For John, BLUF: "US policy in the Middle East appears to be promoting an increased threat to Israel by uniting the new Islamist regimes against Israel under Iranian leadership. This is the one issue on which they can agree and this is a warning."
The 12/12/12 edition of Night Watch has an opinion piece by Analyst John McCreary regarding the long term prospects for peace for Israel. Israel's current security situation is good, but with the Arab Spring and Iran close to having a nuclear weapons capability the situation could well change. We could well ignore the impact of these developments, but to do so could leave the United States less well off in having to deal with future crises. That is to say, a small investment now could pay good dividends in the future.
NightWatch Special Comment: (This is a NightWatch editorial opinion.) The US is helping to destabilize the government of Syria, just as it did the government of Egypt.What adjustments do you think we should consider in our approach to Israel and the rest of the Near and Middle East?US interests generally favor stable governments, whether elected or not. The Chinese take the same approach to North Korea. They judge that instability in Northeast Asia is contrary to China's national interests. It is bad for business, investment and development projects. Thus, even the Chinese would consider the current US policy as confusing because it promotes instability with no clear end state in mind.
In the Syrian case, the US is acting as a proxy for Saudi Arabia, which is determined to block the spread of Iranian influence in Arab countries.
The US has no high-minded moral interest in this fight, as if it were helping the downtrodden struggle against an authoritarian government. Were that the motivating factor, the US might have denounced Egyptian president Mursi's assumption of dictatorial powers on 22 November. Asad has no comparable powers. The US has said nothing about Mursi's personal coup d'etat.
The big winner from instability in Syria and Egypt will be Iran because its policy of hostility towards Israel is a magnet for all Arabs.
The Saudis lost the struggle to influence or control the direction of the Arab Spring states when Hamas survived eight days of Israeli air attacks, owing exclusively to Iranian, Egyptian and Sudanese help. Saudi Arabia, with all its $billions, was irrelevant.
The US and Saudis appear to be on the wrong side of history, because Iran already appears to have made contingency preparations for supporting an anti-Israel, fundamentalist, Sunni regime in Damascus, just as it did with the Mursi government in Egypt.
US policy in the Middle East appears to be promoting an increased threat to Israel by uniting the new Islamist regimes against Israel under Iranian leadership. This is the one issue on which they can agree and this is a warning.
Regards — Cliff
8 comments:
The Obama administration has made it abundantly clear to the entire world that it is indeed quite sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, and in fact, may well be a silent supporter. This flies in the face of many years of solidarity with Israel.
Geopolitical implications aside, the greatest damage from this radical change in foreign policy direction is that by turning our backs on a long time and close ally, it shows the rest of our allies that our word cannot be trusted. We are now seen as spineless opportunists.
That this is occurring today is no surprise. When Obama spent his earliest months in office traveling the world to bow and scrape to other world leaders and to apologize for American exceptionalism, the handwriting on the wall was quite plain and obvious in its message.
There was a time....at least in a mythical sense....that the US stood for freedom, truth, justice and all those other wonderful attributes. We were the good guys who would come to the aid of the oppressed. That no longer is true in any sense. We used to stand for something......and now we fall for anything.
I am not sure I can draw that straight line, but I do think the Iranian Bomb could change things in indirect ways, if Iran uses others as surrogates. On the other hand, President Morsi of Egypt seems to be moderating, in the face of internal opposition. The quickest—and perhaps worst—way to rebalance things would be to give the Saudis the Bomb. I didn't just say that out loud, did I?
Regards — Cliff
I thought we are trying to reduce the nuclear footprint?
....
I've got to consolidate Neal's logic, so I can wrap my head around it:
There was a time....at least in a mythical sense....that the US stood for ...
We used to stand for (myth?)......and now we fall for anything.
....
Am I now obliged to tell my two daugters that they were better American's when the believed in Unicorns?
Back in the day, we used to preach upstanding American values, while we trained death squads in South America. What is 'mythical' is not the ideals that we hold sacred in the writ of our Founders.
What is 'mythical' is the legends wrapped around fools and miscreants that give cover to the hypocrites that steer America away from our true values.
The warped notion that the US can demand the rest of the world, simply 'do as we say and not as we do' is the most outlandish of all neocon asshattery.
We will be in a much better place, if we quit expecting our neighbors to simply "fall for anything."
The world is filled with bright, capable people that reject the 'exceptionalism' that allows for the US to piss on their feet and tell them that it is raining.
Ah yes.....the old One World Government approach to everything......aka....Utopia. If we all sign the pledge, bad things will no longer be inflicted on good people by bad people.
I have never advocated being the world's policeman....or believed in and promoted making the world safe for American democracy. I am an American Exceptionalist in that we have a republic that has lasted longer than any other in the history of man.....and it was crafted from blood, sweat and a lot of tears.....but the benefactors of that evolution have enjoyed a life unequaled by any other in the world.
In my view, "Don't tread on me" is a clear message to the rest of the world. We'll leave them alone and they leave us alone. If folks think America is a good thing, they are welcome to join us...but that means that they become 100% American...not bilingual or multicultural or multinational.
So....in some ways Jack's objections have credibility. We really need to stop telling other people how to live THEIR lives. I am all for that. We need to stick to our own knitting. Or...as Teddy Roosevelt was fond of saying....walk softly...and carry a big stick.
In response to Cliff.....we need to stop meddling in other people's affairs. Surely the richest nation on earth ought to be able to get its own bomb. I'm tired of giving Saudi Arabia or Israel anything...other than our hand in friendship.
America: A nation with citizens that are not bilingual, not multicultural, and not multinational.
I wonder where this country is or ever was?
We ALL came from somewhere else...and some of our ancestors came from "English speaking" countries...and some didn't....but....they (and we) all jumped into the melting pot and became "one nation, indivisible." I question that you can be really American if you constantly claim to be Irish-American, Japanese-American, Mexican-American and so forth. Solidarity comes from being one.....all American. We owe much to many from many different walks of life....and some of those we owe from those different walks gave everything for America...and to it.
Once you begin to insist on carrying in your "cultural identity" we are no longer a single nation, but rather, a bunch of individual groups, each with its rights and wrongs to mind. Then we are no longer a unified nation, but a society divided.
That is why we have a pledge of allegiance.....
" I question that you can be really American if you constantly claim to be Irish-American, Japanese-American, Mexican-American"
And yet there are so many that do. Hmmmm. I wonder what that means to them or if they feel they are really Americans. I wonder who can point to them and say they are or aren't and how. I wonder who has that authority to define them or label their self-identification as illegitimate.
All these opinions on what is American. I wonder if anyone has the authority to be right.
I would like to start with an easier step. Can we start by eliminating "dual citizenship"? I know that Jack, and Carson, I expect, will raise strong objections, but it is my sense of how things should go.
Then we can worry about the importation of cultural differences such as belief in the goodness of a Caudillo, the use of the coup and the primacy of machismo, plus suttee.
Regards — Cliff
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