The chief new reality is the de facto coalition among Israel, Egypt, and the Sunni Gulf states. This comprises a potential new source of stability in the region, a stability that has been lacking since the collapse of the Ottoman imperium. The dream of an Arab equivalent of Europe -- a region of independent nation-states united through ethnicity and religion -- lies in ruins. The possibility that it can revived are minimal. Libya, Syria, and Yemen are all failed states and, left to themselves, the UN, or Europe, will remain that way. The fantasy of nation building was punctured by Iraq and Afghanistan. These people are not only incapable of governing themselves, they are incapable of maintaining a viable social system. This role must be filled by an overarching power, as it was by the Ottomans and the European imperialists.
It must be done because we require order. This is not the 19th century. The Jihadis have clearly demonstrated a global reach. They can get at any target anywhere simply by parasitizing well-established Western communications and transportation systems. The sole way to deny them this capability is through control of the failed states that act as incubators for their mujahedin.
...
The two major goals in the Mideast are the defeat of the Jihadis and the denial of Iranian hegemony. The coalition can encompass both, with support from interested Western powers. Despite all the appeasement rhetoric, the Iranian nuclear threat can be shut down in short order. No one has considered the possibility that Israel might utilize tactical nukes fitted to bunker-buster warheads. These would “drill” deeply into the overhanging mountains before detonating, rendering the Iranian nuclear program unsalvageable with little in the way of fallout or residual radiation. This would a bold step on the part of Israel, but existential challenges encourage that kind of thing. Sanction from the Gulf States is likely to be easily obtained.
Iran would attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, but in the age of fracking, this is nowhere near the threat it once was. Fracking could take up a large part of the oil shortfall within months. There would be a serious economic earthquake, but the West has it coming.
Turning to the Jihadis, the long war, which the U.S. and Europe have proven incapable of maintaining, would probably be best fought by nations in the area. Saudi Arabia has valuable knowledge about these people. Israel has one of the most effective intelligence agencies in the world. Pooling their efforts should bring results that would difficult for outside actors to match. The current collaboration between the Israelis and the Egyptians could act as a model here.
Failed states such as Syria and Yemen are likely to remain non-nations on the Somalia model. As such, they will have to be controlled. Civilized forces will need to enter these degraded pea-patches on an irregular basis on punitive missions, much the same as the British mounted expeditions into Afghanistan and Somalia during the imperial period. (Libya is different, virtually bordering on the West as it does -- it must be brought under control, the sooner the better.)
This is effectively a form of neocolonialism, one that should be carried out by locals with a deep understanding of the stakes. It could of course, be “better,” in the abstract, if Somalis and Syrians could govern themselves, but they can’t, and that’s the end of it. They are a problem, and a new Mideast coalition offers a solution. Such a coalition will share goals with the West: elimination of the Iranian threat, destruction of ISIS and similar Jihadi gangs, and beyond that, a new status quo. While such a solution is far from perfect, it is the best that can be expected from a horrendous situation.
What would the U.S. role be? Basically, everybody’s benign uncle. To act as an honest broker, mentor, and guide for both sides, to ease the natural conflicts between Jewish and Arab interests, to work out strategies and policies, and nudge either side in the right direction.
Even this is asking too much at this point. Obama has, of course, downgraded the U.S. relationship with Israel even as the new modus vivendi has been working itself out -- a remarkable development that he has ignored. There’s nothing that reveals Obama’s utter fatuity more than this.
Of course, if Hillary Clinton becomes President, things might not be any better. What could go wrong?
I've been waiting for this for a long time, and I'm sure many of you have as well: Former President George W. Bush - the man who is blamed for everything seven years after he left office - finally let loose on Barack Hussein Obama (Hat Tip: Zvi S).
One attendee at the Republican Jewish Coalition session, held at the
Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas with owner Sheldon Adelson in attendance,
transcribed large portions of Bush’s remarks. The former president, who
rarely ever criticizes Obama in public, at first remarked that the idea
of re-entering the political arena was something he didn’t want to do.
He then proceeded to explain why Obama, in his view, was placing the
U.S. in "retreat" around the world. He also said Obama was misreading
Iran’s intentions while relaxing sanctions on Tehran too easily.
According to the attendee's transcription, Bush noted that Iran has a
new president, Hassan Rouhani. “He's smooth," Bush said. "And you’ve
got to ask yourself, is there a new policy or did they just change the
spokesman?”
