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| Home Front: Politix |
| Dreamer down for the count |
| 2011-05-26 |
| By Walter Russell Mead "Here lies our sovereign king," wrote the Earl of Rochester about King Charles: Whose word no man relies on. Who never said a foolish thing Or ever did a wise one. This seems to capture President Obama's Middle East problems in a nutshell. The President's descriptions of the situation are comprehensive and urbane. He correctly identifies the forces at work. He develops interesting policy ideas and approaches that address important political and moral elements of the complex problems we face. He crafts approaches that might, with good will and deft management, bridge the gaps between the sides. He reads thoughtful speeches full of sensible reflections. But the last few weeks have cast him as the least competent manager of America's Middle East diplomatic portfolio in a very long time. He has infuriated and frustrated long term friends, but made no headway in reconciling enemies. He has strained our ties with the established regimes without winning new friends on the Arab Street. He has committed our forces in the strategically irrelevant backwater of Libya not, as he originally told us, for "days, not weeks" but for months not days. Where he has failed so dramatically is in the arena he himself has so frequently identified as vital: the search for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. His record of grotesque, humiliating and total diplomatic failure in his dealings with Prime Minister Netanyahu has few parallels in American history. Three times he has gone up against Netanyahu; three times he has ingloriously failed. This last defeat -- Netanyahu's deadly, devastating speech to Congress in which he eviscerated President Obama's foreign policy to prolonged and repeated standing ovations by members of both parties -- may have been the single most stunning and effective public rebuke to an American President a foreign leader has ever delivered. Read it all |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #3 No 2; Agreed. re the quote; "Who never said a foolish thing" Does not apply to Barry. |
| Posted by: tipover 2011-05-26 12:01 |
| #2 The President's descriptions of the situation are comprehensive and urbane. He correctly identifies the forces at work. He develops interesting policy ideas and approaches that address important political and moral elements of the complex problems we face. He crafts approaches that might, with good will and deft management, bridge the gaps between the sides. He reads thoughtful speeches full of sensible reflections. BS |
| Posted by: DoDo 2011-05-26 11:25 |
| #1 Obama plays more like Charles I rather than Charles II. Egotism, court/patronage games, tax problems, skirting law and tradition to achieve his ends, favoritism, vacillation in policies and practices, punishing 'enemies', tossing associates 'under the bus', etc. Once thought the brightest to inherit the happiest kingdom in Christendom while the continent heaved in sectarian fratricide, would bring forth pain and disorder to home. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-05-26 10:20 |