Posted on 09/15/2012 1:21:46 PM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
Add conservative commentator Pat Buchanan to the growing list of critics of President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, as anti-American unrest continues throughout Egypt, Libya and now Yemen.
Appearing on Fox News Channel’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Buchanan, author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?,” pointed to Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo as the beginning of the administration’s “utterly naïve” foreign policy.
“What’s happening is the Obama administration’s Middle East policy is collapsing right in front of us,” Buchanan said. “He had his famous Cairo speech, and then he got behind the Arab Spring and dumped over some dictators and autocrats and other people, some of whom were friendly to us, others who were not. Thereby, they’ve unleashed these new forces, and not all of them are benign. Some of them are noxious.”
As a result, Buchanan said, many American personnel may have to permanently leave the Middle East and relocate to safer areas.
“There’s Islamic fundamentalism. There’s tribalism. There’s ethno-nationalism. All of these forces are on the move across the Middle East. And President Obama’s position is exposed as utterly naïve. I think what’s going to happen here, quite naturally, is Americans, tourists and others and American diplomats are going to have to be drawn out and drawn down from this region of the world, which is turning hostile.”
At issue is not simply the anti-Muhammad video supposedly made by filmmaker Sam Bacile, but the “detest and hate” many Muslims worldwide feel for all things American, according to Buchanan.
“Here’s what the situation is — there is gasoline all the way from Nigeria to Mali to Ethiopia to Cairo to the Middle East to the Caucuses,” Buchanan said. “Anti-Americanism is parts of it. What they did is they took this crazy little video, they threw a match in it, and people did this thing in Libya, which was pre-planned, pre-prepared terrorist act. … They detest and hate the United States. They hate our culture. They hate our policy. They have historic grievances. And they are as anti-American as they can be.”
“I think, quite frankly, all of this, what is exploding now has been building up for years and years and years,” Buchanan continued. “I think there’s a real incompatibility between American culture and between the culture of the fundamentalist and the Islamic world. … There’s a revolution underway, a great religious awakening taking place among the poor and the working class. The one thing they have is the Islamic faith. They’re very militant about it. And they look at the enemy as the great Satan, and the Americans and the others with their cultural intrusions.”
As for what ground Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney should stake out in the crisis, Buchanan said he was unsure. But he did pointedly disagree with those who took issue with Romney’s quick criticism of the president’s muted reaction to the Benghazi incident.
“I don’t know exactly what Romney would do right now,” Buchanan said. “But I do think the idea that they’re attacking Governor Romney because of some statement he made at 10 at night — that’s an irrelevancy. Let me also say this incident, this video, that’s not the reason for this. That’s the excuse for what’s going on there. A lot of this has been planned. A lot of it’s contagious over there. And as I say, you have all this tinder sitting over there. One little spark, and it all went, went through that — that tells you how America, basically, and the West are regarded now in that part of the world.”
In the video, Buchanan suggests a lower profile for the US in that part of the world. I wish we'd hear some of that common sense from Romney and other Republicans.
It seems to me that any pundits who still call obama ‘naive’ about the muslims are themselves...naive.
Too bad FR purged all of Pats supporters back in 2000, Pat makes a lot of sense. Also too bad FR purged all Ron Paul supporters this year. They made a lot of sense too.
Our role in the mideast should be very limited. Supporting Israel and sharing protection of shipping with our allies.
No more fighting muzzy was for them.
It’s a minority opinion here, but I think Obama is well-meaning but naive, which makes his bad policies no less dangerous to our safety and in a way is more scary to contemplate in that his popularity is a reflection of a national elite which has lost the common sense instinct for national self-preservation.
Ambassador Stevens also hated Israel and loved the Muslims and look how much his love helped him? Maybe Ambassador Stevens was trying to say before he died that he hates Israel and the Jews as much as they do. It didn't work with Ambassador Stevens and it won't work wth Pat, Ron Paul, or you as well since you probably agree with both of them about the Jews and the Jewish state.
Ron Paul 1488; the Final Solution for America.
The number 8 8 stands for the 8th letter of the alphabet and the two together (HH) stand for Heil Hitler. The number 14 stands for those 14 words that every white supremacist knows: We must secure the existance of our people and a future for white children. (hat tip, Bill Levinson)
And they count The Won among their number.
If he was “well-meaning but naive”, he’d accidentally “get it right” occasionally and do something that’s not harmful to this country.
He never “gets it right”; everything he does is harmful to this country.
Therefore, he’s not “well-meaning but naive”.
The take over of the Arab Spring countries by the Radical Islamic Jiahadi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the various terrorist organizations it controls such as Al-Qeada, are obviously using their new found control of many of the most strategic Arab states to incite and mobilize the Arab Street in region to war against the West and Israel in much the same way Iran has been doing.
That is a pretty much given and to be expected.
There is another trend driving the pace of violence that is going to contribute to the a more rapid unraveling of the situation than perhaps many appreciate.
