Fund Your Utopia Without Me.™

01 July 2013

The Collapse of the Obama Doctrine?



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'Our' team in Syria


President Obama’s vision for the Middle East is one in which Islamism serves as a transitional stage between authoritarian rule and liberal democracy.

The Islamist vision for the Middle East would say that he is half right.

Obama helped install the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt, as he and NATO allies did with Islamists in Libya. While Muslim theocrats sound like unhappy partners for an American electorate accustomed to unhappy outcomes with such folks (the mullahs of Iran and the Afghan Taliban, to wit).

Obama’s Middle East doctrine, though, holds that under the oppressive yoke of authoritarian, secular governments propped up by the Cold War superpowers, legitimate political dissent was stifled. That means that the only place Obama could find an opposition to replace those tottering Cold War-era despots in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere was among those looking to establish Muslim governments.

But, these would be tolerant Islamists, we were told. Their promise of tolerance was secured in advance of providing the military, diplomatic and economic support that put them in power.

There was much skepticism about the Obama Doctrine, since the limited U.S. involvement with backing Islamists in the past – most notably helping them drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan – didn’t end well. Americans have been fighting in Afghanistan now for more than a decade, have lost more than 2,200 sons and daughters and are still unable to keep the main airport open. Our government is now negotiating with the Taliban, seeking a peace accord that would return the Islamist hardliners to the official government.

Perhaps the riots now unfolding in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood government are the pangs of a great leap forward to a Western-style, popularly elected secular government. Or, maybe not.


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One of many Coptic Christians that have been crucified in Egypt


The current government in Cairo, even with lots of U.S. aid, finds itself atop a nation of 90 million people hurtling toward economic ruin. Religious persecution is on the rise and so are ethnic tensions. A country that was once safe enough under U.S.-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak for Obama to deliver his Address to the Muslim World just four years ago, now sees U.S. college students murdered in the streets.

Will a new, liberal order arise out of this poverty and chaos or will the even less tolerant, more authoritarian Islamists topple the more moderate American-backed Islamists? Or will the military decide that this experimentation with democracy has gone on long enough and again install a junta? And if the generals take over again, will the Obama Doctrine demand that they be cut off from aid? What happens then?

The current government in Cairo, even with lots of U.S. aid, finds itself atop a nation of 90 million people hurtling toward economic ruin.
In Libya, which was mostly in line with Western interests under zany despot Muammar Quaddafi, Islamists sacked the American consulate and killed the U.S. ambassador, and the Koranic militiamen armed by NATO who are keeping the Obama-backed government in power seem to be losing patience with reform.

But around the corner in Syria, the Obama Doctrine of transitional Islamism is facing its toughest test yet.

The repressive Assad regime has always been hostile to American and Western interests, siding with Moscow and Tehran in the struggles of the past 40 years. Plus, the secular government in Syria has long-oppressed an ethnic/sectarian majority. This should make Damascus the best candidate yet for regime change under the Obama Doctrine.

After a decade of fighting Americans around the region, Islamist militants have their own plans for regime change. They’re not interested in any power-sharing agreements or making any promises to obtain Western aid.

These are the folks who are imposing Islamic law at the point of a blade already. When news leaks out about a child executed in the street for mocking the founder of Islam or a priest beheaded for sharing his Christian faith, one wonders if there is any hope at all for transitional anything.




The staunch American popular resistance to involvement in the Syrian civil war may be a factor in Obama delaying his answer to the growing global pleas to intervene to stop the genocidal conflict. But that didn’t stop him in Libya, where he backed a preemptive war to prevent a promised genocide.

More likely is that there are not enough good candidates for partners under the Obama Doctrine – moderate Islamists who can offer hope of a transitional, tolerant theocracy. But with Assad digging in and the al Qaeda-style Islamists taking control of the rebellion, Obama has decided to accelerate American aid anyway.

As for whom Obama is arming or what assurances we have that the priest-beheading types are not getting any of the weapons our government is providing, it’s not at all clear.

The Obama Doctrine promises transitional, tolerant theocracy in the region. But what follows the transition may be far worse than the secular strongmen of the Cold War era.



SoRo:  The equivalent of 65.1 Americans engaged in 'street action' to protest economic imbecility, soaring food and fuel prices with their attendant scarcity, skyrocketing crime, barbarity against the Copts, regime brutality, hopelessness for generations of Egyptians, etc. Try wrapping your mind around that number. It’s like more than half of this year’s Superbowl audience got off of their sofas and took to the streets in protests. 

One wonders if President Obama seriously wants to or even can maintain his position of backing the MoFoBros in the wake of the largest political protest in the history of civilisation – all due to community organising, which I believe he claims to know something about and supports. Does he really want to be on ‘the wrong side of history,’ again? 

Sadly, the answer is not as simple as it should be. Obama has the greatest ability of anyone that I’ve have ever seen to refuse to assess himself, understand when his policies are failing, ant to change course, but can he possibly continuing backing the Morsi government after the largest protest in world history? 

He’s already become the ‘Rodney Dangerfield of World Politics.’ The Muslim World hates us more than it did when Bush was in office. Putin is kicking his ass and making him kiss his Superbowl ring. China has no respect for him. And, Iran, Turkey, which may be nearing a Tienanmen Square moment, and Syria laugh at his red lines knowing that they can ‘call his bluff’ better than Eric Cantor. Can he possibly not understand that he cannot continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood because, to do so, would rain further harm down upon himself, the country, and the world?




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