Bush said that Obama’s plan to lift sanctions on Iran with a promise
that they could snap back in place at any time was not plausible. He
also said the deal would be bad for American national security in the
long term: “You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it
looks like for our grandchildren. That’s how Americans should view the
deal.”
...
Obama promised to degrade and destroy Islamic State's forces but then
didn’t develop a strategy to complete the mission, Bush said. He said
that if you have a military goal and you mean it, “you call in your
military and say ‘What’s your plan?’ ” He indirectly touted his own
decision to surge troops to Iraq in 2007, by saying, “When the plan
wasn’t working in Iraq, we changed.”
“In order to be an effective president ... when you say something you have to mean it,” he said. “You gotta kill em.”
...
Regarding Hillary Clinton, Bush said it will be crucial how she plays
her relationship with the president. She will eventually have to choose
between running on the Obama administration’s policies or running
against them. If she defends them, she's admitting failure, he said, but
if she doesn't she's blaming the president.
For George W. Bush, the remarks in Vegas showed he has little respect
for how the current president is running the world. He also revealed
that he takes little responsibility for the policies that he put in
place that contributed to the current state of affairs.
I disagree with the last sentence. It isn't that Bush takes little responsibility for the policies he put in place, but rather that he takes no responsibility for the way Obama has implemented them. Americans aren't using to hearing that since 2009.
It is difficult for the Western liberal to observe the new Middle
East. His worldview is based on criticizing the West and granting
sweeping amnesty to those who are seen as its victims. This liberal’s
code of values forbids him to define Third World evil as such. So he
demonstrated against the war in Vietnam, but kept silent in the face of
the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. He opposed the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, but kept silent in the face of the oppression in Iran.
This
is why he hastens to denounce Israel, while displaying leniency toward
Hamas’ fascism. The Western liberal knows how to rise up against Western
exertion of force and likes doing so. But at the sight of Arabs
slaughtering Arabs, he is lost. Whom will he rage against? Whom can he
demonstrate against? At whom will he feel holy fury?
...
The new Middle East is now raising penetrating questions that must
generate an upheaval in liberal thought. Liberals can no longer ignore
the awful plague of Middle Eastern brutality and the fact that millions
of Arabs live with no rights and no future.
While voicing
justified criticism against Israel (for the occupation, settlements,
racist fringes), they must lift their eyes and see the expanse in which
Israel is located. An expanse in which Yazidis are massacred and
Christians are persecuted and women are stoned. An expanse in which
there is no democracy, or peace, or grace. This is a Middle East that
liberals must see as it is – and deal with its diseases courageously.
OMG: Obama tries to blame Bush for withdrawal from Iraq
Barack Hussein Obama spent the entire 2012 election campaign bragging about how he 'ended' the war in Iraq. But now that the end of the war is blowing up in his face, Obama is singing a different tune (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
On the South Lawn of the White House today, after Obama explained why
he had ordered the U.S. military to renew airstrikes in Iraq, a
reporter asked Obama about his decision to remove all U.S. troops from
Iraq.
“Mr. President, do you have any second thoughts about pulling all
ground troops out of Iraq?” the reporter asked. “And does it give you
pause as the U.S.--is it doing the same thing in Afghanistan?”
“What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps
on coming up, as if this was my decision,” Obama said, indicating he
does not believe it was his decision as commander in chief of U.S.
troops in a congressionally authorized action in Iraq to decide whether
the troops should stay or leave.
“Under the previous administration, we had turned over the country to
a sovereign, democratically elected Iraqi government,” Obama said. “In
order for us to maintain troops in Iraq, we needed the invitation of the
Iraqi government and we needed assurances that our personnel would be
immune from prosecution if, for example, they were protecting themselves
and ended up getting in a firefight with Iraqis, that they wouldn’t be
hauled before an Iraqi judicial system.
“And the Iraqi government, based on its political considerations, in
part because Iraqis were tired of a U.S. occupation, declined to provide
us those assurances,” Obama said. “And on that basis, we left. We had
offered to leave additional troops. So when you hear people say, do you
regret, Mr. President, not leaving more troops, that presupposes that I
would have overridden this sovereign government that we had turned the
keys back over to and said, you know what, you’re democratic, you’re
sovereign, except if I decide that it’s good for you to keep 10,000 or
15,000 or 25,000 Marines in your country, you don’t have a choice, which
would have kind of run contrary to the entire argument we were making
about turning over the country back to Iraqis, an argument not just made
by me, but made by the previous administration.
