Ajami doesn’t bother to mention that Obama practically begged the Arab countries and the PA to make minor good will gestures to Israel when he was asking that Israel advance the peace process and they slammed the door in his face. Ted Belman
We can’t declare a unilateral end to our troubles, or avert our gaze from the disorder that afflicts the societies of the Greater Middle East. “It is always about the man at the helm.”
This is not a Jimmy Carter moment—a U.S. Embassy and its staff seized and held hostage for 444 days, America’s enemies taking stock of its weakness, its allies running for cover. But the anti-American protests that broke upon 20 nations this past week must be reckoned a grand personal failure for Barack Obama, and a case of hubris undone. No American president before this one had proclaimed such intimacy with a world that stretches from Morocco to Indonesia.
From the start of his administration, Mr. Obama put forth his own biography as a bridge to those aggrieved nations. He would be a “different president,” he promised, and the years he lived among Muslims would acquit him—and thus America itself. He was the un-Bush.
And so, in June 2009, Mr. Obama descended on Cairo. He had opposed the Iraq war, he had Muslim relatives, and he would offer Egyptians, and by extension other Arabs, the promise of a “new beginning.” They told their history as a tale of victimization at the hands of outsiders, and he empathized with that narrative.
He spoke of “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.”
Without knowing it, he had broken a time-honored maxim of that world: Never speak ill of your own people when in the company of strangers. There was too little recognition of the malignant trilogy—anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and anti-modernism—that had poisoned the life of Egypt and much of the region.
The crowd took in what this stranger had to say, and some were flattered by his embrace of their culture. But ever since its traumatic encounter with the guns and ideas of the West in the opening years of the 19th century, the region had seen conquerors come and go. Its people have an unfailing eye for the promises and predilections of outsiders.
It didn’t take long for this new American leader to come down to earth. In the summer of 2009, Iran erupted in rebellion against its theocratic rulers. That upheaval exposed the contradictions at the heart of the Obama approach. At his core, he was a hyper-realist: The call of freedom did not tug at him. He was certain that the theocracy would respond to his outreach, resulting in a diplomatic breakthrough. But Iran’s clerical rulers had no interest in a breakthrough. We are the Great Satan, and they need their foreign demons to maintain their grip on power.
The embattled “liberals” in the region were awakened to the truth of Mr. Obama. He was a man of the status quo, with a superficial knowledge of lands beyond. In Cairo, he had described himself as a “student of history.” But in his first foreign television interview, he declared his intention to restore U.S. relations with the Islamic world to “the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago.”
This coincided, almost to the day, with the 30th anniversary of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s rise to power in Iran. That “golden age” he sought to restore covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the fall of Beirut to the forces of terror, deadly attacks on our embassies, the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and more. A trail of terror had shadowed the American presence.
Yet here was a president who would end this history, who would withdraw from both the “good war” in Afghanistan and the bad one in Iraq. Here was a president who would target America’s real enemy—al Qaeda. “Osama bin Laden is dead,” we’ve been told time and again, and good riddance to him. But those attacking our embassies last week had a disturbing rebuttal: “Obama, we are Osama!” they chanted, some brandishing al Qaeda flags.
Until last Tuesday’s deadly attack on our consulate in Benghazi, it was the fashion of Mr. Obama and his lieutenants to proclaim that the tide of war is receding. But we can’t declare a unilateral end to our troubles, nor can we avert our gaze from the disorder that afflicts the societies of the Greater Middle East.
A Muslim world that can take to the streets, as far away as Jakarta, in protest against a vulgar film depiction of the Prophet Muhammad—yet barely call up a crowd on behalf of a Syrian population that has endured unspeakable hell at the hands of the dictator Bashar al-Assad—is in need of self-criticism and repair. We do these societies no favor if we leave them to the illusion that they can pass through the gates of the modern world carrying those ruinous ideas.
Yet the word in Washington is that we must pull back from those troubled Arab and Muslim lands. The grand expectations that Mr. Obama had for Afghanistan have largely been forgotten. The Taliban are content to wait us out, secure in the knowledge that, come 2014, we and our allies will have quit the place. And neighboring Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country with 170 million people, is written off as a hotbed of extremism.
