Who lost the world? The unraveling of the globe under Obama’s watch
By Frank Gaffney, Jr., Center for Security Policy
Conventional wisdom has it that the 2012 election will be all about the dismal economy, unemployment and the soaring deficit. That appears a safe bet since such matters touch the electorate, are much in the news at the moment and have indisputably gotten worse on Barack Obama’s watch.
It seems increasingly likely, however, that the American people are going to have a whole lot more to worry about by next fall. Indeed, the way things are going, by November 2012, we may see the Mideast – and perhaps other parts of the planet – plunged into a cataclysmic war.
Consider just a few of the straws in the wind of a gathering storm:
Muammar Gadhafi’s death last week prompted the Obama administration to trumpet the President’s competence as Commander-in-Chief and the superiority of his “small footprint,” “lead-from-behind” approach to waging war over the more traditional – and costly and messy – one pursued by George W. Bush. The bloom came off that false rose on Sunday when Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, repeatedly declared his government’s fealty to shariah, Islam’s brutally repressive, totalitarian political-military-legal doctrine.
Among other things, Abdul-Jalil said shariah would be the “basic source” of all legislation. Translation: Forget about representative democracy. Under shariah, Allah makes the laws, not man.
In short, the result of Mr. Obama’s $2 billion dollar expenditure to oust Gadhafi is a regime that will be led by jihadists, controls vast oil reserves and has inherited a very substantial arsenal (although some of it – including reportedly as many as 20,000 surface-to-air missiles – has “gone missing.”) This scarcely can be considered a victory for the United States and will probably prove a grave liability.
An Islamist party called Nahda seems likely to have captured the lion’s share of the votes cast in the first free election in Tunisia. While we are assured it is a “moderate” religious party, the same has long been said of Turkey’s governing AKP party. Unfortunately, we have lately seen the latter’s true colors as it has become ever-more-insistent at home on jettisoning the secular form of government handed down by Attaturk and acted ever-more-aggressively abroad. A similar transformation can be expected, later if not sooner, of any shariah-adherent political movement.
Meanwhile in Egypt, the agenda of the Islamists’ mother ship – the Muslim Brotherhood – is being adopted even before elections formally bring it to power. The interim military government has abetted efforts to punish and even kill the Coptic Christian minority. It has facilitated the arming of the Brotherhood’s franchise in Gaza, Hamas, and allowed the Sinai to become the launching pad for al Qaeda and others’ attacks on Israel.
Egypt’s transitional regime also helped broker the odious exchange of over 1,000 convicted terrorists held by Israel for a single soldier kidnapped and held hostage for five years by Hamas. Upon their release, even the convicts with Jewish blood on their hands received heroes’ welcomes even as they affirmed their desire to destroy Israel and called for the seizure of still more Israelis to spring their comrades still behind bars. This does not augur well for either the Jewish State or for our interests.
The increasingly mercurial Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has announced that – despite the long-running, immensely costly and ongoing U.S. effort to protect his kleptocratic government – in a war between Pakistan and the United States, Afghanistan would side with Pakistan. The magnitude of this insulting repudiation of America is all the greater since Pakistan is widely seen as doing everything it can to reestablish the Taliban in Kabul.
And in Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has touted his success in thwarting Washington’s belated (and half-hearted) efforts to keep a significant number of U.S. forces in his country after the end of this year. Already, his coalition partner and fellow Iranian cats-paw, Muqtada al-Sadr, is boasting that he will also drive out the American contractor personnel who are, for the moment, expected to provide a measure of security after the military withdraws. In that case, we may well see the mullahs’ agents take over a U.S. embassy for the second time since 1979 – this one the newest, largest and most expensive in the world.
Add to this litany an emboldened and ascendant China, a revanchist Russia once again under the absolute control of Vladimir Putin, a Mexico free-falling into civil war with narco-traffickers and their Hezbollah allies on our southern border and you get a world that is fraught with peril for the United States. Matters are made infinitely worse by the prospect of the U.S. military being hollowed out by reckless budget cuts.
The Republican candidates to succeed Barack Obama are beginning to find their voices on the national security portfolio. They will be formally debating the president’s sorry record in coming weeks. The question the American people will want answered is not only “Who lost the world?” but what will they do to get it back?
