Yes, it was pretty funny, the “was-Kerry-or-wasn’t-he-on-the-yacht” kerfuffle.
Washington Republicans rip Kerry for Nantucket outing during Egyptian crisis
But if you thought Kerry was slacking off when it comes to the Middle East, you’d be wrong.
He is working very hard.
Unfortunately, in the wrong arena.
via the Daily Caller: Middle East experts find Kerry focus on Israeli-Palestinian peace ‘baffling’
Try as you may, it isn’t easy finding too many Middle East experts who think Secretary of State John Kerry’s focus on Israeli-Palestinian peace makes much sense or has any chance of success.
Since assuming the post of America’s top diplomat in February, Kerry has visited the Middle East five times in hope of jump starting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Despite hours of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders with the goal of achieving significant progress towards peace by September, Kerry has not yet even persuaded Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
None of the four scholars who responded to Daily Caller inquiries could understand Kerry’s emphasis on the conflict, and some were outright dismissive of the idea that he could broker any sort of solution.
“Kerry would have an easier time convincing Greenpeace to dine on whale steak and spotted owl than in brokering peace between Israel and Palestinians,” Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told The DC.
What’s more, Rubin said, with all the fires flaring around the world, it makes little sense that Kerry would devote so much time to a problem that isn’t currently in a position to be resolved.
Egypt is imploding, and Turkey is going south fast. Antagonism between Europe and America is at an all-time high. China is bullying U.S. allies in southeast Asia. And what is Kerry doing? Off tilting at windmills,” he said.
And John Podhoretz, writing in the New York Post, asks:
Is John Kerry stupid? This is not a rhetorical question….
Our brand-spanking-new secretary of state has spent a considerable amount of time in the Middle East over the past month. That makes sense, since the Middle East is the epicenter of the world’s troubles.
But Kerry has chosen not to concentrate on the immediate crises at hand there — the killing grounds in Syria, the roiling streets of Egypt, even (a little bit to the North) the troubles in Turkey. Instead, he’s dedicated himself to a lingering policy problem that is a) not in crisis, b) uniquely unready for any kind of forward movement at present and c) utterly beside the point at the moment.
The matter is, of course, the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians.
For the past 30 years, the foreign-policy establishment (of which Kerry has long been a leading member) believed unquestioningly that the leading cause of instability in the Middle East was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
That conviction was shaken to its core after that solitary street vendor in Tunisia set himself afire in December 2010 and effectively set the Arab world on fire in his wake. Two months later, the dictator of the largest and most important Arab country, Egypt, was gone after massive protests ended his 30-year reign. Later in 2011, Moammar Khadafy’s four-decade rule in Libya died when a rebel took Khadafy’s life with a bayonet. Then began the Syrian civil war against the Assad dynasty that has now cost 100,000 lives.
In all these cases, the strife and political turmoil was among Arabs; nothing Israel did was at issue except when bashing Zionism might’ve been politically expedient for domestic consumption. And concerns that the Palestinian problem might inflame “the Arab street” were ludicrous, since “the Arab street” was in open revolt against the rulers of their own countries….
So what does our secretary of state dwell upon? He decides to use a wildly outmoded form of showmanship — so-called “shuttle diplomacy,” in which he travels back and forth between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort to bridge the gap between them.
But Kerry is not an independent actor. His role, as Secretary of State, is to carry out the policies of the POTUS.
Caroline Glick, in her recent article, Obama’s War of Ideas, makes the following point:
(Glick is an American, now living in Israel. She served as an officer in the IDF – Israel Defense Forces – for five and a half years, and for two years, she was the Assistant Foreign Policy Advisor to PM Benjamin Netanyahu. She is currently the Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post.)
via the Jerusalem Post:
US foreign policy is failing worldwide….
But:
If Obama were asked his opinion of his foreign policy he would respond with absolute conviction that his foreign policy is a total success – everywhere. And by his own metrics, he’d be right.
Obama is a man of ideas. And he has surrounded himself with men and women who share his ideas. For Obama and his advisers, what matters are not the facts, but the theoretical assumptions – the ideas – that determine their policies. If they like an idea, if they find it ideologically attractive, then they base their policies on it. Consequences and observable reality are no match for their ideas. To serve their ideas, reality can be deliberately distorted. Facts can be ignored, or denied.
