U.S. Mideast Policy: Obama Knows Best?
Yes, U.S. policy in the Middle East is as bad as it seems. One of the WikiLeaked cables reveals that the U.S. State Department is engaging the Middle East from a naive, peace-at-all-costs point of view that ignores the region’s realities. The cable shows that when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton protests the fact that the Syrian government lied to her about its missile supplies to Hezbollah, she instructed those meeting with the Syrians on their talking points.
It is amazing how the Obama administration let the Syrian regime walk all over them. Yet it also fits with their philosophy:
“While our commitment to principled engagement with Syria — as demonstrated by Under Secretary Burns’ recent visit — remains strong, we must enlist additional French, British, Turkish, Saudi, Jordanian, and Qatari support to help dissuade Syria from expanding its ties to Hezbollah any further, especially via the transfer of additional sophisticated weaponry.”
Get that? It’s multilateralism in action. The United States cannot do anything on its own but has to enlist a half-dozen others. But, of course, the French government is soft on Syria, the Turks are now Syrian allies, Qatar wants to maintain good relationships with Iran and Syria, while Jordan is timid. As for the Saudis, they were struggling against Syria a year ago, but given the lack of U.S. support they gave up.
In other words, this threat is a joke and trying to implement it would certainly fail. Moreover, note how the U.S. position begins by reaffirming engagement when it should start by threatening to cut it off. Once the Syrians know they aren’t going to lose anything, why should they give up anything?
But there’s something else in another cable that is even better — which means that it is far worse:
Iran and Hezbollah both have interests that are not in Syria’s own strategic interest. I know you are a strategic thinker, which is why I want to underscore for you that, from our perspective, your operational support for Hezbollah is a strategic miscalculation that is damaging your long-term national interests.
Have you noticed that Obama administration officials keep telling people in the Middle East what they are supposed to want?
–The Syrians know that backing Iran and Hezbollah is in their strategic interest.
Of course, allying with Iran and Hezbollah isn’t in their interest if they want to join the West, open their doors to foreign investments, put the emphasis on raising living standards, make peace with Israel, and then what? Give up their dictatorship and have a democracy?
Frankly, why should the U.S. have any policy at all vis-a-vis Israel? Either we support it, or we don’t. The Arabs have made it crystal clear since the 1800′s with respect to Jewish settlement anywhere in “Muslim” lands that they are opposed. Yes, some Ottomans who were absentee landlords did sell land to Jews. Yes, Balfour said Britain should create a “Jewish State” in ‘Palestine.’ Yes, in 1947 the UN did vote for the partition of ‘Palestine’ and the creation of an independent Jewish State to be called “Israel.” No, no significant portion of the Arab world ever agreed to any of that. Yes, the Qu’ran orders faithful Muslims to either convert, kill, or enslave all non-believers, but especially Jews. Yes, so do the ahadith. Yes, most “progressive” elite politicians the world over refuse to acknowledge those facts. So either the Christians and Jews of the world tell the Muslims that, indeed, we will defend Israel’s right to exist or we acquiesce to the annihilation of Israel as a nation, the Jewish people currently living there, and the most basic tenets of Western Civilization, which is primarily a Judeo-Christian construct.
Are the Israelis always fair and correct in how they treat the Arabs? No. Are the Arabs always fair in how they treat the Jews? No.
Is there any solution to the “Israeli/Palestinian” conflict? Not so long as the Arabs are preaching jihad and slaughter of the Jews both in Israel and elsewhere in the world.
“Frankly, why should the U.S. have any policy at all vis-a-vis Israel?”
Because it is our moral duty, along with other Western states, to do so. We witnessed the Holocaust. And all of Europe had a hand in it. America and most of Europe supported the partition plan that gave rise to the state of Israel at the end of the 1940s. Israel was an extremely important ally to America during the Cold War (particularly with regard to intelligence gathering). Israel is the only true democracy in the entire Middle East. And Israel has suffered horrifically from the same Jihadi death-cultists as America has had to face. So we have to ask ourselves, are we a nation that cuts & runs when the going gets messy? Or are we a great and historic nation that by God sticks by its allies and defeats its enemies?