“So let’s just be clear: The reason that we did not have a follow-on
force in Iraq was because the Iraqis were--a majority of Iraqis did not
want U.S. troops there, and politically they could not pass the kind of
laws that would be required to protect our troops in Iraq,” said Obama.
Two comments: As bad as President Obama has been for the United States (and in my humble opinion he has been a horrible President in just about every respect), the place that has been most hurt by his incompetence, bullheadedness, arrogance... no time to write the whole list... at least outside of the United States is the Middle East. And it will be much harder for the Middle East to recover from the Obama administration than it will be for the United States. The damage here is far more permanent.
Second, aside from his lousy policies, the thing I find most irritating about his personality is that the man is incapable of owning a mistake. He cannot say he was wrong. He cannot admit that he blew something.And that's a lousy trait with which to go through life.
Jonathan Schanzer plumbs the depths to which US influence in the Middle East has sunk.
And it's not just Israel, either. Call it a "pivot," call it a
"rebalancing"—by now, every leader in the region knows full well that
the United States is trying to extricate itself from the Middle East.
They know that the current Gaza conflict, the ongoing Syria slaughter
and other regional upheavals are a collective nuisance to this
administration, which has conspicuously failed to craft a consistent or
coherent Middle East foreign policy after six years of turmoil.
U.S. credibility took a nose dive after President Obama's Syria "red
line" reversal last September—and it plummeted further in May as Kerry's
ill-timed attempt to broker a peace deal between the Palestinians and
Israelis predictably collapsed. It doesn't help that Egypt, the
traditional American broker of calm between Hamas and the Israelis, has
failed at its first attempt to do Washington's bidding. But it's also no
surprise. Egypt has been drifting from Washington's orbit ever since
the administration cut funding after last year's coup that heralded the
rise of army strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
To be fair, it's unlikely that even Sisi's predecessor, Mohammed
Morsi, the ousted Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader who brokered the
last ceasefire with Hamas in November 2012 thanks to his longstanding
ties with the group, could talk sense to Hamas right now. As Jordanian
officials confirmed to me last week, Hamas is now fractured. It has at
least four power centers: Gaza Strip, West Bank, external leadership and
military leadership. Dealing with one, unified Hamas that was strident
and intransigent was difficult enough. The splintering of Hamas makes it
that much harder to negotiate.
Still, few countries in the region are prepared to cut Washington
much slack. There is a growing climate of fear stemming from the
U.S.-led negotiations with Iran over its illicit nuclear program. As one
former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official put it to me, "the fear
is that the Iranians are going to pretend to give up their nuclear
program, and the U.S. is going to pretend to believe them."
...
What does this all mean? In the short term, the Gaza war may stretch on
longer than anyone expected, fanning the flames of a region already
burning. In the longer term, this conflict, regardless of duration, will
fuel the perception that the United States has lost control of this
strategically important region.
In view of John Kerry's prognostications of imminent peace, we offer a
brief review of America's recent track-record in the Middle East. You
know, maybe all that is needed is a fresh face who can sweet-talk
everyone into just getting along?
Final assault on Israel? UN General Assembly calls on Israel to allow nuclear inspectors
We can thank President Hussein Obama for opening this Pandora's box as well. The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to call on Israel to open its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection. The resolution also expressed support for a now-canceled (although one of the sponsors - Britain - says it's only been postponed) conference of all of the signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. And wait - it gets better.
There were two paragraphs of the resolution that were voted on separately and one of them - to which the US voted in favor! - calls on all countries to immediately join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Only Israel and India voted against that one (Hat Tip: MFS - The Other News).
All the Arab nations and Iran had planned to attend the conference in
mid-December in Helsinki, Finland, but the United States announced on
Nov. 23 that it wouldn’t take place, citing political turmoil in the
region and Iran’s defiant stance on nonproliferation. Iran and some Arab
nations countered that the real reason for the cancellation was
Israel’s refusal to attend.
The resolution, approved by a vote of 174-6 with 6 abstentions, calls on
Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty “without further
delay” and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the
International Atomic Energy Agency. Those voting “no” were Israel, the
U.S., Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.
I find it incredible that India did not vote no on this....
Resolutions adopted by the 193-member General Assembly are not legally
binding but they do reflect world opinion and carry moral and political
weight.
Israel refuses to confirm or deny it has nuclear bombs though it is
widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal. It has refused to join the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, along with three nuclear weapon
states - India, Pakistan and North Korea.
