President Obama Calls for Middle East Reform

This speech was unbelievable.  It sounds like Mr. Obama is finally reflecting the will of his people.  We are concerned with more than just our internal challenges, ie. jobs, healthcare, budgets.   We are also hyper-aware that there are other people who don’t have even our most basic freedoms.  I think Mr. Obama worded this speech perfectly.  We, these United States of America, support all efforts of our brothers and sisters accross the world to stand up and declare their rights of freedom.  It was especially poignant and meaningful to me when Mr. Obama said that these revolutions will evolve under the people of the countries involved, on their time line, and with the very real potential for violent attempts to establish new governments.  I couldn’t be prouder of our president.  He showed the world what the American people have felt for a very long time.  And Hilary looked amazing!  And spoke beautifully!

 
This
article is a response to an article by NY Post’s Amir Taheri: “The New Map of
the Arab World.” I underscore the fact that the Obama Administration should be
given no credit for recent developments in the Arab world, while making the case
that much credit is due to the Bush Administration.

Who does
deserve the credit for the Arab Spring?  Not the Obama
Administration.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_new_map_of_the_arab_world_UjmHMH0fZ0LywL0JhFkrdN

I will agree with Mr. Taheri’s assertion that the Obama
Administration should receive no credit for the Arab Spring, but he overlooks
giving credit to the Administration deserving
of much of the credit for creating the conditions
which allowed the “Arab Spring
movements” to develop.

Mr. Taheri’s first group consists of those are countries that
have toppled their despots and are on the way to democratization: most
importantly Iraq. It seems that the US will not declare the obvious: we won the
Iraq War. We have unseated a despotic regime, subdued a rabid insurgency, and
established the most democratic government that the Arab world has ever known.
The Left here and abroad is silent in the face of these achievements. The Left
declared constantly that these results were impossible, they are wrong. Please
just recall the comments of members the current Administration and the
Democratic Party leadership in Congress during
the long struggle. I wonder just how much respect the current democratically
elected leaders of Iraq have for anyone in this Administration all of whom were
working so hard against the successful conclusion of the Iraq War.

Mr. Taheri’s second group consists of the petro-monarchies. Yes
that’s right, monarchies in the twenty-first century. It has been the continuing
US policy to support those petro-monarchies, so while including the current
Administration, it does not shoulder the blame alone. However, the fact that the
President would consult the King of Jordan about the “Arab Spring” is
deliciously ironic. It should be US policy to strengthen democratic civil
society movements in all nations, because it is not merely morally the correct
thing to do, but because in the end the people in these nations will take
control. (Does Anyone Remember Blowback: Do we want these new governments, when
they finally take power to look at the US as helping or hindering their
struggle?)

Mr. Taheri’s third group consists of rejectionist despotic
regimes. In Libya the Obama Administration is half-heartily encouraging the
rebels. It is bizarre to watch the chokingly constrained military support that
the Obama Administration provides the rebels. Indeed the rebels were nearly
crushed until the slight loosing of constraints on military intervention. It is
extremely ironic to have the Ero-poodles (with their hollowed out militaries)
sounding more bellicose than the US. Meanwhile in Syria the thug-ocracy of Assad
family has murdered well over 1,000 of its own civilians with no end in sight.
The Obama Administration’s Syrian engagement policy seems to be an unmitigated failure as well as morally
bankrupt.

Mr. Taheri’s fourth group consists of near failed states.
Sudan is finally ending its civil war of more than 30 years with devolution into
a Muslim northern rump-state and a non-Muslim southern rump-state. Eritrea is
struggling to hold itself together since breaking away from Ethiopia. Mauritania
struggles with a corrupt and ineffective government with a largely uneducated
poor population. The
only thing supporting these countries appears to be the resource demands of the
Chinese government, which has no interest in democracy but an increasing
appetite for natural resources. To expect more than naked self-interest from the
Chinese government, a self-perpetuating, unaccountable, communist gerontocracy,
is folly.   

I do take issue with his assertion that: “These dramatic
changes in the Arab world have happened without much input by any other major
power — including the United States.” Does he really believe that had Sadam
remained in power that he would be writing about “The New Map of the Arab
World?”

The overthrow of Sadam’s government and victory in the Iraq
War has finally unstuck the despotic ossification of the Arab world. The ripple
effects of these developments have allowed the Arab Spring movements to flower.
The people in the Arab world look to the democratically elected government of
Iraq as a model of a much more democratic future. A democratic Iraq is something
that never would have existed had the Democrats, who run the current
Administration, achieved their preferred outcome during the Iraq War. President
Obama’s Cairo speech was delivered some two years ago. Words, Mr. President, did
not cause the Arab Spring. Facts on the ground were the midwife of these
movements. So I close with this thought: The Arab Spring movement owes more to
George Bush and the successful conclusion of the Iraq War than to the words and
half-hearted actions of the Obama Administration.

Kevin Frei

Houston, TX