The speech has been analyzed by professionals and overtaken by events, but a few points remain to be examined.
The speech delivered by President Obama on 19 May 2011 was a weak response to events beyond his control or understanding. The two goals seem to have been to claim credit for Bush’s accomplishments and ideals even while denigrating both Bush and his ideals, and to earn passage on the middle-east bandwagon by throwing Israel under it.
For a supposedly outward-focused address, it is a remarkably self-regarding tactical move.
Stealing Valor
This was an attempt to airbrush away two years of his administration’s foreign policy failures. A secondary goal is to sandblast Bush’s name off of the undeniable successes in the region. The combined effect is to erase differences between his administration and Bush’s, which have been the subject of some debate at any rate.
He cites “dignity” as the driving force behind recent events, because a truthful analysis would reflect poorly indeed upon his own administration. Also, by referring to the despotism as “humiliation”, he sets up a false parallel between dictators of the region and Israel, which he then proposes to crucify and dismember.
He declares “the story of self-determination began six months ago in Tunisia,” but this is not so. In 2009, the Iranian regime stole an election and shot protesters in the streets, and the Obama administration backed the regime.
He actually manages to go through the entire “major policy shift” speech on America’s role in the Middle East without mentioning President George W. Bush. He is understandably silent on the actual mechanism by which Iraq has become such a model of accomplishment and source of hope for improvement across the middle east, which is of course all about Bush. Senator Obama, Candidate Obama, and President Obama have all opposed those measures which made this possible. Candidate Hillary Clinton declared the war unwinnable after Senator Harry Reid declared that war was lost.
Likewise for the death of Osama bin Laden, which is treated oddly in this speech as a monumental triumph due to… no particular cause, except for his own guts in ordering the last step be taken. Hestates that even as forces were closing in on bin Laden, the man had become irrelevant.
“al Qaeda was losing its struggle for relevance, as the overwhelming majority of people saw that the slaughter of innocents did not answer their cries for a better life”
This is odd for a number of reasons
Early on, I wondered why the focus on “dignity”, as he incorrectly identifies the issue which led Mohammed Bouazizi to immolate himself in Tunisia. It was not humiliation, a lack of dignity, an inability to speak truth to power or find his voice. It was the oppressive nature of an intrusive government which crushes its citizens’ ability to make a living. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the President to support the demands of those people for accountability and economic freedom from their governments.
Iranians are not seeking Dignity. They seek to not be killed by Basijis or IRGC machinery for protesting. Egyptians are nto seeking dignity. They want to not be killed as well. Libyans and Syrians alike do not seek dignity. This is an American leftist academic projecting his own petty, creamy-or-crunchy struggles onto a world which is far more deadly and uncompromising than he understands. And we elected him.
Finally, the geography of his much-lamented “contiguous” phrasing means that Israel is either to be divided so that a Palestinian state can run through it, or that a Palestinian state must run all the way around Israel on the south. Neither of these are worth soncidering even briefly. Honestly, I think that whoever wrote this section of the speech is not familiar with the geography of the region and could not be bothered to check before publication. I bet they’re looking now.
This speech was given at a crucial time; after Egypt’s soft revolution began and after killing bin Laden, but before Pakistan accepted Chinese protection against the United States and before the Ahmadinejad situation is resolved.
He claims credit for things which have not happened or are mere promises. He declares “a new chapter in American diplomacy”, which would be welcome, but is certainly not in evidence. Unless he means the Chamberlain/Petain maneuvers to which we have become accustomed in our relations with Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and the like.
EOF