The Arab proposal to create a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in
the Mideast, and to pressure Israel to give up its undeclared arsenal of
perhaps 80 nuclear warheads, was endorsed at an NPT conference in 1995
but never acted on. In 2010, the 189 parties to the 1970 treaty called
for convening a conference in 2012 on the establishment of a WMD-free
zone in the Middle East.
The resolution, which was approved by the assembly’s disarmament
committee before the conference was cancelled, noted the decision to
hold it “with satisfaction.”
The number I have heard is not 80 but 200. And I suppose that there is no point in arguing that Israel has allegedly had nuclear weapons for 50 years, and as the only democracy in the region has not, and is unlikely to introduce their use into the region. This isn't about logic....
While the United States voted against the resolution, it voted in favor
of two paragraphs in it that were put to separate votes. Both support
universal adherence to the NPT, and call on those countries that aren’t
parties to ratify it “at the earliest date.” The only “no” votes on
those paragraphs were Israel and India.
Aren't you glad Hussein Obama is still President? What could go wrong?
Jeffrey Goldberg (Jeffrey Goldberg?!?): Missed opportunities in the Middle East are an Obama speciality
The most amazing thing about this article is that Jeffrey Goldberg wrote it.
Perhaps Obama isn’t
quite the brilliant foreign-policy strategist his campaign tells
us he is. Of course, he has had his successes. I’m not sure
you’re aware of this, but Osama bin Laden is dead (killed,
apparently, by Obama, who used only a salad fork and a No. 2
pencil). And, despite Republican assertions to the contrary, he
has done far more to stymie Iran’s nuclear ambitions than his
predecessor, George W. Bush, ever did.
Yet Obama’s record in the Middle East suggests that missed
opportunities are becoming a White House specialty.
Syria is the most obvious example. Assad is a prime
supporter of terrorism (as opposed to Qaddafi, who had retired
from terrorism sponsorship by the time his people rose up
against him), and his regime represents Iran’s only meaningful
Arab ally. The overriding concern of the Obama administration in
the Middle East is the defanging of Iran. Nothing would isolate
Iran -- and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah -- more than the
removal of the Assad regime and its replacement by a government
drawn from Syria’s Sunni majority. Ensuring that Muslim
extremists don’t dominate the next Syrian government is another
compelling reason to increase U.S. involvement.
...
Yet all we have from Obama is passivity, which is a
recurring theme in the administration’s approach to the Middle
East. So is “aggressive hedging,” a term used by the Brookings
Institution’s Shadi Hamid to describe Obama’s strange reluctance
to clearly choose sides in the uprisings of the Arab Spring.
“There’s a widespread perception in the region that Obama
is a weak, somewhat feckless president,” Hamid, who runs the
Brookings Doha Center, told me. “Bush may have been hated, but
he was also feared, and what we’ve learned in the Middle East is
that fear, sometimes at least, can be a good thing. Obama’s
aggressive hedging has alienated both sides of the Arab divide.
Autocrats, particularly in the Gulf, think Obama naively
supports Arab revolutionaries, while Arab protesters and
revolutionaries seem to think the opposite.”
Leaders across the Middle East don’t take Obama’s threats
seriously. Neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor
the Arab leaders of the Gulf countries believe he’ll act
militarily against Iran’s nuclear program in his second term.
Obama’s handling of Middle East peace negotiations couldn’t
be characterized as passive; they could, however, be described
as thoughtless. Obama publicly demanded that Netanyahu freeze
settlement growth on the West Bank. When Netanyahu only
partially and temporarily complied, Obama, in reaction, did
nothing. Obama was wrong to draw a line in the sand over
settlements, which are a derivative issue (if the Israelis and
Palestinians settle their borders, the settlement issue will
also be solved). But because he made it an issue without a
thought to follow-up, he managed to freeze the peace process.
From the Arab perspective, Obama didn’t carry through on a
stated policy. This didn’t help his reputation.
“Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have run roughshod
over Obama, embarrassing and undercutting him,” Hamid said.
“They simply don’t believe that Obama will do anything about
it.”
Romney: 'We're at the mercy of events, rather than shaping events in the Middle East'
ABC News publishes a brief interview with Mitt Romney, which is essentially a postmortem of Sunday night's dueling interviews on CBS's 60 Minutes (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). Here's what he had to say about President Obama's remarks about the Middle East.
