Posted on 05/20/2011 5:06:29 AM PDT by SJackson
Analysis: Amid ME upheaval, the US president chose to save controversial statements for the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Talkbacks (3) WASHINGTON – The ornate chandeliered and gilded Ben Franklin Room of the State Department, scene of US President Barack Obama’s much-hyped Middle East policy speech Thursday, has the distinction of being a significant venue for inaction rather than action.
In September, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who introduced Obama’s address, hosted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at this very same spot to launch direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
But just as a façade of European splendor has been spread over the Franklin Room – despite its location in a modern concrete edifice – the ceremony held there last fall offered a veneer of significance for a process devoid of meaning.
The direct talks lasted just three weeks, believed to be the shortest round of talks in the lengthy history of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
But while Israeli-Palestinian talks have been stalled ever since, the ossifying Middle East has staged a remarkable awakening from its slumber. In countries almost too numerous to list, average citizens have done what to so many seemed unthinkable: They took to the streets to demand elections, economic reform, freedom of expression. In a word, change.
And they have begun to achieve it. In Egypt they threw off their pharoah in a matter of days; in Libya they are engaged in a bloody rebellion with NATO assistance; in Syria they are continuing to mass in the street despite the guns, dogs and even tanks arrayed against them.
The US, too, has been engaged in its own dynamic display. One quiet Sunday at the beginning of the month, a stealth team of Navy SEALs infiltrated Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani lair, took him and his defenders out, and stole a treasure trove of top secret data on al-Qaida’s activities and network.
Obama, his name once synonymous with change, took to the podium Thursday afternoon to relate to these very history- bending events. And then Obama breathed the air of the chamber in which he spoke.
The first four-fifths of his highly anticipated address were more notable for what they didn’t say than what they did.
He repeated the same American platitudes about the importance of the transformation taking place, and American support for freedom and democracy. But the teeth he gave to his statements were no canines.
“America must use all our influence to encourage reform in the region,” he declared.
Yet when he had the opportunity to speak out strongly against Iran and Syria’s treatment of their own citizens, he made do with repeating the same talking points his administration has been repeating through weeks of bloody protests.
He did not challenge the legitimacy of Bashar Assad, as many had expected, and certainly didn’t call for him to step aside, as he had with Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi.
“We need to speak honestly about the principles that we believe in, with friend and foe alike,” he admitted.
But that meant continued tough words for Yemen and Bahrain, with not a peep directed at Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco or other less-volatile autocracies.
The only substantive moves on his part were carried out or announced the day before – sanctions imposed on Syria’s President Bashar Assad, and a major financial package for Tunisia and Egypt to encourage a successful transition to democracy.
That cleared the way for the dominant story-line to emerge from his speech, to which he devoted the last fifth of his 45-minute speech: the peace process – the one realm where there has not been rapid transformation in 2011.
With Thursday’s prominent platform, Obama could have sought to reap further political benefit from the killing of Osama bin Laden. He could have placed an American stamp on the change in the region and staked out an aggressive path for molding it to the United States’ best interests.
He could have at least attempted to provide more rhetorical sustenance to those unarmed citizens facing the prospect of dying for their basic civil rights.
But instead, he chose to save his controversial, headline-grabbing statements for the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Is Obama channeling Captain Ahab on this issue?
If the Palestinian unity deal between Fatah and Hamas, the chaos at the Israeli borders Sunday, and Netanyahu’s own careful political maneuverings weren’t enough to tell him that his political capital would be gravely sapped in this direction, the trappings of the room he stood in Thursday surely should have.
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He wants more wars to distract from his domestic problems. Syria is next on his list, followed by something involving Israel.
Yeah, my kid was saying it was a distraction, that he was doing it deliberately, that there is more going on behind the scenes.
IMHO...Barry’s being forced to rush things at this point.
There is LOTS of pressure from birth certificate and SS number issues.....its beginning to catch up to him....its a “good” sign in some way I suppose.
Hussein is doing his best to take down the RAT party with him.
Check it out: 1.2 billion people about to try to kill 10 million people, war imminent and several revolutions actually under way ....... and Obama manages to arrest them all in midflight. He's got them all, all of a sudden, listening to and talking about him.
Any doubt now that he's the ultimate narcissist? He has to be positively orgasmic at the attention.
Obama is the Promised Warrior
Imam Ali Ibn Abi-Talib (the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law) prophesied that at the End of Times and just before the return of the Mahdi, the Ultimate Saviour, a “tall black man will assume the reins of government in the West.” Commanding “the strongest army on earth,” the new ruler in the West will carry “a clear sign” from the third imam, whose name was Hussein Ibn Ali. The tradition concludes: “Shiites should have no doubt that he is with us.”
In a curious coincidence Obama’s first and second names–Barack Hussein–mean “the blessing of Hussein” in Arabic and Persian. His family name, Obama, written in the Persian alphabet, reads O Ba Ma, which means “he is with us,” the magic formula in Majlisi’s tradition.
We believe that before that arrival of hidden Imam, his promised warrior will not accept the truth to the world that he is a warrior of the great Imam Mehdi. Most importantly he is keeping himself as ‘hidden’ , because he is servant of ‘hidden’ Imam who preferred to keep truth upto him and vanished from the sight of the murderers as Allah(SWT) wished so.
Would it be impious to suggest that Obama is divine punishment on unreflectively stiff Jewish necks?
Smart kid. Good work!
HA!
“Good one Hoss” bump.
However, Obama is qualified to be a fanatical, Bible-mocking, left wing zealot who attended a rabidly anti-American church for twenty years (but heard nothing and was not aware of anything that went on there)
This man is dangerous and a true threat to all of the eternal values we have dearly held as a nation.
I read that and got chills down my arms. But, I am hesitant to really believe it. It just seems too far fetched. However, everything that is happening seems to follow prophecy exactly.
Melissa
Are you a Farsi speaker?
What better way to legitimize his Presidency? The underlying miscalculation: whoTF would follow this assklown to war?
Speaking of wars, we have entered the un-constitutional phase of the action in Libya. Time for the Republican House to get off its Casper Milquetoast duff and start behaving a tad more like Americans.
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