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.
More likely because you had nothing original to say.
No there isn’t. Here we see you trying to defend your previous whining. US leaders are not responsible for decisions made by Israeli leaders. Grow up!
What you did previously was to blame the EU and US for decisions make by Israel. It is childish and whiny to suggest that Israel can be cornered and threatened by its only ally. There are numerous instances when Israel has simply ignored what the EU and US wanted them to do. Grow up and stop deflecting blame.
Likewise there was no Israeli state before the partition. Wise up and stop whining and making up sophistries.
Actually, it was because five Arab armies collectively invaded Israel in order to annex it and “push the Jews into the sea”. Your imaginary scenarios do not fit the facts.
Quite obviously to give contrasting contextual emphasis to what I went on to say:
In other words, there is blame inhering in the actions of Israeli leaders — I’m the LAST of persons to deny that — AND there is also blame attaching to the actions of US leaders. It’s not just the one or just the other, but BOTH; I never let anybody off the hook.
Blaming the US & EU for their OWN decisions to corner & threaten the Jewish state (thru pressure upon those Israeli leaders) is clear-sighted and mature.
And if you genuinely can’t see that, then you’re really stupid, Eagle; however, I don’t think you actually ARE as dense as you sound right now (nobody’s that dense)
— quite the contrary, in fact, I think you’re disingenuous (that’s the polite word for it), and pandering to your delusional Pali friends, who are apparently supplying you with their self-serving, demonstrably warped version of ‘history.’
The truth is, even the Palis know that the US pressures GOI to do things that run counter to Israel’s own interests: For decades the Palis have spoken of wanting –and expecting — the US “to deliver Israel.”
What do you suppose they meant by “deliver”?
In what sense do they USE the word, deliver?
— “deliver” pizza?!
How would you know the difference?
Look, AE, nobody is suggesting that the Amb & the PM weren’t earnest in their desire for negotiations; I’m sure they were (I wish they WEREN’T but I’m sure they, regrettably, are). HOWEVER, it’s quite clear, if one understands the landscape, that — however sincere their wish might be — that they had no expectation that the Palis would want anything other than the whole shootin’ match — and nothing but. But BB & Oren still persist, notwithstanding that fact, because they know that this is what the Big Boys expect, and the Big Boys hold a lot of the good cards. So they go thru the motions of “begging the Palestinians to sit down…”
Institutions to be defined AFTER declaring the state?
What does that tell you about their intentions?
(You do know that you’re stepping deeper & deeper into quicksand here, AE, with every successive response, right?)
Actually the decision was NOT ‘collective’ all at once.
The locals decided immediately to eliminate the Jews, and it was only six months later, as they were failing in that objective, that they called in the neighboring Arab sovereignties to pile-on. In fact, some othe Arab states initially weren’t sure they wanted to get involved. They’d’ve been happy to wish the Jews away, but they weren’t all that keen on “getting into it” with them.
You see, Eagle, you are letting the Palis off the hook, and laying all the blame on the Arab world.
Mind you, the Arab world most surely does deserve a HEFTY measure of the blame: not only for the invasion, but also for egging-on the Palis beforehand (from the sidelines, of course) & giving those locals a false sense of their own invinciblity against the historically dhimmi Yahudi, and also for not taking the Palis in after the war, even though those states had plenty of excellent, unoccuppied land where the Pal-arabs could’ve lived profitably for both themselves and those host states.
But the actual decision to annihilate the Jews and to reject statehood was made by the Palis themselves — long before the Arab world got into the act. And your Pali friends need to be reminded of that objective and inescapable fact of history.
Why are you repeating what I said?
Apparently the shoe fits:-)) Blaming the US and EU for decisions made by Israeli leaders is whiny and childish.
Oren and Bibi were not acting in a play.
The institutions were to be defined later. Those demanding a “right of return” were to be among its members. It did not happen because the Arabs collectively decided to emiminate Israel rather than live with it.
They do what they believe is in their best interests
— in light of the geopolitical realities they have to confront.
