Is it just me, or does it seem like someone needs to serve the Obama Administration with a nice big glass of “Shut the Hell Up Juice.” There’s probably a more professional and certainally a more politicaly correct way to say it, but it looks to me like this is an Administration who doesn’t know how to keep it’s mouth shut.
Remember back in the 2008 Presidential campaign when candidate Obama said that “America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.” in it’s dealings with other nations? While he may have been correct, but since he has taken office, this Administration has taken arrogance to a whole new level. In his first two years in office, Obama has alienated long time allies, emboldened dangerous adversaries, and embarrassed the United States with his egotism. Now his audacity may actually be costing lives in Egypt.
Political forces opposed to Egyptian President Mubarak have been attempting to force him from power for months. On Tuesday it appeared that Mubarak was prepared to throw in the towel and announced that he would be leaving office in September and would not attempt to appoint his son to replace him. Though not exactly what they wanted, the opposition seemed ready to accept this plan and let everything proceed peacfully. That is until Barack Obama decided to step into the middle of this Egyptian political rivalry.
“It is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt’s leaders”, Obama said on Tuesday night, but then went on to do just exactly what he said was not our place to do. “What is clear and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak, is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now.”
Evidently September was not soon enough for Obama. So, like the former chairman and CEO of General Motors, Rick Wagoner, the President of Egypt is being fired by the President of the United States. What may have been a nice orderly transfer of authority a few months from now, has now become a violent mob that is becoming increasingly dangerous.
The danger of the situation is not lost on Israel, who is keeping a very close eye on the situtation in neighboring Egypt. According to Associated Press writer Amy Teibel, senior Israeli officials maintain that Obama, who they view as a foreign policy neophyte, is repeating the same mistakes of prececessors like Jimmy Carter. Carter pressured the Shah of Iran to loosen his grip on power in the late 70′s, resulting in the Shah being driven into exile and replaced by hardline Islamic dictators.
Political analyst Aluf Been, writting for the daily Haaretz in Jeruslem says, “Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as ‘the president who lost Iran, and Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who ‘lost’ Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America’s alliances in the Middle East crumbled.”
Apparently the government in Tehran agrees. The Iranian government released a statement on Thursday saying the protest in Egypt were a sign of an “Islamic renaissance” in the Middle East, and that they echoed Iran’s 1979 revolution, which toppled the U.S. backed Shah.
Egypt, under the Mubarak government, has always had a friendly relationship with the United States, and has aided American efforts in the war against radical Islamic terrorists. When Hosni Mubarak is driven from office, his government will most likely be replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that favors rule by Islamic law, and probably won’t be as friendly to the United States, perhaps even openly hostile.
All of this comes because of the one man who told us in the campaign that he would heal damaged U.S. relations around the world. We’ve been told by his supporters that this is the smartest man to ever occupy the Oval Office. Last month, James Corum, writting for the UK Telegraph said that Obama always considers himself the smartest man in the room. He may be right…. provided he’s in an empty room.
