Like 44's FoPo?
Aside from Drones Gone Wild, court fighting to keep the Forever Detentions in Gitmo a loaded term in attorney jurisprudence, shadow wars and mystery explosions - has Great Satan"s Foreign Policy been all that?
The cat who was once a foreign-policy neophyte now makes much of his experience. That claim depends heavily on a program of targeted assassination that liberals would have denounced if it had been pursued by his predecessor.Pic - "In the headlights"
Try this: “I’ve come here ... to seek a new beginning between Great Satan and m"Hammedists around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings ... Let there be no doubt: m"Hammedism is a part of America.”
That was from a speech given by 44 in Cairo on June 4, 2009. Funny how small a difference 30 years make. Same old pious hopes for respect, reverence for law, and tolerance. And, in return, the same disrespect, illegality, and intolerance. The embassy in Tehran then, the consulate in Benghazi now.
Here’s what happens to American presidents who look to be loved in the Middle East. In 2008, the year Obama won the presidency with his pledge to end 43’s wars, 75 percent of Egyptians had an unfavorable opinion of Great Satan. Today it’s 79 percent. Four years ago, that was the percentage of Jordanians with a negative view of Great Satan Now it’s 86 percent.
“It is much safer to be feared than loved,” Machiavelli teaches us. Today America is neither. Consider the wider ramifications of the Middle Eastern crisis. Revolutions have succeeded, with halfhearted American support, in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Among the beneficiaries have been staunch anti-American organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. The United States continues to give Egypt more than $1 billion a year in aid, roughly the price of the two attack submarines the Egyptians are buying from Germany. The country was once America’s ally. Last week the president conceded it is now neither our enemy nor our friend.
America’s most dependable ally in the region is Little Satan. Repeatedly this year Prime Minister BiBi has pleaded with 44 to draw a “red line” on Iran’s nuclear program rather than give a “red light” to preventive military action. Last week the White House declined even to meet with BiBi when he visits Great Satan later this month. Even Haaretz (no fan of Bibi) regards this as a mistake.
Maybe you think 43’s invasion of Iraq was a worse mistake, though it gave that country democracy, showed Arabs that dictators can be toppled, and turned an enemy into a potential ally. But consider the consequences of this president’s decision to pull out of Iraq. Two months ago, at least 100 Iraqis perished in a wave of bombings and shootings by al Qaeda in Iraq, which aims to overthrow the Shia-led government of Nuri al-Maliki. Last week the country’s Sunni vice president was sentenced to death. Meanwhile, Kurdistan is acting like an independent state (or, rather, a satellite of Turkey). Iraq is falling apart.
As for Syria, while 44 fiddles, her cities burn in a civil war that could soon eclipse Lebanon’s in the 1980s.