That includes having to allow for the movement among the major powers. There’s nothing ‘plaintive’ in recognizing that; it’s reality.
I told you, AE, I’m growing tired of your claims of “whiny, cry-baby” crap. Peddle it elsewhere.
You probably take every movie & stageplay for real too.
Fine then. Cut to the chase: Identify the entity, and point out some of its established, pre-state institutions.
The only ones responsible for Israel is the Israeli government. The minute you plaintively blame the US or the EU for anything the Israeli Government does, it is a whiny, cry-baby tactic. Grow up. Israeli leaders do what they believe is in their best interests.
I don’t “think”, I “know”, because I heard them begging the Palestinians to sit down and negotiate.
Not true. The area between Israel as constituted in 1948 and the other surrounding Arab countries was to be the Palestinian state.
Don’t hand me that “whiny, cry-baby” crap, AE. It’s just one more mantra that’s getting more than a little stale coming from you.
This is not a matter of blaming others; homey don’t play that shit.
Rather than “blaming others,” it’s a matter of simply recognizing realities: tiny country constantly under seige, subject to the machinations & movements of the major players on the world scene, players which have their own agendas & their own interests, and which are accustomed to throwing their weight around with impunity. It’s a fact. Stating it doesn’t let Israel’s leaders off the hook; it merely recognizes the landscape & the terrain. Get a clue.
Why don’t YOU grow up? If you think anybody was “begging the Palis” for anything, then you’ve been took.
You were treated to a show — and you fell for it: hook, line and sinker.
I repeat: it’s always been about the US & EU. They exercise hideous pressures on Israel’s leaders, and have done so for decades; GOI leaders play the game as part of their job. If you honestly don’t understand that, then it’s time you quit running your mouth and started studying the history.
I told you, there was no entity to accept one; Palestinian-Arab ‘peoplehood’ is an invention of later decades.
BTW, not only do YOU need to read a little history before you spout off, but also your Pali friends — who apparently are giving you the fractured narrative you’re handing me — need also to start hitting the books before they start whispering sweet nothings in your ear.
You called me a liar.
I am not a liar, I gave you the facts, I did not misstate them, they are easily verified; thus
— you slandered me.
No, the Partition was merely an attempt to separate the two ethnicities: the Jews to the most heavily Jewish-settled areas, the Arabs to the most densely Arab areas. Nobody had any illusions in 1947 about “settling claims.” (In fact everybody knew that war would result from the Partition attempt.) You’re projecting the view from here, backward onto a situation that at the time was lived forward.
You are thoroughly, insistently and invincibly ignorant.
There is no way there would have been a “Palestinian” state under ANY circumstances — and if you’d bother to crack a history text once in awhile, you’d know that. Even if the local Arabs had “accepted Israel” (and there’s no way they would have: their identity had, and has, Jew-rejection & Jew-hatred at its core — but even if they had “accepted Israel”), they had no use for independent statehood of their own; don’t you get it?
Although the Partition Resolution POSITED two states as a superficial gesture of “even-handedness,” there was no cohesive Palestinian-Arab entity comparable to the Jewish Agency, because (as I’ve told you this on a multitude of occasions in the past) there was no local Arab INTEREST in statehood — no interest in statehood alongside a Jewish state OR in place of a Jewish state. The original UN negotiator, Count Folke Bernadotte, readily acknowledged that in his posthumously published memoir (which I quoted directly from, some weeks ago).
The only local Arab interest in sovereignty as such was as part of Greater Syria. They wanted Syrian sovereignty — not independent Palestinian-Arab sovereignty. No way would there have been a Palestinian Arab state — and your attempt to conjure some kind of silly symmetry to the Jewish & Arab situations is utterly & grotesquely (and embarrasingly, for you) fullovit.
Clueless again, as usual.
Who’s feeding you this tripe anyway?
They reached out to the local ethnic Arabs as persons, as individuals; not as a ‘nationality’ to be regarded as entitled to statehood within the Jewish homeland.
“Only I”? — I don’t “seem to know this” because it isn’t true; and your repeating it endlessly, ad nauseam, won’t MAKE it true — and you’re kidding yourself, AE, if you think it is true. If fact, it is YOU who are lying when you claim that every G.O.I. “before and since Oslo” accepted Arab statehood. It was a crock when you said it before, it remains a crock now.
