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2013-08-16 Africa North

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Posted by trailing wife 2013-08-16 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top
File under: Arab Spring

#1 Yesterday or the day before, Obama actually denounced the violence against the Copts, although he decided not to blame the MBrotherhood for it. So that is progress of a kind.

Also, yesterday, I saw, on CNN (american TV news network) a fellow who usually defends Islamists, actually criticize the MBrotherhood and say that the MB was provoking some of the violence. That is also progress.

Notwithstanding the above, the Media, the American Public as well as the President of the US has a long way to go in understanding what Cairenes like this blogger see with their own eyes.

Posted by lord garth 2013-08-16 11:21|| 2013-08-16 11:21|| Front Page Top

#2 I waded through Foreign Policy this morning, specifically Mr. Traub's article. His argument was that the current administration's foreign policy team is populated by 'consequentialists' - a breed that originated during the Cold War and reached its zenith during the first President Bush administrations. Consequentialists, we are told, labor in the lofty ether of international relations, concerned with the long-range big picture where words and actions have long term consequences. It's a picture, the reasoning goes, that doesn't have space for words or actions based on moralizing or indignation (like the Second President Bush's reaction to 9-11.) Hence Saddam Hussein's crushing of the post Desert Storm Shiite uprising is merely watched, because Russian and Arab interests are at stake. An Iranian 'Green Revolution' gets silence, because engaging Iran with its nascent nuke program is important.

Problem is, those consequentialists now on the Obama foreign team were either third-stringers during the Cold War or learned it as theory in academia. Helping topple Qadaffi because the Euros and some domestic leftists were in love with a Responsibility-To-Protect policy, is one thing. Dealing with events that don't follow script or have multiple consequence options is another. So Syria gets placed in the 'hold' file, because of concern over what is more important. Is it relations with Russia or Saudi Arabia? Or is it Qatar and Turkey?

Egypt is its own special type of conundrum. The dissident groups along with the Muslim Brotherhood that toppled Mubarak have now aligned with the military to take down the Muslim Brotherhood. The military is critical to Egypt's role in the 'peace process' and as a counter-faction to the rest of the Arab world. So the Secretary of State mumbles about 'elections' and tap-dances around the word 'coup', exercises get cancelled, ordered jets get placed on hold, but the money still rolls in. Meanwhile all parties from Egypt's domestic groups, to the Emirates, and the Israelis (who know Egypt won't dump its relations with the US) are frustrated, angered or perplexed with Mr. Obama and his people.

And we haven't even touched on Syria, the Western Pacific, North Africa, East Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq...

Posted by Pappy 2013-08-16 13:32|| 2013-08-16 13:32|| Front Page Top

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