Bush policy shift preceding Obama

By Ted Belman

In the dying years of the Bush Jr presidency, the US instituted a dramatically different policy the foreign policy aimed at the containment of Iran.

In 1907, Seymor Hersh reported in depth on it in Redirections published by The New Yorker, calling it a “strategic shift”.

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. [..]

One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni forces, and not from Shiites. But, from the Administration’s perspective, the most profound—and unintended—strategic consequence of the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran.

It is well worth reading this extensive article to get the background to the US policy under Pres Obama.

Obama also is initiating a new direction of his own as he tries to bury the hatchet with Iran. If he takes the advice of the NYT which suggested that he align with Assad to defeat ISIS, he certainly will be. Perhaps the NYT article spoke for him.