by Richard Baehr
As the United Nations
Security Council met to debate the situation in Syria, amid charges that
the Syrian government had used chemical weapons and killed hundreds, if
not more than a thousand civilians in recent days, U.S. Ambassador to
the U.N. Samantha Power was nowhere in sight, and State Department
officials would not reveal her whereabouts.
Although there may be a
legitimate explanation for her absence, avoiding embarrassment might
have been a political reason to avoid the debate. The self-described "genocide chick"
was a key part of the push for U.S. involvement in Libya, aiming to
avoid the possibility of massive civilian casualties in that conflict.
Power was believed to be the proponent within the administration of the
doctrine known as "responsibility to protect," or R2P. But she has been
unusually quiet about the goings on in Syria the last two years, where
more than 100,000 have been slaughtered in exactly the kind of conflict
Power hoped to avoid in Libya.
President Barack Obama,
of course, has his own embarrassments to handle over Syria. After
establishing a "red line" on the Syrian government's use of chemical
weapons, the red line appears to have been violated at least twice, with
zero consequence so far for the Assad regime. It is a very bad sign
when a humorous newspaper popular with younger Americans, such as The
Onion, begins to treat the Obama pronouncements with ridicule. The Onion's headline was: "Obama Deeply Concerned After Syrians Gassed To Death On White House Lawn."
Of course, Syria is not
the only Middle East hot spot spinning out of control, or more
significantly from the Obama perspective, away from any American role or
influence. In Egypt, the nation that Obama chose for his long-promised
outreach to Islam speech in 2009, we have witnessed all of the following
within two years: The government of long-time American ally Hosni
Mubarak was overthrown, an interim government was installed, elections
were held which may have resulted in a victory for the Muslim
Brotherhood (the results are disputed), the Muslim Brotherhood
government of Mohammed Morsi pushed for a new Islamist constitution
which was approved by voters, unhappiness with the Morsi regime on many
fronts led to huge demonstrations demanding he leave office, the army
forced Morsi from power, and then cracked down on pro-Morsi
demonstrators. And while all of this was going on, Morsi supporters,
both when he was in power and since he was deposed, have gone after
Egypt's sizable Coptic Christian community, most recently with dozens of
church burnings.
Today in Egypt, it is
hard to find anyone with any respect or admiration for the role played
by Obama in all this. Secularists and supporters of the military taking
power from Morsi believed Obama always sided with the Muslim
Brotherhood. They point to Obama demanding that Brotherhood leaders
attend his Cairo talk in 2009, which contradicted the official policy of
the Mubarak government to exclude them from political events, a reason
why Mubarak did not personally attend the talk. Obama's ambassador to
Egypt appeared to side with the Morsi regime and against its millions of
opponents when they took to the street. There was certainly the
appearance that Obama was a supporter of the popular will expressed in
huge crowds demanding the end of Mubarak's government, but held no such
regard for the even larger crowds demanding that Morsi step down.
But supporters of Morsi
and the Brotherhood are also unhappy with Obama and his actions, or
lack thereof. They believe that the Americans did not use the leverage
they had with the military and the new military-led government to
prevent the "coup" that ousted Morsi, and the crackdown which occurred
soon after when Brotherhood supporters took to the street. Obama has
been relegated to offering the kind of bromides that no one takes
seriously in Egypt or the Middle East -- calling for pluralism, for
inclusiveness, for nonviolence, for democratic rule, for a role by all
major political parties and constituencies.
These would all be
nice, but it is not how things are getting done these days in Tunisia,
Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and pretty much every other "Arab
Spring" address you can list. There is respect for the strong horse, and
the government that produces for the people, not for the better
sounding political message.
There are other
problems for Obama in the region. This week the administration found
itself denouncing the latest in a string of ever more strident remarks
emanating from Turkish leader Recep Erdogan.
After pointing to
Erdogan for years as a model for the kind of Islamist government that
the administration could work with and find common cause, this week the
Turkish leader went too far, with a predictable anti-Semitic rant about
Israel and the Jews being responsible for the collapse of the Morsi
government, a government with which Erdogan had bonded. With the Turkish
"economic miracle" in full stall, continuing problems with the Kurdish
minority and complaints about press censorship and cavalier jailings of
political opponents, the bloom is off the rose for another of Obama's
favorites.
Just months ago, on his
first visit to Israel as president, Obama's going away gift for his
Israeli hosts was an arranged three-way discussion with Erdogan and
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an attempt to finally get the two
former allies beyond the problems in their relationship associated
largely with the Mavi Marmara incident during the Turkish flotilla's
attempt to break the blockade of Gaza in 2010. Once Obama got off the
phone, the Israelis followed through with their promises, and Turkey,
naturally, did not choose to reciprocate.
It is hard to disguise
the shocking transformation that has occurred with regard to respect for
American power or will in the region.
The Obama team has been
comfortable picking off al-Qaida leaders with drone strikes, but has
signaled at every turn that it wants no more deployments (or wars)
involving U.S. ground forces. While Iran is spinning near 20,000
centrifuges and moving closer to becoming a member of the nuclear
weapons club, the Obama team has slowed the approval of sanctions by
Congress and welcomed the new Iranian government, as if it really is a
fresh start, and can bargain with the U.S. This naïveté suggests that
the Obama team believes President Hasan Rouhani's government can act
independently of the ruling mullahs who have been toying with the West
for over a decade on their nuclear program, always offering the lure of
negotiations, when this serves only to delay any serious action by the
U.S. and has also led to American pressure on Israel not to act
unilaterally.
The message that Iran
takes home from American dithering in Syria and Egypt, and our eagerness
to talk some more, is that this administration will not use military
force to stop their nuclear effort.
President George W.
Bush had a very different reputation and image in this part of the
world. He was certainly not loved, but our enemies never suspected that
we would run from a fight. We still have enemies, but now we seem unable
even to take sides. This will only lead to more testing of our resolve
by those who have lost respect for our willingness to project the power
we have.
And where is the president during
all this, now that he is back from golfing at Martha's Vineyard? He has
been on a bus tour of college campuses (where some true believers still
reside) bashing Rush Limbaugh. We have an unserious man for a serious
time.
Richard Baehr
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5485
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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