Well I think the president’s comments on 60 minutes last night were
quite revealing. His indication that developments in the middle east
represent bumps in the road is a very different view than i Have. The
president, uh, I can’t imagine saying something like the assassination
of ambassadors is a bump in the road, when you look at the entire
context, The assassination, the Muslim brotherhood president being
elected in Egypt, 20,000 people killed in Syria, Iran close to becoming a
nuclear nation these are far from being bumps in the road. They
represent events that are spinning out of the kind of influence we’d
like to have. We’re at the mercy events rather than shaping the events
in the Middle East. and the president doesn’t have time to actually
spend time with leaders of these nations particularly Bibi Netanyahu, I
find that very troubling. And a suggestion that the course America is on
is not the right course in the middle east.
When I read the platform I am shocked and disappointed. I can pick at the issues of popularity, Afghanistan and Iraq. But the failure to deal with revolutionary Islamism is ridiculously glaring (they didn’t use the tiniest fig leaf to cover themselves), making a mockery about the democracy and human rights’ pretensions. The treatment of Middle East allies is shockingly insulting. The issues of Syria and Egypt are simply dodged. There is not a single mention of the opposition in Iran. All terrorists not involved directly in the September 11, 2001, attacks are ignored. There is not the slightest hint that any regional strategy exists at all.
Not a single word implies that the United States is willing to help allies fight revolutionary Islamist threats. In fact, the words “Islam” and “Muslim” do not appear once, even in some discussion of good Muslims versus bad radical heretics. They could have said something like: "Islam is a religion of peace but there are some extremists who wish to distort its teachings, take power, and institute repressive and anti-American dictatorships. We support our allies in defending themselves against these threats and support true democratic reformers in fighting against such oppressive forces that deny equality to women, religious minorities, and gay people." But they didn't even do that.
If they don’t even see the main threat at all how can one trust such people to rule the country and provide leadership in the region?
What can American allies in the region—aside from Israel--expect from President Obama to protect them from internal revolutionaries, international terrorists, and revolutionary Islamist states?
I'd say, give the Obami credit for their honesty. This is what their policy on the Islamists has been all along. Doesn't this fit in with editing out 'Islamic terrorism' from FBI and CIA and Secret Service manuals? Doesn't this fit in with 'leading from behind' in Libya and calling for Hosni Mubarak to resign after being an American ally for 30 years? Doesn't this fit in with throwing Israel under the bus and and ignoring those who would overthrow the Iranian regime?
We need to get into the mood for this one first, so let's go to the videotape.
Barry Rubin reports that former President Bush and (hopefully soon-to-be-former) President Obama are together at last... in misunderstanding the Middle East.
Bush writes:
"We do not get to choose if a freedom revolution should begin or end in the Middle East or elsewhere. We only get to choose what side we are on."
While one should not overestimate U.S. influence, one should also not underestimate it. Consider:
--In the Gaza Strip, by supporting the inclusion of Hamas in elections for which it was not qualified to run (since it had not accepted the Oslo accords), Bush’s own administration ensured that there would be a radical Islamist revolution in the Gaza Strip. This weakened the already dim prospects for any Israel-Palestinian peace process, has already brought one war, and will certainly bring others.
--In Lebanon, by refusing to give strong support to the moderate forces, the last two presidents ensured that the “freedom revolution” in that country would end in an Iran-Syria-Hizballah takeover.
--In Egypt, by taking the side not only of a total overthrow of the regime and even openly and unilaterally supporting the possibility of a Muslim Brotherhood government, the Obama Administration did help ensure that the fundamental transformation of Egypt began with the inevitable end of an anti-freedom Islamist regime.
--In Iran, by ignoring the upsurge of protest following the stolen election, the Obama Administration ensured that a “freedom revolution” didn’t get started there.
--In Syria, by refusing for all practical purposes to help the rebels, the U.S. government ensured that the “freedom revolution” would be defeated. Equally bad, by giving disproportionate help to the Islamists, the administration made it far more likely that if the rebellion succeeded it wouldn’t be a “freedom revolution.”
Hmmm. Maybe Americans need to take foreign policy a bit more seriously in choosing their Presidents.
Glenn Beck has it right on the Middle East says...
Glenn Beck has got it right on the Middle East says... Barry Rubin.
Certainly, Beck makes silly mistakes on factual matters and details. Yet what’s important is that he comprehends the big picture. I don’t say this based on a superficial view or on his support for Israel. As part of the GLORIA Center’s project on understanding current American politics and debates I have monitored virtually every television and radio show Beck has done over the last two years. When people voice absurd and slanderous stereotypes about Beck, it turns out they haven’t actually listened to what he’s been saying.
