U.S. Middle East Policy Mistakes -David Pryce-Jones
President Obama is reported as saying that American policy towards Israel is "costing us significantly in blood and treasure." First mistake. It's the other way round, Israel is holding the front line against Iran whose power is spreading through the region via Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas.
Obama goes on to conclude that Israeli-Palestinian peace holds the key to Middle East stability. Second mistake. If there was genuine peace tomorrow and a state of Palestine, it would make no difference to the Sunni-Shia divide, to the ambitions of Osama bin Laden or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the civil war in Yemen, to the sectarian conflict in Lebanon, to the hard-wired despots in Egypt and Syria...
Obama also thinks that this projected state of Palestine is a practical proposition. Third mistake. The Palestinians are irremediably divided between Fatah and Hamas, and a state would trigger civil war to determine which faction would own it.
Obama finally is weighing using his presidency to impose some solution on Israel. Fourth mistake. No such solution exists.
In the White House, it seems, someone likes playing with fire.
(National Review)
Confused on Iran -Editorial
President Obama's official position on Iran is that "all options are on the table," including the use of force. But senior officials regularly talk down the military option in public - thereby undermining its utility even as an instrument of intimidation.
(Washington Post)
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President Obama is reported as saying that American policy towards Israel is "costing us significantly in blood and treasure." First mistake. It's the other way round, Israel is holding the front line against Iran whose power is spreading through the region via Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas.
Obama goes on to conclude that Israeli-Palestinian peace holds the key to Middle East stability. Second mistake. If there was genuine peace tomorrow and a state of Palestine, it would make no difference to the Sunni-Shia divide, to the ambitions of Osama bin Laden or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the civil war in Yemen, to the sectarian conflict in Lebanon, to the hard-wired despots in Egypt and Syria...
Obama also thinks that this projected state of Palestine is a practical proposition. Third mistake. The Palestinians are irremediably divided between Fatah and Hamas, and a state would trigger civil war to determine which faction would own it.
Obama finally is weighing using his presidency to impose some solution on Israel. Fourth mistake. No such solution exists.
In the White House, it seems, someone likes playing with fire.
(National Review)
Confused on Iran -Editorial
President Obama's official position on Iran is that "all options are on the table," including the use of force. But senior officials regularly talk down the military option in public - thereby undermining its utility even as an instrument of intimidation.
(Washington Post)
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