What Obama Middle East Policy Believes
At Long Last! An Explicit Admission
By Barry Rubin, PJ MEDIA
At last, a perfect description of the Obama Administration’s Middle East policy which—unintentionally—shows why it is heading for disaster. Now what place would be so simultaneously uncomprehending and over-confident to give us that image? The New York Times, of course, in the person of Middle East correspondent and reliable apologist for revolutionary Islamist groups, Robert Worth.
First, let me repeat what I’ve been saying for almost four years: The problem is that the Obama Administration and its numerous supporters in academia and the mass media keep saying the following:
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–Only al-Qaida is a real threat because only al-Qaida wants to attack the United States directly right now.
–Al-Qaida has been defeated due to the great policies of the Obama Administration.
–The remaining revolutionary Islamist groups are potential friends. After all, [sarcasm warning] they only want to seize state power, overthrow all existing relatively moderate regimes, create Sharia dictatorships, suppress women’s rights, persecute Christians, wipe Israel off the map, and drive U.S. influence out of the region.
War over; we won. Who needs security in Benghazi? Who’s afraid of the big and not-so-bad Muslim Brotherhood?
Is this an exaggeration? Could anyone believe this narrative? Of course, yes. It is the dominant world view in the White House, the mass media, the left-wing think tanks, and those who speak publicly in academia. Other views are censored out, ridiculed, or subtly subverted. Now here’s Worth in the New York Times. Referring to the last presidential debate he writes:
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“The candidates offered profoundly different answers during their final debate last week, with President Obama repeating his triumphant narrative of drone attacks and dead terrorists, and Mitt Romney warning darkly about Islamists on the march in an increasingly hostile Middle East.
“In a sense, both are true. The organization that planned the Sept. 11 attacks, based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is in shambles; dozens of its top leaders have been killed since Mr. Obama assumed office, and those who remain appear mostly inactive.”
Note the wonderfully neat trick Worth pulls. First, he poses as even-handed (“In a sense, both are true.”) but then he affirms President Barack Obama’s view as correct and ridicules what Republican candidate Mitt Romney said.
Let’s pause here for a moment. What Worth did in this article could stand as the poster article for a decade of mass media bias. The bias is often transparent (for some of us) while others—and I constantly meet such people—simply take the mass media’s coverage as their own belief without any consideration or revision.
The first part of the trick includes focusing on the “top leaders.” Yes, the top leaders are in many cases dead but al-Qaida isn’t a strictly hierarchical group. Local affiliates operate independently of those guys in Afghanistan or Pakistan, as we can see in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, the Gaza Strip, Iraq, Morocco, and other places. By focusing on “top leaders,” Worth is profoundly distorting the issue. It’s hard to believe that he doesn’t get this obvious point.
Next, listen to Worth trash Romney’s argument despite the fact that this is the most important point on the Middle East today and should be the centerpiece of U.S. policy:
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“But there is an important distinction: most of the newer jihadist groups have local agendas, and very few aspire to strike directly at the United States as Osama bin Laden’s core network did. They may interfere with American interests around the world — as in Syria, where the presence of militant Islamists among the rebels fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad has inhibited American efforts to support the uprising. But that is a far cry from terrorist plots aimed at the United States itself.”
Again, Worth distorts the issue. Of course, terrorist plots aimed at the United States itself are a serious matter. Yet those “local agendas” include things very destructive to U.S. interests and may include—to cite a potential case—assassinating a U.S. ambassador in Libya. One might have said that Nazi Germany and the USSR were not intending to make any direct attacks on the United States either. That “local agenda” also may include taking over countries and fomenting war and terrorism aimed at U.S. interests and local facilities as well as U.S. allies.
Worth also proves my point about the idea that al-Qaida is bad and out of action while other revolutionary Islamists are no big problem. But he goes even further:
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“Jihadists have also gained strength in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, just across the border from Israel. At one point during the debate, Mr. Romney appeared to link these varied threats with the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt. To some terrorism analysts, this kind of talk is counterproductive, because it blurs crucial distinctions between potential allies who profess to believe in democracy and civic rights, like the Brotherhood, and more militant Islamists who view those principles as heresy.”