BECAUSE: OBAMA KNOWES BEST, (joke) he really thinks whatever he says, is correct? its his way or no way….he will fall on his own, as everyone knowes what he’s up too, and ”WE THE PEOPLE” are ready.WE MUST STAND UP BEFORE ITS TOO LATE.
Israel is not a “true democracy”. Jewish folks have the upper hand in society there. This is not democracy unless you think Jews getting together to vote on what happens to Israel’s Arab citizens is fair play.
Dr. Rubin you sent me a wonderful cartoon about how the Phd.’s who run the Obama foreign policy don’t have an ounce of sense among them. The cartoon was certainly funny and just about as frightening. The American Left, Obama, and his Phd.’s have a narrative stuck in their heads which makes out a tiny but hugely oppressive and provocative Israel and her oppressive relationship with the Palestinians to be the scourge of the modern world. They believe this so much so that it has figuratively blinded them to the reality of the Middle East, and that is the nuclearization of Iran, the alliance of Syria, Iran, and soon Lebanon, and the real and immediate threats all of these events combined will present.
And there is nothing, absolutely nothing that you, me, Israel, or anyone else can do to either change this or influence this. Dr. Rubin, even your possession of a Phd. doesn’t get you any influence either with Obama’s Phd.’s because you don’t agree totally with them!
God help us!
There will be no peace in that region so long as Hamas and Hezbollah control the Palestinians. And there will be no major war with Israel until Iran gets a nuclear weapon. When that day comes, Iran will give Hezbollah a nuclear weapon to use against Israel. I doubt that they will use it, because a major nuclear blast in Israel would probably kill as many Palestinians as Israelis. But the threat of such an attack against Israel will set the whole region on fire and would probably launch a huge war engulfing the entire Middle East, maybe even a world war. Time is running out and soon Iran will have its bomb. Lets hope that computer virus in the Iranian nuclear power plants keeps working until 2012, when we get a new Republican president.
“I doubt that they will use it, because a major nuclear blast in Israel would probably kill as many Palestinians as Israelis.”
The One and The Hill think the same way. What everyone is overlooking is that to Islamists, martyrdom isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Especially if it’s everybody else that end up as the martyrs.
You will know when the Iranian mullahs give Hisb’Allah or Hamas a nuke. Because there will be a very large mushroom cloud where a Western city used to be. In fact, probably more than one over more than one city.
Just don’t count on all of them being in Israel. (Something else The One and The Hill can’t seem to process.)
clear ether
eon
Another example of the depth of Barry Soetero’s wisdom. Obama’s left to run this dog and pony show since the Democrat Party cannot enrich themselves so readily as they can with domestic policy. Not enough cash, corruption or votes there for this Regime to get involved with, at this point.
Wherever you find incompetent policy being implemented, you’ll find Barracky boy’s autograph and endorsement.
It’s the classic problem of the left. Namely ‘people don’t want what they are suppose want’.
The Syrian leaders would kill every last Israelie if they thought they could survive the act. The Syrian people and the Arab people would hail them as heroes if they did kill them all. This fact is totally lost on Americas campus liberals.
We should just wipe our hands of this region and let them sort it out themselves. It’s a horribly dysfunctional backwater filled with horribly bigoted people. Not worth our time.
Obama has no clue about how to run THIS country, let alone give advice to other countries! In two years maybe we will have a grown-up for a president who knows how to lead and who can command respect from others. This country has always supported Israel and should continue to do that.It is the only friend we have in the Middle East, and while no one seems to point this out, the only ones we can count on not to attack us.
Well there was that little incident with the USS Liberty. I’m an Israel supporter but not blind supporter. Although Israel is a high functioning democracy, it is all about them and I don’t consider them a true ally like the British. But they are the only country in the Middle East that isn’t completely whacked out!
What exactly is the purpose of diplomacy? It is to achieve a country’s aims, other than by war. This definition strongly implies that if diplomacy fails war follows. It would seem that for this administration talk is an end in itself. Obama knows what the Muslims want, and he’s trying his best to get the Israelis to commit suicide, without much success. What he is saying to the Muslims is for the American citizens’ to hear, only. Of course, he is more than stupid enough to believe what he is saying.
