What Obama will not say
Issandr El AmraniMy new column in al-Masri al-Youm, on Obama's forthcoming speech, is here. I make the safe bet that Obama's speech won't blow anyone's socks off. An excerpt:
To be sure, Obama's speech will include an homage to the Tunisians and Egyptians and Libyans and Syrians and others who rose up or are still rising up against their dictators. It will include a pious call for a return to negotiations in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It will promise American support for democracy in the region. But I doubt it will include a frank apology for having been part of the problem of the Arab world's enduring autocracy.
It will not acknowledge that America's Middle Eastern empire, with its ensuing focus on stability (with the occasional dash of creative destruction), is one important reason for regional dysfunction. The US cannot and should not be expected to intervene in every one of the region's uprisings, but Obama will not pledge to at least do no evil. He will not announce plans for the withdrawal of the US Navy Fifth Fleet from Bahrain, whose al-Khalifa dynasty now make for an embarrassing ally. Instead, he will probably choose to concentrate on Syria, a more convenient example of bloody repression. He will not recognize that America's closest Arab ally in the region, Saudi Arabia, now seeks to put out the flame of revolution he will no doubt praise.
Obama will certainly not acknowledge that, in the absence of any viable peace process, the best course would be to at least respect international law and the legitimacy of the principle of national self-determination. But that would mean backing the Palestinian Authority's efforts at the United Nations to gain recognition of its right to sovereignty. It might also mean beginning to ask what, if the two-state solution is unattainable, the alternative might be.
Reader Comments (2)
I apologize to this blog and their members for the total lack of moral fiber within President Barack Obama. Unfortunatley I voted for Obama and I have to live with that, but I urge President Obama a toady for Wall Street to resign from Office. He has brought shame to the United States and the Palestinian people!
Obama's just another oil man cut-out, our only other supposed option was to vote for another former navy air-dale (like poppy bush) that killed more men on the Oriskany then were killed in the Barracks in Lebanon. It's really sad over here when a good man like J. Carter, or R. Perrot get slammed with a full CIA media attack spin. The CIA and the rest of the Fear State Agency's have no leadership at all by example, just corrupted power with fear to get the populace to conform. An Arab spring nation has a better chance of rolling on if it doesn't get infiltrated by the US/Israeli spin doctor apparatus, both overt puppet foreign policy players, and the covert Mossad/CIA machine. I hope all those protesters In Wash. D.C. get some deserved media coverage (including Helen Thomas) and make Bi-Bi & Barrack W Bush shake in their boots.