Obama's Jimmy Carter Moment
A lot of people are criticizing Barack Obama for the military intervention against Gaddafi in Libya and the pressure he's put on Bashir Assad in Syria. I find it difficult to join in this criticism.
Yes, the Libyan dictator has been, and the Syrian dictator is likely to be, replaced by virulently anti-American regimes. And yes, Obama is as clueless as the most clueless celebrators of the "Arab Spring" in this regard.
But then, both those dictators already were virulently anti-American. Gaddafi's fall was, and Assad's will be, not so much the appearance of new foes as the replacement of the leadership of old foes. If the new regimes are more radical and hence more prone to scream-and-leap, this might actually work out to America's long-term benefit, both because we would get casus belli to take them down before they get nuclear weapons, and because repeated campaigns against those countries will devastate and impoverish them, both weakening cultures prone to throwing up anti-American leaders, and providing salutary lessons to other regimes who might be tempted to fight us.
No, the true Carteresque moment of stupidity shown by Barack Obama in foreign policy has been with Egypt. There, we had a moderate dictatorship under a basically pro-American dictator, Hosni Mubarak. What is more, this regime rules a geographically-strategic land: Egypt commands both the Suez Canal and the Nile River, and offers one of the only easy routes for passing the Sahara Desert by land (because the Nile's course is largely fertile and built-up with road and supply facilities).
Barack Obama betrayed Mubarak in the hopes of seeing it replaced by a democracy. This is reminiscent of the manner in which Jimmy Carter betrayed the Shah of Iran with similiar hopes, and the outcome is likely to be similar: a quasi-democracy, greatly constrained by shari'a and its own violent radicalism, which will launch or tempt the launch of wars of aggression.
Barack Obama has, in 2012, basically set-up the wars of the remainder of the 2010's and possibly even 2020's. With the added bonus that Egypt, home of the Aswan Dam, has basically built its own suicide weapon of mass destruction, and the loss of human life is likely to be quite terrible -- especially if Egypt joins an Iranian coalition and that coalition uses nuclear weapons against Israel.
Well done, Barack Obama. Well done.
Yes, the Libyan dictator has been, and the Syrian dictator is likely to be, replaced by virulently anti-American regimes. And yes, Obama is as clueless as the most clueless celebrators of the "Arab Spring" in this regard.
But then, both those dictators already were virulently anti-American. Gaddafi's fall was, and Assad's will be, not so much the appearance of new foes as the replacement of the leadership of old foes. If the new regimes are more radical and hence more prone to scream-and-leap, this might actually work out to America's long-term benefit, both because we would get casus belli to take them down before they get nuclear weapons, and because repeated campaigns against those countries will devastate and impoverish them, both weakening cultures prone to throwing up anti-American leaders, and providing salutary lessons to other regimes who might be tempted to fight us.
No, the true Carteresque moment of stupidity shown by Barack Obama in foreign policy has been with Egypt. There, we had a moderate dictatorship under a basically pro-American dictator, Hosni Mubarak. What is more, this regime rules a geographically-strategic land: Egypt commands both the Suez Canal and the Nile River, and offers one of the only easy routes for passing the Sahara Desert by land (because the Nile's course is largely fertile and built-up with road and supply facilities).
Barack Obama betrayed Mubarak in the hopes of seeing it replaced by a democracy. This is reminiscent of the manner in which Jimmy Carter betrayed the Shah of Iran with similiar hopes, and the outcome is likely to be similar: a quasi-democracy, greatly constrained by shari'a and its own violent radicalism, which will launch or tempt the launch of wars of aggression.
Barack Obama has, in 2012, basically set-up the wars of the remainder of the 2010's and possibly even 2020's. With the added bonus that Egypt, home of the Aswan Dam, has basically built its own suicide weapon of mass destruction, and the loss of human life is likely to be quite terrible -- especially if Egypt joins an Iranian coalition and that coalition uses nuclear weapons against Israel.
Well done, Barack Obama. Well done.