Infamous columnist Robert Fisk has an interesting piece on the uselessness of Obama:
Amid all these vast and epic events – Yemen itself may yet prove to be the biggest bloodbath of all, while the number of Syria’s “martyrs” have now exceeded the victims of Mubarak’s death squads five months ago – is it any surprise that the frolics of Messrs Netanyahu and Obama appear so irrelevant? Indeed, Obama’s policy towards the Middle East – whatever it is – sometimes appears so muddled that it is scarcely worthy of study
all quotes in this post via Who cares in the Middle East what Obama says? – Robert Fisk, Commentators – The Independent
He is right and wrong. He rightfully points out that the US position has been incoherent due to two things: reversals of position on unchanging facts, and an inconsistent treatment of similar situations with dissimilar stances. It is a glorious kicking of a feckless campaigning team which suddenly finds itself failing at real responsibility.
Listening to Obama’s 45-minute speech this month – the “kick off’ to four whole days of weasel words and puffery by the man who tried to reach out to the Muslim world in Cairo two years ago, and then did nothing – one might have thought that the American President had initiated the Arab revolts, rather than sat on the sidelines in fear.
This is an eighteen-paragraph beating rightfully administered by one of the web’s more famous non-web-enabled entities. Robert Fisk may be more right than he once was. His three-paragraph justification of his own beating by Afghan refugees was torn apart point-by-point by Andrew Sullivan, who used to be more right than he is nowadays. But if Fisk is going somewhere good, he’s not there yet. He is still the sort to refer to any leader such as Netanyahu or Bush standing up for Israel as “caving in” (Bush). He applies the term to Obama as well, but the difference is that Obama has openly ranged himself against Israel, and then made concessions. It is hardly an appropriate comparison to say that Bush and Netanyahau are “caving” or somehow failing when they do what they said they would do.
And what on earth did the Great Speechifier [Obama — hbd] mean when he said that “every country has the right to self-defence” but that Palestine would be “demilitarised”? What he meant was that Israel could go on attacking the Palestinians (as in 2009, for example, when Obama was treacherously silent) while the Palestinians would have to take what was coming to them if they did not behave according to the rules – because they would have no weapons to defend themselves.
[pullquote]whether the President knows it or not, Robert Fisk’s opinion matters a great deal to Barack Obama[/pullquote]
Israeli attacks, Palestinian defense; I get where Fisk is coming from and it’s ugly. Fisk is still on the outs, then, and no matter how hard he begs, I won’t let him co-author this blog. Or maybe my opinion doesn’t mean much to him. But the important point is that Obama is losing his defenders on the left, and whether the President knows it or not, Robert Fisk’s opinion matters a great deal to Barack Obama. Fisk has been famous for longer than the former junior senator from Illinois, and for all of his flaws, has demonstrated more consistency in his stance than Obama has.
If the Obama administration has a plan to destabilize friend and foe alike by confusing them, it is working brilliantly. Obama retains the pulpit, but he is losing his bullhorn, and will shortly be beaten with it by his friends.
We shall soon see if the corrupt American media is as powerful in silencing foreign criticism of Obama as they were in amplifying foreign criticism of Bush.