Of course the example Worth cites proves that his argument is ridiculous. The appearance of these groups obviously is linked “with the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt.” They didn’t exist before because the Mubarak government suppressed them. In contrast, the Brotherhood government tolerates these radical forces and views them as allies, unless they make the mistake of launching armed attacks on the regime.
Moreover, Worth—in the guise of one “terrorism analyst” at a left-wing think tank who I’ve never heard of and has no visible qualifications to claim such a title—calls the Muslim Brotherhood (and presumably Hamas and Hizballah?) “potential allies who profess to believe in democracy and civic rights.”
Here is the unspoken reality of Obama policy. He has been treating these groups as “potential allies.” For more than two years, until it became impossible to continue, he deemed Iran and Syria as “potential allies.”
And how can a journalist get away with saying that people are “potential allies” because they “profess” to believe in democracy and human rights. Didn’t the Communists and most of the world’s worst dictatorships and totalitarian forces “profess” such a belief? What matters is what they really do and believe.
Finally, here is what I wrote recently that Worth shows to be accurate:
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“Al-Qaeda, however, is a relatively weak organization, capable of staging only sporadic terror attacks, with the exception perhaps of remote Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan. It cannot take over whole countries. The fact that Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Turkey, and perhaps soon Syria are governed by Islamists is a far greater strategic threat.
Then why couldn’t the Obama administration have said that the consulate was attacked by evil al-Qaeda for no reason other than its lust to murder Americans, with the perfect symbolism of the attack having been staged on September 11?
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“There was a dual problem. First, the group involved was one the U.S. government had worked with during the Libyan civil war so it could not admit they were close to al-Qaeda. Second, the official line was that al-Qaeda had been defeated so it could not still be a threat. Therefore, an alternative narrative and a cover-up were needed.”
Yet the cover-up of the Benghazi killings is only a small portion of a cover-up that incorporates the Obama Administration’s entire Middle East policy and all the lands from Morocco to the borders of India.
The problem with all this is that respected institutions are spouting what can easily be deciphered as pure nonsense just by analyzing their own words. Such corruption of key American institutions is frightening and must be reversed.
Any man who cannot or will not distinguish between his country’s worst enemies—groups that hate America, wage a real war on women and Christians, and are the world’s leading antisemites—and “potential allies” should not be president.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.
Vote on November 6 and perhaps we’ll all step over to the sane side of the looking glass in D.C. when a different president is sworn in next January!
Soetoro Obama himself just a short while ago “denied” that orders were issued to “stand down”. Next it will be that the troops in subordinated and refused to go.
The grotesque criminals started by explaining as a team, all of them, for weeks, that it was a popular reaction to a video. Then proclaimed that there was NO sufficient information. Now they tacitly declare that they knew but never issued orders to “stand down”. Truly remarkable vicious morons.
Woe to us all if that element remains in control of the US.
Let’s face the brutal facts. Obama was born to a Muslim parent, attended Muslim schools,spins fantasies about how wonderful Islam is , bows to Muslim potentates. and does everything possible to enpower the Muslim Brotherhood. ‘Nuff said.
There is very little time left and in my opinion Sandy is helping Obama to win the White HOuse again. Why isn’t the conservative media doing more to push the murder of these Americans on the front pages? Why aren’t the families of these men outraged by what happened to their loved ones? If this is only covered in Glenn Beck and Fox News, it is not reaching the undecided and those fringe Democrats. Does Barry Rubin or anyone else place a rebuttal of the lies in the New York Times? Are there ads placed in all major newspapers contradicting the BS and enlightening the population about the truth? Time is running out and I am really scared about the outcome of the election and I am Canadian. I fear for the world if Obama gets back in.
@ Noemie Oziel:
I understand but our information from the ground is that Mr. Obama is far from being a winner, in fact a major forecaster has him loosing handily right now.
Precisely now a NEWS FLASH popped telling us that Obama just fired a principal fleet Admiral. We know that there are very hard feelings among the military about the stand down ordered during the Benghazi affair.
More to be disclosed…
Even if your information from the ground is telling you that Romney is winning, this is no time to let out. You have to keep on pounding until the close of November 6.
Another fact which should be out there more (maybe it is): Obama claims he cares so much about the poor and middle class but he spends all his time hobnobbing with the rich movie stars which he uses for his ads instead of using normal everyday middle class people. Whereas Romney who is rich and did not need to associate himself with poor or middle class, was a preacher in his community and gave from his time, wisdom and money to help the poor and downtrodden.
