The author thinks out of the box. While he says that Obama is pro-Iran which is shiite, he doesn’t explan why he is building up the MB and Turks who are Sunni. But then again the MB is the enemy of the Saudis. I just got started on an article to point out that Saudi and Israel interests are the same in Syria, Iran and in opposing the MB. I believe they are working together to oppose these common enemies, Ted Belman
Obama’s Iranian Nuclear policy can be summed up as “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” and Saudi Arabia is in even more danger than Israel.
Mark Langfan, INN
Remember, for one second, in January 2011, before even a dozen demonstrators were killed, a small herd of camel-riding Mubarakists rode into Tahrir Square trampling some protesters underfoot, and Obama immediately flew into an apoplectic rage, gliding close to personally claiming that Mubarak was a war criminal for attacking peaceful “democratic” demonstrators.
But in February 2012, after Assad has murdered over 10,000 Sunni mostly totally unarmed civilians by lobbing barrages of multiple rounds of artillery into Homs, why is Obama all but numbingly silent in-between his own barrages of multiple rounds of 18-hole golf?
The reason: the US President Obama has artfully and silently pivoted US Middle East Policy from a Pro-Saudi, Anti-Iran paradigm to a Pro-Iran, Anti-Saudi imperative.
Crazy you say? The Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim, attending at a recent Gulf security conference with US diplomats, “undiplomatically” for over 18 minutes calmly stated, in essence:
- 1) “US Policy is the Number One threat” to the Gulf States;
2) America “has realized the dreams of Iran in Iraq;”
3) the US has “adopted the path and ideology of Khomeini;” and
4) the US “is no longer an ally” of the Gulf States.
To frame the instant question with a sharper point:
- Why did President Obama, in his 2009 Cairo Speech, pro-actively incite and reflexively, over Saudi Arabia’s infinite anger, support the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, who was the US’ stalwart Sunni American ally for over 30 years and who acted as the sole-substantial Sunni Arab counterweight to Iran? How come the Nobel Prize-winning Obama unflinchingly allows Assad, a Shiite/Alawite, confirmed state-sponsor of terror, funneler of IEDs in Iraq which murdered thousands of US soldiers, and a stalwart ally of Shiite Iran, to cold-bloodedly massacre what is now over ten thousand unarmed Sunni Muslims?
And why did President Obama anoint the Shiite Al Maliki, a known-Iranian stooge, as the omnipotent new-Shiite Saddam of Iraq, sideline the Iraqi Sunnis, and compound the decidedly pro-Shiite tilt by tacitly handing the keys of Iraq over to Iran leaving the Sunni Gulf states to fend for themselves against the a combined Iraq/Iran Shi’ite colossus from the North and East?
Why does Obama constantly refer to the ragtag, disjointed, barely-existing Sunni al Qaeda as the “greatest threat to the US” when the Shiite Iran and its Hizbullah and Iraqi based proxies have killed many times more US soldiers and US civilians in the past 20 years than al Qaeda has, – and Iran is nearing the acquisition of nuclear bomb and constantly claiming Israel is a “cancerous tumor” that needs to be “cut out” of the Middle East?
The answer can be found in Obama’ first documented foreign “policy” speech in 2002 dubbed the “Iraq War Speech” where Obama unambiguously declared:
- “You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality. . . .” – Barack Obama’s
- dated Oct. 2, 2002
From Obama’s very first recorded words on US foreign policy, Saudi Arabia, and not Iran, was to Obama, America’s Number one enemy.
President Obama’s inimical abhorrence of the House of Saud was further codified in US President Obama’s May 19, 2011 major Foreign Policy speech where he repeatedly explicitly attacked Bahrain, Saudi’s key ally, as well as again clearly targeting the “elite” Saud Family when he stated:
- Prosperity also requires tearing down walls that stand in the way of progress -– the corruption of elites who steal from their people; the red tape that stops an idea from becoming a business; the patronage that distributes wealth based on tribe or sect. – NY Times, 5/19/11 “Obama’s Mideast Speech”
Obama, from his 2002 speech on a Chicago street to his 2011 speech at the State Department, sees the House of Saud as the very personification of Obama’s “elites who steal from their people,” and of “the patronage that distributes wealth based on tribe or sect.”
But Obama’s one act which symbolically crystallizes the essence of what has been, is, and will be the Obama Doctrine is Obama’s very first act as US President. Obama’s first act was he formally and publically returned the bust of Winston Churchill to Great Britain that had long adorned the Bush Oval Office.
