really have to know.
by the way. I had a hard time getting past the link. I finnally clicked on the author to get in. everything else brought me back to the pj home page.
“Obama’s election doesn’t reflect American democracy but a ruling class plot.”
Stopped clock alert….
Yeah, the links on this article are messed up. I reported it to the tech dept.; hopefully this is the only article on site that’s improperly linked.
“In place of understanding and experience, they have an ideology that so distorts reality as to ensure failure.”
Well said. If you had to state the problem with Liberalism in one sentence, you could not do better than this one. In fact, it illuminates the problem in general when government is hijacked by an ideology. “Progressives” have just taken everything (lack of understanding and experience, distortion of reality) to new heights. Government should be a limited service function. We already have an ideology – “individual rights, freedom and responsibility” as established by the founders of this country.
It’s painfully obvious that there’s no one in the Obama administration that understands the Middle East, and it’s equally obvious that they don’t really understand America either. A pox on all their houses, and 2012 can’t come fast enough.
Can’t comprehend weakness? I suspect he not only comprehends, but also “intends”it.
We make a serious mistake when we attribute mere ineptness to this man.
Devious and purposeful is his agenda and it’s destroying America deliberately.
I don’t think it is his lack of understanding the middle east, as much as it is his insufferable ego and arrogance that will not let his see or understand anything. All he can see is himself, nothing else exists in his world.
It sure does seem that at times that his actions are purposeful, and some popular radio commentators have voiced the same thought. I am not convinced because those senators, representatives supporting him would sign on for the destruction of America. If they become aware of this agenda, they surly would break away. He is “over his head”, his handlers are in the same category, his clumsy verbiage, general knowledge of customs and history, he is lacking all these things to deal with crucial daily decisions, at least have the sense think about his words and actions and turn to some knowledgeable aid(which might not be around him)and listen. Just a thought.
We all are now familiar with the Muslim narrative about 9/11,the Holocaust and the Munich Olympics carnage being western conspiracies to malign Islam. Now, we have another chapter in this narrative, Entebbe. Anything which makes Jews look good or which makes Muslims look bad is, by definition, a western conspiracy.
I was sent on deputation by my British multi-national employers to Dhaka, Bangladesh in the mid-nineties to help with a Bangladeshi start-up. Both the two partners were Muslims. One was born and bred in Damascus and a hardline Islamist. The other was native born and ‘liberal’ in that he drank and smoked, did not pray five times a day and kept off politics. I was much interested in their respective reactions when the news of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister. Yitszak Rabin, came through. The liberal was clearly relieved that it was not a Muslim assassin, for that would make Muslims look bad. The Islamist darkly ‘predicted’ that, as usual, the real identity of the assassin would be hidden and a Muslim blamed, to make Muslims look bad.
I write to show that even ordinary Muslim joes in a relaxed Muslim country like Bangladesh are in thrall to the narrative of victimhood, no matter the facts.
Ordinary Muslims, like ordinary Blacks, are held in a ‘prison’, brain-washed by their respective puppet-masters. This is the natural pasture lands for the Left, giving rise to red-green and red-black coalitions. God help them.
Well said Professor Rubin. Obama’s perception of the Islamist clenched fist is that it will have a candy inside for HIM. After all, he is the Won!
I have mentioned what follows in previous comments: Christianity and Judaism flourished in Asia Minor, across all of North Africa, even in southern Spain until the sword of Islam conquered these areas in the 8th century. Christianity and Judaism suddenly could not be practiced in these areas except under the threat of death. The practice of Christianity and Judaism was banished by the new overlords.
Wonderful issues altogether, you simply gained a emblem new reader. What might you suggest in regards to your put up that you made some days in the past? Any certain?