Ouch: Bush was feared, Obama is barely noticed

Barack Hussein Obama is in the same position with Syria that George W. Bush was in with Iraq in 2003. But there's one big difference: Bush was feared, Obama is barely noticed.

The issue in the Arab world -- just as in the Europe Union or the U.S. Congress -- has little to do with Syria and Assad. The U.S. and Obama are the issue. Even chemical gas, deployed by Assad in the war of annihilation against his own countrymen, failed to chip away at the hostility and base hatred the Arab world feels for the United States and the global values it has come to symbolize.

Indeed, the Arab world loves to the hate the U.S., especially because the country has come to symbolize "the other." It has become so convenient to blame the U.S. for these countries' economic backwardness. With its successes, the U.S. symbolizes the failure of most Arab countries to cope with the myriad challenges of the 21st century. And this goes without mentioning the Israel-Arab conflict. The Arab world prefers to forgo salvation as long as it's proffered by the Americans.

What's more, the events of the past few weeks have shown us that, just as there is no international community, just as the European Union has proved its inefficacy in dealing with the atrocities in Syria, there is no Arab world. All that exists is an amalgamation of nations, several of them in advanced stages of decay, gutted by their own problems.

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