Obama viscerally rejected Churchill’s White House presence because it was Winston Churchill and his “Lawrence of Arabia” generation of British foreign establishment that, in effect, had “divided and conquered” the Muslim Ummah, and empowered the balkanized Sunni “elite” kingdoms at the expense of the Shi’ites and the Ottoman Empire. While empowering the local Sunni Kingdoms, Churchill disempowered a possible unified Muslim Caliphate, and the Shi’ites.
At core, to Obama, Lawrence of Arabia wasn’t a heroic liberator of Arabia, but a villainous enslaver of the Ummah. To Obama, the Churchill’s very Middle East “borders” themselves are colonial vestiges which divide and enshackle the Muslim Ummah and prevent it from achieving its true greatness and superpower status on a par with the EU, the US, China, and Russia.
Consequently, Obama, from day one of his US Presidency, has been the first anti-Winston Churchill US President. The Obama Doctrine is “Whatever Churchill did, Obama would, and will, undo.” Churchill empowered the Sunnis, Obama will dispossess the Sunnis. Churchill created Israel, Obama will dismember Israel.
Within this tightly focused foreign policy imperative, Obama sees the total empowerment of Iran as the quickest and surest route to obliterate the shackles of the Churchill’s vestigial enslaving pro-Sunni “elite” localized fiefdoms that practically prevent the unification of the Muslim Global Ummah.
As a consequence, of the “Obama Doctrine”, Obama’s Iranian Nuclear policy can be summed up as “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” As a result, Obama’s overall Iranian political empowerment policy in Iraq and Afghanistan and Lebanon isn’t weakness, “naivete,” or “vacillation,” but Obama’s central overarching, immutable goal. Obama plays Turkey like the “useful idiot” “sick man” it still is.
Yes, common Iranians are paying a lot more for bread. Yes, the Iranian Rial is all but worthless. But by all accounts, the sanctions have only sharpened and accelerated Iran’s timeline to build an atomic bomb, and stopped any attempt to militarily stop Iran’s nuclear program. Iran understands Obama’s need to “false flag” Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon into believing Obama’s Justice Department’s sanctions are doing something. Otherwise, Obama’s Pro-Iran policy would be impossible to hide.
With the Obama Doctrine, Obama’s entire foreign policy makes sense: It explains why Obama toppled Egypt, Saudi Arabia’s key Sunni ally. In a heartbeat, Obama rendered Egypt permanently paralyzed to assist the Saudis against Iran. As a result, Obama made the Saudis feel warm and fuzzy after the Mubarak betrayal by “selling” them 50 gazillion dollars of US weapons – that will be delivered a decade after Iran gets and uses its nukes, and successfully attacks Saudi Arabia’s Eastern/Persian Gulf oil fields that hold 95% of Saudi’s oil.
In accordance with this doctrine, Obama obliterated the Sunni Qaddafi with hundreds of million dollar Tomahawk missiles, deleting the precious cache of Tomahawks (for possible use against Iran) where there was a truly heavily armed Libyan opposition who could fight for themselves and instead left an absolute Islamist maelstrom wrapped in chaos enveloped in bedlam and mayhem. As a result, Obama has mutely watched well over ten thousand Syrian Sunnis be massacred by Iran’s Shi’ite handmaiden, Assad, and hasn’t even shipped in one 5 kilometer range anti-tank weapon that would easily spay Assad’s rampaging tanks and artillery.
Somehow Reagan wasn’t afraid to send the Afghans anti-air stingers down Soviet helicopters when the USSR had 5,000 ICBM nukes locked and loaded at Washington DC, but Obama is petrified to send embattled Sunni Syrian unarmed civilians a single Band-Aid, lest Obama might upset Iran and his ability to close his Iranian Nuclear Grand “Bargain” just in time for the 2012 elections.
And as a final policy puzzle piece, Obama’s noisy objection to an Israeli attack on Iran is, in reality, a deafeningly silent total rejection of Saudi Arabia’s push for America to militarily attack Iran. The Saudis know Iran is infinitely more of a threat to Saudi Arabia than to Israel.
Obama has publically amped up the five-alarm fire-fight with Israel to make the Iran issue appear to be an “Israel only” issue, thereby preemptively embarrassing the Saudis out of even asking for the US to strike. For as long as Obama and his minions are vituperatively publicly attacking Israel about an Israeli attack and even threatening to do a “reverse-Liberty” and shoot down attacking Israeli planes, the Saudis know they have no hope of even broaching the “Attack Iran” issue with Obama.
