The Utter Disaster of Obama's Middle East Foreign Policy

One phrase that continually comes up now when discussing the Obama presidency is "in over his head." And that designation is simply, spot on. No rational American can look back at the election of 2008 and dispute that Americans took a huge risk in electing such a novice to the world stage as Barack Hussein Obama and that roll of the dice by the American people has come back to bite us in the ass more than once. Obama's incompetency in handling world affairs has been evident by his allowing South and Central American thug dictators push America around - the likes of Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez ridicule America incessantly and our leader sheepishly laps it up. We have seen once long time allies like India, Britain, Germany, France and Australia move away from America - distancing themselves from the ineptness.

But the blindness of foreign policy by Obama is no more evident than in the Middle East. I could go on for pages here about the deliberate severing of ties with Israel by Obama but this article at Family Security Matters talks a good deal about how amateurishly Obama has handled the likes of Syria and Iran and now Egypt.

From the article:

Then there's Syria, where the Bush administration recalled the US ambassador five years ago over probable Syrian involvement in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister. Obama ended Damascus' "time-out" this year by sending a new ambassador -- signaling that it's OK that President Bashar Assad continues his anti-US stance, steps up his crackdown on political opposition and delays any progress on finding peace with his neighbor Israel.

Washington also appears to be looking the other way on Damascus' lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency on Syria's (covert) nuclear program, its growing alliance with Iran and its continuing financial, moral and military support of Hamas and Hezbollah.

And don't forget about Lebanon right next door, where, on the administration's watch, both Iran and Syria have dug their claws in again -- after the Cedar Revolution loosed their near-death grip on the country in 2005. Tehran's and Damascus' proxyHezbollahwas recently able to bully its candidate into the prime minister's job, setting back US (and Israeli) interests.

We live in the most dangerous times in world history. Let's be real here - we are one strategically placed dirty bomb away from a war that could basically alter the very shape of this planet we are on. We see not just one or two devout and declared enemies of America like we did under Ronald Reagan...we now see over a dozen. Throw in a sea of islamic jihadis who seek the destruction of America and the recipe for disaster is there. And we have a President who has decided to just let the rest of the world set the agenda...he has constructed a foreign policy of America that resembles the foreign policy of a third world country.

But afterall, that IS the goal of Barack Hussein Obama, isn't it? Doesn't this President want any and all domination and influence of America across this world eliminated? Isn't Barack Obama's foreign policy actually influenced by his father's anti-colonialism hatred and thus Obama seeks America the Docile to emerge?

Welcome to America. Land of the Free, Home of the Meek.

Obama Administration Losing Ground Across Mideast


It would be easier to forgive the Obama administration's lackluster handling of the political crisis in Egypt over the last couple of weeks if things were going our way elsewhere in the Middle East. Unfortunately, they're not.

Start with Iran. Despite two years of engagement, Tehran is still developing nuclear weapons -- significantly shaking stability in the Middle East as they do.

And, sorry: Neither cyber ops like the "Stuxnet" computer virus (which we may have been behind) nor UN-prescribed economic sanctions seem to have put much of a hitch in the giddyap of Iran's runaway nuclear horses.

Despite the president saying that a nuclear Iran is "unacceptable," Iran may become a card-carrying member of the Mushroom Cloud Club this year; some experts believe it already has gathered enough uranium for at least a couple of A-bombs.

Not to mention that its ever-expanding space-launch and satellite programs have put Tehran closer to developing an ICBM capable of reaching the US homeland -- all while our missile-defense programs lag behind the threat.

Then there's Syria, where the Bush administration recalled the US ambassador five years ago over probable Syrian involvement in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister. Obama ended Damascus' "time-out" this year by sending a new ambassador -- signaling that it's OK that President Bashar Assad continues his anti-US stance, steps up his crackdown on political opposition and delays any progress on finding peace with his neighbor Israel.

Washington also appears to be looking the other way on Damascus' lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency on Syria's (covert) nuclear program, its growing alliance with Iran and its continuing financial, moral and military support of Hamas and Hezbollah.

And don't forget about Lebanon right next door, where, on the administration's watch, both Iran and Syria have dug their claws in again -- after the Cedar Revolution loosed their near-death grip on the country in 2005. Tehran's and Damascus' proxyHezbollahwas recently able to bully its candidate into the prime minister's job, setting back US (and Israeli) interests.

In Iraq, where the remaining 50,000 US troops will be leaving this year, there's concern about growing Iranian influence due to American inattention -- threatening to create an arc of Persian power across the Middle East's midsection.

Meanwhile, the Middle East peace process -- where success, the Obama administration insisted, would set everything right with the region -- has gone nowhere in the last two years.
Instead, America's relations with Israel hit new lows on a regular basis; we're no closer to a two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians, and Hamas still has an iron grip on Gaza.

It doesn't end there.

Key Arab partners in places like Jordan and Saudi Arabia must be unnerved by how the Obama administration got caught flatfooted by Egypt's turmoil, had trouble finding its "voice" -- and seemingly had no plan for influencing the outcome.

There's still hope for a positive ending in Egypt -- but that's far from guaranteed at this point. Lots of nightmarish scenarios could come to pass instead, including an Islamist takeover of the Cairo government.

Unless the Obama administration gets its Middle East act together soon and starts to get some traction on these pressing problems, our influence will continue to wane, undermining vital US interests.

If things don't change, we're not going to like what -- or who -- steps in to fill the void the Obama administration's policies are creating in the Middle East.