Meanwhile, Syria burns and calls for help, but the call goes unanswered. The civil war there has become a great Sunni-Shiite schism. Lebanon teeters on the edge. More important, trouble has spilled into Turkey. The Turks have come to resent the American abdication and the heavy burden the Syrian struggle has imposed on them. In contrast, the mullahs in Iran have read the landscape well and are determined to sustain the Assad dictatorship.
Our foreign policy has been altered, as never before, to fit one man’s electoral needs. We hear from the presidential handlers only what they want us to believe about the temper of distant lands. It was only yesterday that our leader, we are told, had solved the riddle of our position in the world.
Give him your warrant, the palace guard intone, at least until the next election. In tales of charismatic, chosen leaders, it is always, and only, about the man at the helm.
I can’t convince you, Dov. Go ahead and curse Obama but remember how you’ve treated him.
Big lip in the future require big “destruction”!!! That seems to be the rule of nature.
Sadly enough it took 2 nuke bombs to convert Japan and millions of bombs to convert Nazi Germany.
Their respective “leader” were no “GOD”!
As far as Pr. O is concerned he probably does not know that slavery is still practiced in the Muslim world (probably exclusively and against black people only).
You have made a fatal error Catarin. Obama has made no mistakes misjudging Muslim intentions. He knows exactly who they are and he supports their goals. Obama is a truly evil man, and you have to come to terms with the fact that a truly evil man may be re-elected POTUS. Accept that your fellow citizens at about a 50% clip have developed a lowlife moral code and view of reality. America ain’t what it used to be. 50% of Americans have their heads in the spiritual sewer. end of reality check. Enjoy the Final Redemption.@ catarin:
When I started posting on Muslim websites about 10 years ago, it took me a couple of years to figure out what was really going on. There was an explosion in Gaza that killed some people and was immediately blamed on the Jews. It turned out to be an accident by Gazan clumsy hands, and I waited for a retraction from the website. I pressed them but it never came, and that’s when I caught on to Muslims’ dirty dealings of always blaming the Jews for everything bad that happens. I left the site and abandoned efforts to stay neutral on Jew/Arab issues and began to back the Jews 100%. Obama didn’t have a couple of years to catch on–he immediately reached out and learned the hard way that politicized Muslims don’t give a diddlydarn about anyone but themselves. Heck, they don’t even care about most of their Muslim brethren–they kill whomever they please. They destroy the assets of other Muslims, keeping them all poor. Muslims used to be pretty smart before they turned into bumps on logs.
But when it comes to financial aid they are real good at sweet talking the West, who stupidly believes them most of the time. I’d like to see the U.S. pull out of the Middle East completely, including stopping aid. It doesn’t seem to do any good. We rarely see a village in the West Bank or Egypt that is able to pull itself out of the sewer and become a success with Western aid. The bribery and corruption is just so great with the me-me-me first attitude that may one day lead to the downfall of Islamic civilization. I think only the women can save it now.
I want to comment on the overflowing hubris of Morsi from Egypt. He told the U.S. we had better change our tune about backing the Jews over the Arabs. He’s got his head stuck where the sun don’t shine. His American education didn’t do any good. It’s not the Jews who bomb or threaten to kill Americans. It’s not the Jews who steal from us. It’s not the Jews who are the bums of society (I don’t blame Muslims who make an effort to be good citizens.)
Morsi doesn’t understand that the U.S. doesn’t control the shots in Israel. If he wants cooperation with Israel, he has to make the effort. He also has to return to Jews the public records of all Jews who lived in Egypt over the centuries.
The man is the Obamanation that makes desolate, the 11th horn dude from the book of Daniel. He will win his 2nd term one way or another. The End has to brought to a climax with all the nations gathering to divide Jerusalem. In some ways this is scary. In other ways being at the End of this world of lies is a relief.