So for Obama it’s a win-win-win, actively attack Israel, blame Israel for destabilizing the Middle East, attack Israel’s American supporters as dual loyalists, and passively pre-reject the Saudis request for an attack on Iran’s facilities before the Saudis even ask for one.
What all this means is Obama has quietly turned 50 years of US Foreign policy on its head without even a single congressional hearing. If Obama isn’t sending Band-Aids to Homs, he sure ain’t sending Bunker-busters to Fordo.
The Egyptian “Pillar” of US strategic interests is now yesterday’s dust. The vaunted Saudi “Pillar” of US Middle East policy since World War I is now a prime US target for destruction. Israel is live bait. Obama’s true foreign policy objective seems to be nothing less than the full nuclear weaponization of Iran. Anything else is a smoke-screen for Obama to look like he’s doing something, but in reality he is doing nothing to stop Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
In conclusion, Obama is actively “democratically” toppling all U.S. Middle East allies, and soon a nuclear-armed Iran will control 70% of the World’s Oil Reserves, charging $500 a barrel for oil.
Under the Obama “Domino” Doctrine, in the not so far future, the House of Saud and all the Gulf monarchies will be the very first “elite” colonial vestiges which will have to be annihilated by Iran for Iran to unify the Muslim Ummah to achieve its historical and rightful greatness and power. In the longer-term, once Iran has liquidated the House of Saud and acquired its limitless oil wealth, the Iranian Rial and the price of bread for the common Iranian will return to normal, and Iran can the focus on destroying Israel.
And in the short-term, Obama and the world will watch Assad commit a holocaust against the unarmed Syrian Sunnis, and, of course, Obama’s golf game will see some improvement.
Dweller,
Yes, yes I know that Edward Said is dead. For all I know (and I don’t either way, nor care), Khalid Al Mansour may be as well. But since I knew Rashid Khalidi was still around and was giving Mansour the benefit of the doubt, I was speaking “collectively” in that case. I should have worded that “are (were)” instead of simply “are”. Sorry for my sloppy composition in that case.
For those of you who don’t already know, Mansour (or it might be spelled, “Monsour”) is a black American Muslim who once acted as an advisor to the Saudi monarchy. He was known to have some sort of relationship with Obama, acting in a kind of mentoring capacity. Some have suggested that he arranged for the Saudis to bankroll Obama’s education at Harvard, though this has not been proven so far as I am aware.
Ed Said was one of Obama’s professors at Columbia during Obama’s undergrad days there.
And, I’ll bet the Saudis really do bankroll the Ninth Circle of Hell. Why not? They bankroll about everything else….
Glenn Beck has made a very powerful case – before the Saudi sponsors of FOX got him kicked off the air for supporting Israel – that Soros is a major power behind Obama. I’m sure that is true, but that is not Obama’s only master. I think the Soros influence is more weighted towards domestic policy, whereas the Saudi influence is more towards foreign policy, excepting Iran, where their “Frankenstein monster/HAL computer” has gone out of control, precisely becuase of his prior programming, as I described earlier.
Ed,
Sure is, as you figured out.
He’s rumored to be one of Obama’s favorite strategic analysts.
Yep, ole’ George F. is a pretty amazing guy. I saw him on FOX once, explaining how ultimately, we were going to have another war with Japan. Really. He was completely serious. He even co-authored a book about that subject, “The Coming War with Japan” or something like that. That’s when I started tuning him out completely. The guy clearly smoked way too much dope in college (like most of the people who advise Obama).
Not Edward Said. (Unless the Saudis are bankrolling the ninth circle of Hell these days.)
Said has been dead for some eight or nine years.
Probably Soros. I’ve been saying pretty much the same thing as you, Vinnie, about the president’s overrated intellect for the past five-or-so years that I’ve been aware of him. I seriously doubt that he’s got the depth to conceive as grand a plan as Mark Langfan projects onto him. (Langfan may have it, but BHO surely doesn’t.) He’s good at sounding smart, like Chrétien delivering Cyrano’s words to the astoundingly shallow Roxane; but that’s the long & the short of him.
Moreover, Obama isn’t a Muslim any more than he’s a Christian. When he went into politics he “signed up” as a congregant in the most influential Black church he could find — but not because he’s a “believer” — secular academics typically see themselves as above such things as religion (of any sort). The Black Church is the oldest functioning, Black social institution in America, and it’s where power is generated in the black community.