One of the biggest drivers of the Arab Spring were the economic conditions in these countries were very bad and getting worse to the degree that the people on the bottom were getting desperate because they could not afford food for their families to eat.
The new Islamic Fundamentalist leaders in the Arab Spring countries have no solutions to the hard economic problems that confront their countries and their lack of competence and management skills combined with their ideology driven governing policies and priorities actually make the already bad and deteriorating economic conditions in their countries make the economic conditions much worse and the rate of economic deterioration faster.
This continued economic slide from bad to worse will mean that desperation and unrest in the Arab Spring nations will continue to get worse and worse under the new Islamic Fundamentalist's leader's Sharia based governments and governing philosophy.
Regardless of how well or poorly the new leaders in the Arab Spring nations run their countries, much of what is going on is driven by world wide trends beyond their controls that they are at the mercy of.
The cost of basic food stuffs being one of the most critical.
Corn and other grains are major staple of the Arab countries food supplies
Most of the Arab countries are highly dependent upon grain imports to feed their populations because the arid climate of the region makes much of the land is not well suited to growing food crops, especially grain. in the areas where agriculture impossible, the yields are low due to the general policies, mismanagement and corruption of the governments
In the 2009-2010 the cost food and particularly of grains spiked over a short period of time to much higher levels.
A huge component of this is the sudden jump in world wide food prices in the 2009-2010 time frame is a number of policy positions that were put in place as part of the Obama Agenda, all of which significantly add to price of basic food stuffs, especially corn and other grains.
Obama Administration polices that have driven the cost of grain sky high include the EPA mandating increased levels of corn based ethanol in gasoline based fuels, increased production of Soy bean based bio Diesel and the mandating that the Navy shift use of it's Jet fuel to a Obama crony owned bio fuel Jet A replacement that costs about $50 per gallon.
Fuel use competes for with food use of corn and other food grains which has driven the costs of grains to record levels.
Th Obama Administration's policy of driving up energy costs to make Alternative “green” energy technologies economically viable add to the high costs because energy costs o irrigate fields and power farm equipment
are a major cost in agricultural production.
Obama’s policy to restrict oil production and increase the cost of all petroleum based products, especially gasoline and diesel fuel used for motor vechiles and farm machinery has driven the cost of fuels to double since he took office. As are result coast of operating farm equipment and transportation of products to market has increased proportionally to the cost of fuel.
In addition, the costs of Pesticides and Fertilizers has increased a huge amount. Most of the the pesticides and fertilizers in common use have some sort of petroleum base so the increased cost of oil has driven them much higher. At the same time new EPA regulations from Obama’s environmental zealots in the EPA have made these materials more expensive to buy and restrictions on their use have made them more expensive to apply to fields.
On top of this, The EPA has added many new regulations across the board that are making life hard for our farmers and adding to the costs.
While Farmers are not happy about these new Obama policies, the new government bio fuels mandates distort the economics of supply and demand for grain and allows them to sell their crops at whatever high price they need to sell at recover their added high costs of grain production so they are happy with the status quo of increased use of ethanol and bio fuels because overall it is very favorable for them
However,this drives the cost of of food use of grains to unrealistically high levels and also sets the stage for a nice little inflationary spiral in grain prices which we are currently seeing.
Added on top of all of this, the Obama Administrations policy of massive spending of borrowed money is in itself driving inflation in all of the basic cost of living areas with spiraling food costs being one of the most significant.
High food costs in the us are dragging down our economy but the effects in the Third World which marginal even at the lower prices for food , price spikes in food costs have been devastating.
In Mexico, the costs for many foods such as tortillas has doubled since Obama took office.
In the Arab world, the sudden and unexpected price spikes in imported grains happened too fast for the leaders to cope with the situation and resulting inability of the people to afford to buy food produced so much desperation in the population that it destabilized the governments. High food prices were the star that broke the camels back that enabled the Islamist to incite the people to revolution. Hungry people are desperate people and desperate people do desperate things
Since the track records of these types of governments has been very bad to disastrous in other countries that have went down the path the Arab Spring nations are going it is safe to assume that things are going to get worse so the expectations of the population that things will get better are going meet with disappointment as people become even worse off under the new regimes than they were with the old.
The new Arab Spring leader are already trying to deflect the blame from themselves and channel the Arab Streets anger towards Israel and the West
They are playing with fire and that fire is beginning to burn out of control. Things will get worse as the economic conditions get worse. Grain prices, one of the primary underlying drivers of the desperation that drove the desperation that created the Arab Spring will continue to increase because the policies that gave rise to the price increases are accelerating instead of going away, making the Arab Street .
Things are not looking good for the future.
It is my studied opinion that Zero DOES NOT HAVE a Middle East policy! He DOES have a PLAN, which as best I can discern it is to DO NOTHING and let the ragheads have carte blanche! It’ very similar to voting “Present” in the Senate, which is one of Zero’s specialties.
You don't say. I guess that's why those cultures seem to work better under The Shaw, Mubarak, Gaddafi, et al....
You're wrong, he does have a Middle East policy.
It's "Death to the Great Satan!".
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