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When you’ve lost the AP….
It’s not so much that you have never read a critique of the
Obama/Clinton/Kerry foreign policy in the Middle East, but that it’s coming
this time from the AP’s chief diplomatic correspondent, Matthew Lee. Hardly a conservative Republican source....
Lee offers a brutal assessment of the failed Obama/Clinton/Kerry
foreign policy:
Five
years after pledging to remake the U.S. relationship with the broader Middle
East and improve America's image in the Muslim world, the Obama
administration's regional strategy appears to have come unhinged.
President
Barack Obama has been confronted by fast-moving and ominous developments from Afghanistan to
Tunisia, amid a bitter public power struggle between Iran andSaudi
Arabia, and has adjusted his first term's grand plan to restore
Washington's standing and influence.
Now,
it's a smaller vision that seems to rely on ad hoc responses aimed at merely
keeping theUnited
States relevant in an increasingly volatile and hostile atmosphere.
His
administration has been forced to deal with three years of civil war in Syria.
A Western-backed opposition is struggling to topple an autocratic government
and repel Islamic fighters who also are destabilizing neighboringLebanon and Iraq,
where al-Qaida has resurged less than three years after Obama withdrew U.S.
forces.
The
U.S. is struggling to identify a coherent position in Egypt after
the military ouster of the country's first democratically elected president.
The administration tried its best to avoid calling the power transfer a coup.
Lee does offer administration apologists a chance to defend themselves, but he dismisses them out of hand.
He continues:
While
the crises engulfing the Middle East cannot be blamed on Obama, there are
growing fears that the U.S.'s Mideast policy has become rudderless and
reactive, and may be contributing to worsening conditions and a rise of Islamic
extremism, notably in Syria and Iraq.
The
administration has been accused of neglecting those countries while focusing on
an elusive Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
And finally:
Some,
including current and former U.S. officials, worry that even the perception of
disengagement is problematic and counterproductive. Their litany of complaints
stretches from North Africa to Central Asia, and includes:
-a
failure to carry through on threats to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad's
government for its use of chemical weapons.
-not
taking a tougher stand on the ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.
-not
insisting on keeping a residual force in Iraq or offering greater support to
the Iraqi government earlier.
-an
inability to seal the deal to keep some troops in Afghanistan after 2014.
-seeking
out a partnership with Iran while de-emphasizing engagement with nascent
democracies in Tunisia and Libya.
How’s that for a report card?
2 comments:
Lo, behold the colonized mindset: "While the crises engulfing the Middle East cannot be blamed on Obama,"
Ah but many of them can. Many. Not the least for the reason that once the big dog is perceived as a toothless little puppy then all bets are off.
I would not "blame" Obama for the problems and troubles of the middle east, but I would blame him for exacerbating them by both action and inaction. The parties on both sides have good, if not excellent to outstanding, reason to believe that no one will step in to prevent them from killing each other.
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