Obama's special understanding

Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East can be summarized as follows:

I, Barack Hussein Obama, have a "special understanding" of the Nations of Islam. This special understanding is the result of the environment I was raised in (my father was a Muslim by birth and my stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, brought me to live in Muslim Indonesia when I was young). Because of my special understanding, I have a sensitivity to the injustices perpetrated against the Nations of Islam by prior US administrations and to the legitimate grievances those Nations have against the United States.

I have therefore determined that the US government, as now personified by me, will "reset" its foreign policy towards the Middle East. This reset will include taking the following actions:

• expressing regret for the policies of prior US administrations,
• refusing to continue such policies,
• withdrawing all American troops from the Middle East,
• supporting Islamic-based "democratic" movements against dictators in the Middle East, and
• refusing to treat Israel as a special ally.
As a result of this reset of US policy, I expect that the Nations of Islam will respond to my beneficence and drop the grievances they hold against the US and that democratic governments friendly to the US (because friendly to me) will spring up across the Middle East.

One can see why the attack on Benghazi represented the utter failure of Obama's policy. If Obama had a special relationship with the Nations of Islam and his reset of US foreign policy was supposed to usher in a new era of harmony between democratic Muslim governments and the West, then why did terrorists in newly liberated Libya murder the US ambassador? If the Obama narrative was to be upheld, the attack on the US ambassador could not be construed as an act of violence directed against the US government (as embodied by President Obama), but rather it had to be interpreted as the understandable (if extreme) expression of outrage at a disgusting and reprehensible video produced by someone in no way affiliated with the US government. This is the reason why Obama and UN Ambassador Rice were so adamant about attributing the attack to the video. If they had been forced to acknowledge that it was a terrorist attack directed at the US government, they would have been forced to acknowledge that Obama's foreign policy of soothing the "legitimate" animosity of the Nations of Islam against the West had been all for naught and that Obama had no special relationship with the Middle East whatsoever. In other words, the Obama administration's entire characterization of the attack in Benghazi was determined by its need to deny the reality of what had happened and to insist that its foreign policy was still bearing fruit. In reality, it was a bitter harvest. The attack in Benghazi was a slap in the face to the US government. How else could the murder of a US ambassador be interpreted than as an assault against the sovereignty of the United States?

Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East is now in a shambles. Allies have been betrayed. In their place have come to power fundamentalist Islamic regimes whose friendliness towards the United States (whether Obama-of-the-special-relationship is in charge or not) is highly suspect. Like the Shah of Iran before him, Hosni Mubarak, a faithful ally of the United States (if also a brutal dictator) has been overthrown and replaced by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who has to be prodded to express regret at attacks on the American embassy in Cairo and who lectures the US President on how to suppress videos that are offensive to Muslims. Israel has been insulted. Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons have not been stopped. By 2014, all American troops will have been removed from the Middle East, we will have no military resources their to project American power, and we will thus have squandered all the hard fought gains we spent so much American blood and treasure to win. Afgahanistan (and perhaps other countries) will fall back into the category of "failed state" and the lack of a US presence there will allow Islamic extremists (like the Taliban) to regain strength in the vacuum created by American retreat. In another 10 years, we will be right back where we started: The Arab Street will still hate us and we will have no military assets to exercise our influence in the Middle East. Even worse, as Obama continues to rack up trillion dollar deficits, we will have no money to spend on military assets anyway.

The new era of harmony that Obama expected to bring about between America and the Middle East through his "special understanding" of Islam will prove, just like Neville Chamberlain's "peace in our time," the illusion of a fool.