Why has Beck gotten things right that so many others have missed or distorted? There are five key reasons: Common sense; courage; knowing the difference between right and wrong, willingness to learn, and readiness to admit when one has been wrong. These are virtues often lacking among those with more elegant reputations and impressive diplomas.
What has he gotten right?
Quite a lot of things. Read the whole thing. I especially want to call your attention to this one:
9. We must reevaluate friends and enemies in this new era of revolutionary Islamism and post-Marxist leftism.
In the past, Jews often saw conservatives and religious Christians as threats for good reasons. But we’re no longer in the nineteenth or even twentieth centuries. Conservatives and Christians aren’t drooling to convert, kill, or use Jews to bring on the apocalypse. That’s out-dated. While doing everything possible to work with liberals and social democrats, we must understand—whatever our personal political views—that Israel and the Jewish people have a new set of allies.
Why have these groups changed their views on Jews? With religion imperiled in the West, they see Jews as fellow believers rather than—as in past antisemitism—corrosive atheists and Jesus-killers. They see Israel as an embodiment of the nation-state and admire its ability to defend itself, rather than considering Jews to be cosmopolitan subversives and cowardly pacifists. Rather than view Jews as imperiling Western civilization, they view Israel as facing the same enemies they believe to be doing so today.
An important issue—in fact, the key test—was how conservatives would deal with the presence of so many Jews among their opponents. Historically, that situation was a prime factor in an antisemitic narrative on the right. The solution has been to perceive leftist Jews as traitors to their own Jewish people rather than to consider Jews as a whole to be the villain. Whether or not you agree with that assessment isn’t important in this context. What’s important is that this solves the political and religious right’s past inclination toward antisemitism.
Here's former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations about the Middle East. Much of this video (although not all of it) is relevant to Israel. The key passage is between about 19:00 and 23:30.
Let's go to the videotape.
Despite the fact that some of the Republican candidates have trended toward isolationism, I suspect that we're going to hear most Republican candidates in 2012 come out strongly in favor of Israel, and I expect to see most of the Republican candidates use Israel as a club against Barack Hussein Obama. Many of the statements being made by the Republican candidates are even more pro-Israel than statements made by George W. Bush during the heyday of his support of Israel (2002-04).
But will they win? And if they win, will it last? Only if Israel's supporters remain vigilant in holding the Republican candidates to their word.
Video: Glenn Beck on the history of hatred in the Middle East
Glenn Beck's show on Wednesday dealt with the history of hatred in the Middle East.
This video is in three parts. I'm posting it several hours before you will see it, and have not watched it yet (I have to get some sleep!). But I hope to watch it in the morning.
Here's Part 1. Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Cheryl H).
Messiah's times: Obama seeking advice on Egypt from bipartisan panel, including (gulp!) former Bush NSC official
I think this is a first. President Obama has invited a bipartisan panel of experts, which was among the few groups to warn of the coming crisis in Egypt, to advise him on how to handle what's going on in Egypt. The panel includes (gulp!) former Bush administration National Security Council official Elliott Abrams.
Several foreign policy scholars and former officials have been urging the U.S. administration for months to prepare for the end of the Hosni Mubarak era and the instability that would accompany it.
Now that the administration has found itself scrambling the past few days to, first, try to avert a bloodbath in Egypt and more broadly, figure out what to do amid a hugely complicated power transition there with much at stake for the U.S., it's worth noting the people who have been pleading for policy attention on this issue long in advance. Chief among them, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Michele Dunne, a former NSC and State Department Policy Planning official, and the Brookings Institution's Robert Kagan, who co-chair a bipartisan working group on Egypt.
...
To their credit, the National Security Council's top Middle East hands Dennis Ross and Dan Shapiro met with Dunne and Kagan in November to discuss the issue (at a stuck moment of the peace process which has remained stuck), and other democracy and human rights specialists in the administration, including the NSC's Samantha Power and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East democracy issues Tamara Wittes, have frequently met with them. But the regional advisors' priorities mattered most, advocates believed, and to a great extent, much of their focus (as for that of the principals above them, and indeed, the wider policy community and media) has been on the peace process, and looking at Egypt through the prism of its role in supporting the peace process.
Just got late word that Dunne, Kagan and others from their group including former Bush NSC Middle East hand Elliott Abrams, as well as George Washington University Middle East expert Marc Lynch, have been invited to the White House Monday.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