Obama has two ideas that inform his Middle East policy. First, the Muslim Brotherhood is good. And so his policy is to support the Muslim Brotherhood, everywhere. That’s his idea, and as long as the US continues to support the Brotherhood, its foreign policy is successful. For Obama it doesn’t matter whether the policy is harmful to US national security. It doesn’t matter if the Brotherhood slaughters Christians and Shi’ites and persecutes women and girls. It doesn’t matter if the Brotherhood’s governing incompetence transforms Egypt – and Tunisia, and Libya and etc., into hell on earth. As far as Obama is concerned, as long as he is true to his idea, his foreign policy is a success.
Obama’s second idea is that the root cause of all the problems in the region is the absence of a Palestinian state on land Israel controls. And as a consequence, Israel is to blame for everything bad that happens because it is refusing to give in to all of the Palestinians’ demands.
And that is why Kerry keeps running back to Israel, to squeeze massive concessions from the Israelis, who get next to nothing in return.
Related:
WorldTribune.com Netanyahu getting ‘several’ calls weekly from Kerry on Palestinian state
UPI: Report: U.S. secretary of state to ask Israel for settlement freeze
Agence France-Presse: Whirlwind peace drive: Kerry in job of his life
FrontPageMag: Obama to Egyptian Christians: Don’t Protest the Brotherhood
Reuters: Palestinians, Israelis play down chances of imminent talks
NY Post: John Bolton: Team Obama’s endless Syria bungling
It’s showmanship of course. When things are going badly, one must create an aura of intelligent effort. “It’s a tough situation, but I’m on top if it!” After all, peace talks are good, right? Who could argue with that? That the efforts are irrelevant or counterproductive is a detail not understood by the people who don’t really know what’s going on but want to support Obama. And so we fumble along, losing ground, because we’ve lost sight of our guiding star and have been chasing shiny baubles in its place.
More like chasing polished Tu*ds that Obammy leaves behind where ever he goes.
As viewed on Twitter:
“The most famous white Hispanic saved 4 Americans. The most famous black Caucasian didn’t.”
Failed foreign policy? Of course, but it probably depends upon from which side of the mortar fire you are viewing Benghazi.
Darn, VP, why didn’t *I* think of that? Great tweet! I would love to know who tweeted that one. (probably *not* @BarackObama, though…)
@KBinSC
A bit of research and 20 minutes of reading the historical record of Israel and her surrounding neighbors, one can see the Muslim Brotherhood was the ‘father’ of modern Ji’hadism. All the Islamofacist terror groups active today can trace their roots indirectly or even directly to the Brotherhood. My gawd, one of their inspirations was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseini. He was directly responsible for the 1920 riots and all of the uprising against the Jews and the British until WWII. During the war, he moved to…where else? Germany and his besties in the WWII NAZI party…..and there is very credible evidence this monster was at the table when the idea of the final solution was implemented. He helped with the training of Bosnian Muslims to integrate into the German Army….and instigate the slaughter of tens of thousands of Serbs……
And our illustrious infant in the White House, the messiah (with the little m) has made them the “heros” of the so-called Arab spring? Arab Spring…aka…Ji’hadi Opportunity……..
Norm!!! Thanks for the post. That is a very interesting piece of WWII history and the direct involvement of Arabs in the Nazi party efforts that I hadn’t heard before.
Norm, excellent points!
Shifra, the pic for this post…priceless.
This is the same Muslim Brotherhood that has access to our White House and gubmint.
Shifra, if it thinks, talks, and acts like a Muslim…
These are not American ideas, he is of another tribe, err, sect.
To some observers, OBummer and his administration may look naïve and stupid, but I beg to differ (in this instance). These are not the bunglings of naïve idiots, as you skillfully pointed out, but calculated maneuvers to an end result. My prayer is he’ll never realize his *ideas* in this lifetime.
When Kerry calls Bibi later this week, he should tell him: “Don’t you have a sick wife to look after? Go home, we got this.”
Here is a foreign policy news story that I can get behind, in a manner of speaking.
After being a member of the United Nations for 48 years, Singapore has just offered its first UN resolution and it has been approved. November 19 is now World Toilet Day.
The idea of the resolution is to call attention to the lack of good sanitation in much of the world. My view, getting rid of dictators who didn’t care about their people would be a significantly better more direct solution, but hey, small steps.
Anyway, I embrace Singapore’s first UN resolution. So much so, that I think that the UN should just flush everything for the next 48 years until Singapore submits its 2nd resolution.
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/singapores-first-un-resolution-adopted-now-every-nov-19-world-toilet-d