Hey, here’s a great idea. Obama should just start making stuff up about how Palestine is enriching uranium. Biden could go on all the news shows and warn us about how in a post-911 world we can’t afford to wait for a mushroom cloud. Then Gates can show congress some phony baloney photoshopped images of Palestinian unranium enrishment sites and tell us that a nuclear apocalypse is nigh. Then we;ll have no choice but to invade and wipe out whatever is left of Palestinian resistance, and Obama’s business cronies can build shopping malls and Burger Kings in Gaza, and the Israelis can move in and take over and we can all just pretend none of it ever happened. Problem solved.
Maybe He knows better because He is a Muslim?
Today’s http://sabq.org/sabq/user/news.do?section=4&id=1526
“Obama: I’m ready to proclaim that I am a Muslim”
No real surprise here. Obummer is talking down to foreign heads of state in the same matter that he talks down to the American populace. “Look you ignorant people, you are not doing the right thing. You are supposed to do things the right way, because I say it is the right way, for your own benefit cf course.” It comes across as arrogant AND incompetent, since the Obummer’s world view does not encompass the national security of Israel, Palestine, or the Gulf states. The Saudi princes and the Israeli cabinet must wonder which Earth Obummer thinks he is inhabiting. Syria and Iran aren’t too concerned, because the lack of focus and willpower in Washington these days is beneficial to their plans of dominating the Middle East. Turkey has already given up on us, the others must be hanging on out of courtesy, or the sheer lack of desire to kowtow to Teheran.
Since Iran is a shi’ite country, they have no designs on a hegemony over the Sunni Arab world that will never happen – Iran knows this. They simply want to express their national will like others do to the best of their ability and this will is based on fear and overweening arrogance.
The Saudis fear Iran because the Saudi oil is in an area with a lot of Shi’ites and close to Iran and to the choke point of Hormuz. Obama has bought into the idea that Israel is an apartheid and colonialist state and that the middle east is composed of merely disgruntled Arabs who would live in peace if a few million Israelis didn’t want to take over the half billion who live in the middle east. People here in Egypt and in Syria I’ve talked to honestly believe this – most of them.
Obama doesn’t know any more about foreign policy than a hen and this is why he has done a 180 on every major issue abroad when he took office; obviously he got an earful and eyeful by those who know better. Obama thought that not being white meant he was an expert on countries with no white people like native Americans who will tell you the whole distorted history of Mexico and America, as if skin color awards PHD’s. Believe me when I say this happens as in Minnesota I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve shut down while erstwhile “historians” in pre-Columbian America can’t tell you who Cabeza da Vaca was.
I doubt if Obama knows anything about middle eastern history or anything in the region. If you asked him about the Grand Catalan Company, the Fatimids or Bohemond he’d draw a blank. He’ll shake the dice in his hand and never throw them.
An attempt to answer this question:
WHEN IS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND ALL THOSE “EXPERTS” WHO CONTINUE TO SAY THIS KIND OF NONSENSE GOING TO WATCH WHAT MIDDLE EAST RULERS ARE DOING AND LISTEN TO WHAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY SAYING?
It is not going to happen with “all those ‘experts’” because “those experts” are self anointed and surrounded by others equally so who are convinced that their view is absolutely the right one and any evidence to the contrary is to be scorned as the ravings of a radical, right wing group of Islamophobes and unworthy of even cursory consideration.
And they and their media sycophants will sit deaf and dumb while CAIR mounts a vigorous, costly, widely reported and supported legal defense claiming any intelligent, in depth review of the readily available evidence is a “racist” attack on Islam, that vaunted “religion of peace” that will result in an international outburst of violence from that “peaceful” Muslim community around the world. There will be death and destruction if they dare to open their mouths and utter other than what they’re entitled in their eagerly earned and accepted dhimmi status and no one will remark on the obviously oxymoronic foundation of the argument.
This view of Islam as a ‘religion of peace” is so firmly ingrained in the western culture that it may take years before reality sinks in, if it ever does, before the Islamic global Caliphate, the imposition of Sharia law and the completion of the holocaust that Hitler started is complete. This is where the world is headed unless those in a position to do something about it before it’s too late, wake up and face this threat head on. The crowd in power now, from the Government to the military to the main stream media, are mesmerized by their politically correct views and in a state of total denial.