I defy you to produce evidence of official documents of any pre-Oslo Israel govt formally OR informally proposing Pali statehood
— put up or shut up.
“Borders”? — What “borders”?
Israel didn’t have ‘borders’ after the War of Independence, only Armistice lines representing the respective locations of the various opposing armed forces at the point when the shooting stopped. That’s why the State was so vulnerable to invasion and attack, right up until June of 1967. . . .
When the Jews “accepted” the Partition Resolution in 1947, they prepared to install a state (whose structures & institutions were already very well developed) within the parameters allowed for in the Resolution. They knew damned well that there was NO intention on the part of the local Arabs to go for statehood; not only was it obvious from the get-go, but also the Arab refusal of the Resolution (virtually immediate) actually preceded their own acceptance of it. It caught nobody by surprise.
From the Jews’ perspective, everything outside the Jewish-allocated areas was not an Arab ‘state’ (the idea would’ve been laughable) but, in effect, simply frontier territory populated by Arabs, because there was no Arab entity that could become an Arab state — as the Jewish Agency became a Jewish state.
When the local Arabs attacked, however (exactly one day after passage of the Partition Resolution), and six months later, when the Brits struck the Union Jack & the Jews declared Independence, and the attacking local Arabs called in the neighboring Arab states to pile-on in a wolf-pack invasion from all sides, the Jews counterattacked — and eventually ended up seizing more territory than originally allocated to them in the Resolution, which would’ve left them even more vulnerable than they were at the end of the war.
To begin with you don’t know what slander means, along with all your other misguided and inverted knowledge. Secondly, the partition of 1948 was meant to settle the competing claims by both sides and there would have been a Palestinian state if they had accepted Israel. The initial Israeli government knew this and reached out to the Palestinians at the time. Every other Israeli government accepted it before Oslo and since. Oslo only put it is an agreement. Only you don’t seem to know this. What do you think was supposed to happen to the land outside Israel’s borders?
This is the whiny, cry-baby school of Israeli politics that blames others for what the Israeli government does. Oren and Bibi were begging the Palis to sit down and negotiate, not the US and EU, who have no responsibility for Israel’s governance. Grow up.
The Pslis have no intentions of accepting a state alongside Israel – they want to replace Israel. However, they could have had a state in 1948 and since but have declined to do so.
I’ve NOT ‘lied’ about it, and you slander me by saying so.
Your claim that an Arab state was accepted by every Israeli govt
— is a flat-out CROCK.
I told you: Not a single G.O.I. made provision for a Pali state before OSLO.
When the Jewish Agency (created by the Mandate: Art. 4) accepted the Partition, there was no Govt of Israel, only a Jewish community — which didn’t yet even have a name for the State it would declare.
What’s more, when the Agency accepted the Partition, it made no provision for another state on the land; it merely accepted the best deal it thought it was able to get, given the existing configuration of forces.
And the Palis weren’t even PART of that configuration; the local ethnic Arabs had no coherent community, and certainly weren’t interested in statehood. Quite the contrary, they regarded themselves as southern Syrians and the Palestine area as nothing more than part of Greater Syria.
From that time [1947] forward — and from the end of the War of Independence [1949] until 1993 — no Israel govt ever made provision for a Pali state.
None.
Your calling me a ‘liar’ for simply filling you in, AE, on the facts that ANY history book of the period (from ANY point-of-view) will readily confirm — merely illustrates the very emotionalism that I told you lies at the core of your thinking.
You just can’t see the forest for the trees.
You “saw” Oren & BB “begging the Palestinians to sit down”
— but what was in fact actually happening was a “demonstration of good faith”
not to the Palis, but to the US & EU.
It’s always been about the US & EU.
It’s NEVER been about anybody else.
You may think you’re being cute, but the truth is that if the Palis make their move based on UNGA 181, a lawsuit may well turn up in the works; stay tuned
— and keep your seatbelt fastened.