If this were a Muslim country, he’d have joined a mosque — and for essentially the same reason.
So I doubt that the Sunni-Shia thing is even on his radar. (Or even, likely, the radar of any of the “thinkers” that whisper sweet nothings in his ear in return for a paycheck provided by the taxpayers.)
In re the Saudi-Iran-Israel matter and who is, or isn’t Public Enemy No. 1 according to the Gospel of His Anointedness: Seems hard to make a case for the notion that the country whose king received the very public, full-bow-from-the-waist of POTUS is actually to be seen now as this Administration’s ‘enemy.’
Moreover, apparently the recent $60B deal — largest munitions transaction in US history — is the Administration’s way of (among other things) signaling its intention of not preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weaponry. But not because BHO sees Iran as a ‘friend’ or even a neutral player; that would really be a stretch, even in the fetid caverns of Foggy Bottom skullduggery. (He can’t displease his leftwing base, and they WANT Iran to get the Bomb — if only to give Israel the finger for being such a nasty [& maddeningly successful]colonialist mofo.)
The idea behind the humongous munitions deal is, rather, to allay Sa’udi fears of Iranian nuclear ascendancy — by massively upgrading the Sa’udi airforce: in an obsessively myopic attempt to avert the inevitable nuclear arms race that will most surely follow any such Iranian acquisition — a scramble which is bound to draw in not only the Sa’udis (despite these blandishments & briberies to hold off), but then, also, the Egyptians, the Turks, etc — once the mullahs get their Bomb.
Before the recent Egyptian turmoil, Cairo was already taking bids to build the first of four nuclear power plants, which (together with developing natural gas reserves) were projected to replace the declining potential of Egypt’s maturing oil fields and the hydroelectric output of her culturally & environmentally problematic, Aswan High Dam as main energy sources.
But an Iranian Bomb will surely augment the appeal to add military applications in the nuclear power plants, regardless of who ends up riding the back of the tiger to power in Cairo.
Some scraps in the Riyadh deal were bound to be tossed eventually to the Israelis as well — to give things a veneer of ‘balance,’ and also to create a bargaining chip with which to induce further freezes on Israeli construction in the heartland provinces & eastern Jerusalem — but it’s all primarily about persuading the Sa’udis to rely on the US (and the American nuclear umbrella), in order to further the President’s top-level objective: to prevent a nuclear arms race.
But this would not be an issue if Obama & Co did not intend to LET Tehran join the Big Toy Club after all….
The Anointed One may well have persuaded himself that such a course will bring the world nearer to a “nuclear-free” zone in the Mideast, but by failing to take the hard-yet-necessary step of stopping the Islamic Republic cold, he’s headed instead toward a multipolar Mideast — which is certain also to drive a stake through the heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He is compulsively creating the very scenario he wishes most to avoid.
I’ve said, numerous times on this site, that (by playing footsie with the Palis) Bibi is, bli ayin hara, in danger of outsmarting himself.
He’s not the only one.
Is this the same George Friedman who advocates American disengagement from Israel? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBLHMrRwP4E
The State of the World: Explaining U.S. Strategy
By George Friedman of Stratfor
LIMITING INTERVENTION
Read Full Article
This is an interesting article, but ultimately, I don’t buy it.
Obama isn’t alone. Even though what he’s done to Iran may be largely “window dressing”, it is still more than anything anybody else has actually done to stop Iran, outside of Israel. That would mean, per Mr. Langfan’s theory, that Europe, Japan, to say nothing of China and Russia, would have to be in on this too.
To me, a conspiracy between Obama’s U.S., China, and Russia, and even Western Europe, to empower Iran at Saudia’s expense is more than a bit far-fetched.
Also, this article seems to place the blame at Obama’s feet for Mubarak’s downfall. Obama sure didn’t help matters, but I’m not yet convinced that there was anything we really could have done to stop this, any more than we could have saved the Shah of Iran. Carter behaved in the same manner back then, but even in that case, I don’t know that if he’d acted differently, the Shah or his heirs would rule Iran today.
The disruption to the world’s economy caused by an Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia would be enourmous. Neither Obama nor the rest of the West would stand by for that. We simply couldn’t.
It is also not clear to me from whence this Iranian influence on Obama would have come from. Who talked Obama into this? Who from his past would have advocated for such a scheme? Rev. Wrong? Bill Ayers? Jerks that they are, neither strike me as Iranian stooges. Rashid Khalidi? Khalid Al Monsour? Edward Said? These latter figures are primarily on the Saudi payroll.