Oh come on Homer don`t you know that Obama and his comrades in Washington are so much smarter than anyone else. Obama just has a hard time explaining his stupid ideas because he is so much smarter than the rest of us. Obama has gotten away with more speaking gaffes than any president in recent history. I do not care what you call me, Obama has been pushed by the lame stream media, because he is black and easy to manipulate. He has no experience running anything and it really shows now. It is a shame that this black man is embarrassing his black culture and the rest of America. I would like to see Obama read some material by Thomas Sowell, Star Parker, Joe Hicks, Martin Luther King or ZO all of which happen to be great black writers and Americans. There are many, many more I could add to this list, but you would not believe a dumb old white man like me. My suggestion is start with Mr. Sowell, he makes everything clear and easy to understand!
Why do all the intellectuals who speak and write to suposedly “inform”, leave void from their speeches and writing anything critical to factual historic background?
To answer the question posed by this author and so many others, why do they not start with Post WWII, the UN blueprint and the “special” relationships of the French and Brits? The foreign relations problems we find ourselves in today in the Persian Gulf Region, [starts] from that era. Korea and Vietnam again, from that era. The U.S. has been meddling into nations of the entire region and other regions of the world, since shortly after WWII…effectively forcing a UN global strategy and nation building.
Had the U.S. come home post WWII and stayed out of the development and membership of the UN and it’s visions for the future, it would be a significantly different world today. The UN global vision was the begining of the end. Likewise, the U.S. would have militarily remained a constitutional military of defense…..NO nation building! The UN from its origins, set in concrete, the U.S. foriegn relation policies and strategy that has ended in so much world strife as we’re seeing today….and we shouldn’t ignore the UN’s influences on the worlds economies…including our own.
The UN strategy started as a small cancerous tumor and has never stopped growing! Add to this, the development of oil in the Persian Region and America’s industrial appetite for it along with conflicting agreements for military defense to member nations of the region.
The BIG question is, how does the U.S. get out of this ongoing mess of six decades with so many standing enemies and potential enemies….ideological AND economic.
You hit the nail on the head. The UN has been nothing but a money drain and a problem for America. It is a collection of the worlds best thieves. Why should Americas have to protect Europe and Japan. While we leave our own borders unsecured. The UN has to go!
We do not need middle east oil, we have enough of our own oil here. It is just that our politicians are being bought off by these so called environmentalist. Who happen to be just rich people who think they are saving the planet BS, and they have to much time on their hands. America sends billions to Mexico and Brazil to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and off Brazil`s coast. They do this for two reasons, one to spread the wealth and two they can get away from the American environmentalist so they are not restricted by so many environmental laws!
What if Obama took all the money we give to corrupt countries and put it into research and development for some type of solar energy to heat our homes and fuel our cars? What if he made a speech alá John Kennedy about men on the moon by 1970 in regards to this? What if we licensed this technology to the rest of the world on a paying basis, and sued in international courts if anyone used it without paying?
This is leadership and vision. Obama is just a common Orwellian thug and he is in way over his head when it comes to this complex nation led by corrupt politicians indulging themselves in legalized ponzi schemes like Matt Tabbi writes about in Rolling Stones which are some of the most disheartening exposé’s I have read in a long life. Our infrastructure is being sold to Arabs with the money they earn off of us and government bureaucracies are defrauding homeowners like there’s no tomorrow.
IF the world were to pay the U.S. simply dollar-for-dollar what we have invested in it early 20th century to date, the U.S. would be about $130 TRILLION (pre 2007 value) in the black today. [The $130 trillion is my estimate and I would love to see somebody more qualified, research it.]
As to the UN. It is, in many ways, a valuable asset being located where it is. We could easily develop the intelligence apparatus and assets without being a member. In a more perfect present, we could dump the world bank IF, we were to restore our nations superiority in a *secure* industrial manufacturing and R&D. Not like we don’t have a historical point of reference for what made us once to great, strong and wealthy. The ongoing domestic and global socialist progressive ideological revolution is the only thing that has destroyed our once greatness!
Yes, by all means dump the UN…no money and no real estate in Manhattan…I used to think, like all big governments, the UN had some functions that were beneficial. That was until UNESCO declared that “Rachel Tomb” was Arab.
Yes, and the capital format is deliberate: BRAVO!!!!!!!