Denying it and lying about it as you do, doesn’t make it go away. Just this month we saw Michael Oren and Bibi Netanyahu begging the Palestinians to sit down and negotiate a two-state solution.
The truth is that a Palestinian state was part of the reason for the partition of 1948.
So, sue them.
There you go again.
You can keep repeating this silly mantra — for personal comfort, if you like (I prefer, “Hooray-for-Hollywood” myself) — but repeating it won’t make it SO.
The truth is that before 1993 no existing Govt of the State of Israel ever set out to explicitly make provision for an Arab state — a fact which you ALREADY acknowledged the LAST time you were called on this fond, favored & fanciful misstatement of yours [scarcely 2 weeks ago]:
If Islam is a religion of war, why are MOST Muslims not running around attacking and killing people?
I object to biased people blindly generalizing about over what over 1 billion people believe rather than being specific about those who are the evildoers.
Jews should appreciate this better than most being negatively generalized about throughout history.
This is another blind generalization. There are Saudis who are doing what you suggest, not the Saudi government, which is also under attack by Al Qaeda.
http://www.economist.com/node/12470503
The bottom line is that none of this pissing and moaning is going to end until Israel re-sets one of these Muslim countries in the near future – and I pick Iran to deliver the message to all the others that they could be next, followed by Syria if necessary. We know from the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the effects disappear over a few decades.
You were too hard on Bland. Bush did not say that most Muslims are peaceful. He said that “Islam is a religion of peace”. This a blatant lie. Islam is a religion of war. He was talking about Islam, not most Muslims.
As for Saudi Arabia, keep in mind also that S. Arabia also finances al Qaeda and the spread of Wahabbism.
What a bunch of crap. What Bush was talking about was that the vast majority of Muslims are not running around attacking or killing anyone.
More ignorant crap. It was Al Qaeda trained Islamic terrorists that attacked the US throughout the 90’s and on 9/11, not Saudi Arabia. The government of Saudi Arabia was an ally in the First Gulf War, is an ally in the war on terror and is also on Al Qaeda’s hit list. Besides they keep oil prices stable which benefits the world economy. Thet does not mean they are not vile, but it is a matter of degree and of priorities. They are not hostile to the west.
This is not even true. An Arab state was accepted by Israel’s founders and every Israeli government since. The only reason it hasn’t materialized is because of the intransigence of the Arabs who do not want a two state configuration.
The ignorant heap of crap gets even deeper. There were no legal grounds for attacking Iran. There were 17 UN resolutions the last one with an ultimatum that were the basis of the regime change in Iraq. Iraq had refused to disclose what had happened to its WMDs and the concern was that these would fall into Al Qaeda’s hands
Israel better realize that it is the one that is exposed to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, not the US, and the US will support Israel but is unlikely to lead the attack on Iran when it comes.
This is a kindergarten kind of complaint. Sharon could have refused to come.
Another childish complaint if it even happened.
Finally we get to the point – this is a Democrat hack making these comments from a Democrat POV.
This comment shows a total ignorance of the US Constitution and what it takes to suspend or amend it.
Catarin, what you write from your George Soros, MoveOn.org, Daily Kos and Media matters perspective is always the opposite of what is really going on.
He wouldn’t have even found Bin Laden under his own interrogation rules.
His first two years no Republican could thwart him and he used that period to destroy the US economy and make the US the laughing stock of the world in foreign policy.
Obama will be lucky to escape without being impeached for his illegal actions in supplying guns to Mexican drug dealers and for his corrupt practice of illegally wasting billions in illegally structured loans and bailouts propping up his campaign contributors in Big business and the green energy sector.
You would not recognize the truth if it walked up and kicked you in the nuts.
It was one of the reasons though it didn’t seem to mean anything to BlandOatmeal and Andrew.
Their God is the same as everyone else’s God. There is only one God and suggesting they have a different God is blasphemy. What you should be referring to is radical Islamists, not God.
You are not subject to Islamic doctrine.
Obama did not kill Osama: “Bin Laden Dead Since 2001 (Benazir Bhutto Says Osama Bin Laden Dead In 2007)” Notice David Frost the interviewer didn’t even look surprised or challenge her assertion.