It is sad to say, but on Obama’s watch, more has been done by the U.S. to stop Iran’s nuke program than under any previous U.S. president, most conspicuously Bush #43, who also objected to an Israeli attack (mostly because of that creep, Bob Gates…is he also in on the conspiracy?). Remember, it was under Bush that the NIE issued that report that claimed that Iran was not working on a bomb at present. (I don’t doubt, by the way, that Iranian operatives have infiltrated the U.S. government to muck things up, but that is not the same thing as Obama being at the head of such a grandiose conspiracy.)
I’ve never met Obama, but we were born within two months of each other, and we both attended schools of comparable prestige during comparable time frames. I knew many like him during my college days. I’ve seen him speak many times, and if I do say so myself, I believe I read him like a book.
He’s smarter than the average bear, I suppose, but I don’t see such a diabolical genius there (interesting how lost this “evil genius” is without his teleprompter). I see someone who thinks he’s way smarter than he actually is, who’s gotten where he is mostly via affirmative action, and absent that, probably would have made a minimally competent lawyer, salesman, or professor, but not much beyond that. He’s had everyone around him for the whole of his adult life, until he became president – and mostly even then – telling him he’s “brilliant” and that his s*** doesn’t stink. But really, he’s an intellectual mediocrity, steeped in a bunch of far liberal left academia talking points with a dollop of “f*** you whitey” thrown in for spice. His great, singular talent is that he is a fantastic liar, but beyond that, nothing. A great, wonderful figurehead…for whom?
He gave back the bust of Churchill because most Arabs/Moslems hate Churchill, not just Iranians. Churchill is one of the most hated figures in the whole of the Arab/Moslem world. No great insight required there.
He’s a true believer in the made-up Palestinian “cause”. He doesn’t want to take out Iran’s nukes BEFORE Israel capitulates to the PA, as this is his most powerful element of leverage against Israel. The Saudis, whose agents and paid lackeys brainwashed him this way, can’t tell him now that the Pali thing doesn’t really matter so much, and that Iran is a lot more important. Even if they tried, like the HAL computer in “2001”, he wouldn’t listen. That’s another thing about Obama; he absolutely CANNOT accept a point of view other than his own. Yet another evidence of his basic mediocrity and insecurity.
Here in the U.S., we are very actively developing newer, more powerful bunker busting bombs for what is obviously the purpose of hitting Iran. I just read in the WSJ the other day about some $83 million emergency allocation to speed up development of just such a weapon. Obama could cancel that anytime he wanted, but it is his adminstration that is doing this. I don’t think this is for “show”. I really do believe he means to allay Saudia’s Iran fears with action…..just as soon as the Israelis “cry uncle” to the PA. But if Israel does it themselves, they’ve spoiled the plan, and no amount of arm-twisting by Obama will get Israel to budge with respect to the Palis, then. That is all this is.
The Saudis themselves are caught in the same web. They are more practical, as the threat of Iran is more immediate, but in terms of public pronouncements, they operate under the same limitation, and also when facing their most important and powerful internal constituency, the clerics. How can they “give up” on ridding sacred Moslem land of the hated Zionist Entity..by acquiescing in de-fanging the most direct and immediate threat to said entity, Iran? Sure, it threatens them, too…but Jew hatred has this way of clouding one’s rationality.
That says it cogently. But as Isaiah once lamented, “Who has believed our report”? Isn’t it amazing, how Israel’s fate so depends on people’s faith — especially on their own faith — of what constitutes truth and reality? One grain of faith is worth ten thousand atomic bombs; because it is faith that will decide whether or not a leader uses those bombs, and against whom.
I believe the Police Chief of Dubai; and I think many members of the Saudi royal family also believe what he says. Will their faith lead them to close, covert cooperation with Israel? I certainly hope so.
It’s interesting, that I find myself saying the Saudis will cooperate “covertly”. In the past, I would have assumed that any cooperation from that quarter had to be covert because if it weren’t, the Saudis would lose face in the Arab Street. This time around, though, I think it will be for a remarkable new reason: They must act in secret, and ISRAEL must also act in secret, to keep the President of the United States from effectively warring against them.
Thirty years ago, few American Christians would have believed that their country would someday soon be actively fighting a war against Israel. Nowadays, I believe there are many who realize this will happen and, indeed, is already secretly happening.
We live in demon-possessed times. God help us.