Laura Said:
This ‘drivel’ is the reality the North Americans live in as they suffer the jackboot repression of the rich and the super rich- it has nothing to do with Marx. This is the advocation of Capitalism to oppose the current system of fascist Stalinism. Ad Hominem attacks are the propaganda tools of fascists.
This ‘drivel’ is the truth that the power elite is afraid of, they are so afraid of it that they like you do not dare to even let the sheeple hear or think these ideas in the MSM.
@ Max:
That would profit the Canadian Power Elite – nothing to do with Canadian Citizens (99.99 percent) who are exploited and oppressed by this elite. Always remember in every Western country there are two economies and two Powers – the economy of the superrich fascists and the economy (the leftovers) of the people.
James B – Canada Said:
You don’t ‘buy’? into it? It’s not propaganda it’s the most obvious sociology there is – these days,it’s easier than going to college as previously, you just have to read Wikipedia and put 2 + 2 together.
So, unfortunately you demonstrate how the fascism works. The sheeple understand their society from the MSM not from impartial education or intellectual study. They ‘buy’ into ‘things’ or are propagandized into things , they ‘believe’ things instead of know them,
I don’t think it’s good for anyone to ‘believe’ anything or ‘buy’ anything – it’s much better to ‘know’ things from experience and study. The leaders of the world foster ‘belief’ – religious belief, economic belief – propaganda belief instead of knowledge and knowing. That is why the world is practically insane and a violent confused hell exists on the earth – because irrationality is encouraged and it aids fascist repressors and fascist power players. American politicians just love religious groups, because if they have any such group they have a group of people that can be indoctrinated any which way they choose – such a group has already been pre-indoctrinated to ‘buy’ into whatever the leaders of that groups tell them.
Those who ‘believe’ can be made to believe anything. The Muslims riot and wage Jihad because of the ‘beliefs’ they have been indoctrinated with just like those who ‘believe’ America is a capitalist democracy’ – they are technically insane – living in the delusional world of beliefs instead of knowledge and respecting the idea of knowing, testing and learning.
The people have their fictional ideas drilled into them by the propaganda services that are owned by superrich fascists. These ‘ideas’ are not knowledge nor is it studied sociology it is just propaganda.
Every university undergraduate in the Social Sciences for the last 60 years know about the power elite – unfortunately most of them go on to work for the elite in some form or other so they don’t spill the beans or say anything about it that could ruin their careers.
It’s a circular system, we can’t get rid of the propaganda til we get rid of the fascists and we can’t get rid of the fascists while they own the propaganda system.
We are doomed – as a society. As individuals we can have some awareness that can help us for the time being to avoid some of the repression. But one needs to be tough, for the more one knows rather than believes ,the more one helplessly sees what is happening to others and sees the absolute endgame that is coming. In the past a few could always escape totalitarianism because of some looseness or imperfection of the totalitarian systems of control. Now technology is aiding that control to become One Hundred Percent leaving no escape for anyone in any fashion – not physically, and worst not mentally. Every piece of physical behaviour and thought of the sheeple is now being micro-inspected and controlled to serve the interests of the superrich or the power elite.
In Montreal we are paying almost 15% sales tax on nearly everything with few exceptions, food not being one of them. Taxes, taxes,taxes,, nevertheless our hydro bills are pretty reasonable.
I do not buy into this superrich fascists stuff I hear on http://www.rt.com. Sound like a bunch of tattooed kids.
James B – Montreal Said:
That would profit the Canadian Power Elite – nothing to do with Canadian Citizens (99.99 percent) who are exploited and oppressed by this elite. Always remember in every Western country there are two economies and two Powers – the economy of the superrich fascists and the economy (the leftovers) of the people.
Either the polling is incorrect re: 46 O 46 R, etc.. or the polling is true or when it comes to politics and govt policies, Americans are the second biggest idiots on the planet. The First being the muslims, second being the Quebecois.
Every single dam on the Connecticut River is owned by a Canadian company.
The USA is being bought up ( what attractive remains their are to be purchased ) by Europeans and Chinese too.
Enjoy:
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/featured/prime-time/867432237001/the-death-of-the-american-dream/1854404616001
Where are you Laura? your country needs you.