The TRUTH: Osama Bin Laden’s Death Is A Hoax…
BBC Reports Osama Raid A Fake
No president can radically change America not in 4 years and not in 8. Watch for term limit extensions, if Obama wins a second term. A congress that has allowed executive orders to bypass congress is the real problem. As long as Obama is president he can ignore congress. There are no real checks and balances in the American system. Congress has abdicated and it seems T Party newbees are no better than the oldbees.
A $25,000.00 bounty for dead Americans and Israelis to suicide-bombers’ families was reason enough to depose Hussain, but that’s never been mentioned as a reason.
To understand the true nature of GW’s cover for “peaceful” Islam, the full verse of the truncated version he read shows who the “all mankind” was directed at: Koran, S?rah 5:32 – “We laid it down to the Israelites that whoever killed a human being, except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all mankind; and that whoever saved a human life shall be regarded as having saved all mankind.”
In Muslim terms, only Muslims are fully human – even their god hates us. Our only redeeming possibility is that we can BECOME Muslms – otherwise, we have no rights under Islamic doctrine or shariah law!
This is opposite to most of the press he’s getting in the U.S. Most Americans are happy with his foreign policy. Republicans sputter because they don’t want to give him credit for anything, yet he has been eliminating Islamic foes right and left. His elimination of bin Laden will be hard for other leaders to top. It shows what he can do without Republicans thwarting his every move, because they have no power in foreign policy. Obama will win reelection.
I am at odds with Israel and its treatment of the Bedouins, which was the subject of a Middle East Report recently. I think it’s safe to say the Bedouin in the Negev go back in time as far as the Jews.
I am going on hiatus to recharge.
This is all according to plan. When the horrible wars begin, Obama will say it is an emergency, and institute martial law. No elections. We need to plan now what we can do. Time is not on our side. Obama is a Muslim, with the goal of making the U.S. an Islamic country.
We may need to demonstrate against the Supreme Court, write letters, do whatever.
OBAMA IS A THUG PERIOD AND A RASICST BIGOT
Actually in only 2 years & 9 months, thus far — so there’s still plenty of time remaining in this term for a lallapa-Lulu.
I wouldn’t go that far. Clinton has largely skated free of scrutiny because of the unrelenting (and undefended), tidal wave of media attacks on Bush.
However, 9/11 was planned on Willy’s watch
— because of how he (non)responded to 1993 WTC, the Cole, etc.
Sears-Roebuck catalog?
That is very insightful Bland. Attacking Iraq instead of Iran is the big one. No POTUS, however, comes anywhere near the peanut farmer from Georgia. Not wiping out the mullahs when they first declared war on the USA and helping the Mujahadeen in Afganistan.
BTW wasn’t it Olmert who had to use the side door?
Obama’s biggest foreign policy disasters, that I have seen, were:
1. Insulting British PM Brown, with a shoddy reception, a hokey, insulting gift and with giving back the bust of Churchill. That signaled to all Europe, that they would be dealing with a moron
2. The Cairo speech, which raised Arab expectations that O would abandon Israel
3. The bows
4. Making Netanyahu go without eating, like a “bad boy”, while he and Michelle had dinner
5. The building freeze demands
6. The dumping of Mubarak.
Everything else, and probably #6 as well, are all anticlimax.
G.W. Bush did much worse, in my opinion. His super-lulus were:
1. The “Islam is Peace” speech.
2. Declaring war on “terrorism”, instead of on Saudi Arabia
3. Openly advocating the creation of an Arab state from Israel
4. Attacking Iraq instead of Iran
5. Making Ariel Sharon scrounge around for digs in Waco while “W” entertained a Saudi Sheik on his ranch
6. Making Netanyahu use the servants’ entrance at Annapolis while greeting the Arabs at the front door.
To Bush’s credit, it took him 8 years to make as many blunders as Obama did in 4.
Not only do those two Bozos make Clinton look good; they make Monica Lewinsky look absolutely stellar. Where did we ever find such a basket full of losers? I don’t think the world can handle much more of this; but READ MY LIPS (to quote G. H. W. Bush) — We’ve only seen the beginning of madness. More is yet to come (sigh).