@ Noemie Oziel:
I am fully aware about that and I agree.
I wrote a further item but decided not to send it out. Keep listening to military high ranking officers being removed by Obama. In the last few days.
noemie, shmuel,
it is very unfortunate that elections, boil down to chosing the least of the two evils.
in this case, the sheer EVIL that husein the bastard (literally and figuratively) is, allows for quite a bit of leeway for romney.
however, i haven’t heard mitt yet come out and say ‘the first official act under my presidency, would be to move the u.s. embassy to jerusalem, israel’s eternal capital.’….
we have a smoking gun from here to the yazzoo in as far as benghazi…
the bastard that ordered the stand down order and proceeded nonchalantly to go to a fund raising party should be tried for treason and befittingly be led to the gallows .
i may not have caught it, but i have not heard too much outrage and hounding the musloid for answers…
all that to say,i would still pick him over the bastard, but on the large sceme of things, it does not make THAT much of a difference.
fwiw, (call me a crazy conspiracy theory guy) but i think it is all prearranged. an illusion of a ‘debate’ an illusion of ‘free democratic elections’…(eye roll. yeah right!)
Hello Phoenix,
You are definitely a conspiracy guy. The way you think, you might as well throw up your hands, do absolutely nothing, because there is nothing you say you can do, and just wait for death to come.
I am not talking only about Israel but about the state of the world. I myself feel safer when the U.S. is strong militarily and morally. This will definitely be lacking with Obama (sounds like Osama)Hussein as the president of the United States.
@ Noemie Oziel:
dear noemie,
you might be right,were one inclined to pigeon hole a stranger, into one category or another for simplicity sake.
i do not take it as a derogatory comment.
i would just like for you to understand that in fact we do share similar views (husein zero MUST go)but perhaps not in the same order of priority or not for the same reason.
when you said that “The way you think, you might as well throw up your hands, do absolutely nothing, because there is nothing you say you can do” your ladder was leaning on the wrong wall completely.
Sorry Phoenix, I absolutely did not mean to insult at all.
I was watching Fox news today and did not hear any mention about military high ranking officers being removed from their posts. I read something about it in Glenn Beck’s website but nothing on TV.
@ Noemie Oziel:
hi noemie,
as i said, i did not perceive your comment derogatory.
more to the point,
and in all likelihood you won’t either.
this collection of lowlifes masquearading as ‘journalists’ are in the business of creating news that fit their agenda and talking points, ant not to report facts that could dammage their script.
@ the phoenix:
Been very busy researching news circulating that besides the detention of General Ham, for his plan to rush help to Benghazi there have been the sudden removal from command of the Real Admiral in charge of the Third Fleet and that 100′s of officers are being CIA’d. General Ham has resigned from the Army.
General Ham’s detention and the Rear Admiral removal have been confirmed, the later October 27th. The rest is under special investigation by people with reach into the secluded ranks.
The whole spectacle could fit the old USSR or South American Junta styled government ways and means.
Obama’s firing of these two — the admiral and the general — needs to be publicized. Having spent the last week in the United States, I did not hear a word of this from the American media (the story is being buried). The Republicans need to use this (Obama, the bastard, is getting all kinds of plaudits and praise due to hurricane Sandy).
I agree with most of the comments posted by others. I just like to add – why nobody asks Obama when and where was he BAPITIZED to become a Christian. Nobody converts to another religion without some kind of a ceremony. I really would like to know if he really ever converted….or is it just lying to us. A wolf in sheeps clothing
He will probably let go of many of the top generals, just like the Prime Minister of Turkey Mr. Urdugan, so he can do whatever he wants. I wonder if Mr. Barak Hussein Obama stands in front of the mirror every morning saying Mirror Mirron on the Wall….
What a shame that he may succeed to trample on us for 4 more years***
Why isn’t the Republican machine posting it all over the news, putting it on television ads on CNN and other Liberal media channels and enlighten the American people? I see the Demo(n)crat machine is already spreading rumours about General Ham saying that he suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. Why won’t the General and the Admiral expose Obama and his goonies and make them responsible for the death of the 4 Americans since they are the one’s who gave orders to stand down.Can they be charged for treason if they speak out?