Remember, for one second, in January 2011, before even a dozen demonstrators were killed, a small herd of camel-riding Mubarakists rode into Tahrir Square trampling some protesters underfoot, and Obama immediately flew into an apoplectic rage, gliding close to personally claiming that Mubarak was a war criminal for attacking peaceful “democratic” demonstrators.
But in February 2012, after Assad has murdered over 10,000 Sunni mostly totally unarmed civilians by lobbing barrages of multiple rounds of artillery into Homs, why is Obama all but numbingly silent in-between his own barrages of multiple rounds of 18-hole golf?
The reason: the US President Obama has artfully and silently pivoted US Middle East Policy from a Pro-Saudi, Anti-Iran paradigm to a Pro-Iran, Anti-Saudi imperative.
Crazy you say? The Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim, attending at a recent Gulf security conference with US diplomats, “undiplomatically” for over 18 minutes calmly stated, in essence:
1) “US Policy is the Number One threat” to the Gulf States;
2) America “has realized the dreams of Iran in Iraq;”
3) the US has “adopted the path and ideology of Khomeini;” and
4) the US “is no longer an ally” of the Gulf States.
http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/41653.htm
To frame the instant question with a sharper point:
Why did President Obama, in his 2009 Cairo Speech, pro-actively incite and reflexively, over Saudi Arabia’s infinite anger, support the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, who was the US’ stalwart Sunni American ally for over 30 years and who acted as the sole-substantial Sunni Arab counterweight to Iran? How come the Nobel Prize-winning Obama unflinchingly allows Assad, a Shiite/Alawite, confirmed state-sponsor of terror, funneler of IEDs in Iraq which murdered thousands of US soldiers, and a stalwart ally of Shiite Iran, to cold-bloodedly massacre what is now over ten thousand unarmed Sunni Muslims?
And why did President Obama anoint the Shiite Al Maliki, a known-Iranian stooge, as the omnipotent new-Shiite Saddam of Iraq, sideline the Iraqi Sunnis, and compound the decidedly pro-Shiite tilt by tacitly handing the keys of Iraq over to Iran leaving the Sunni Gulf states to fend for themselves against the a combined Iraq/Iran Shi’ite colossus from the North and East?
Why does Obama constantly refer to the ragtag, disjointed, barely-existing Sunni al Qaeda as the “greatest threat to the US” when the Shiite Iran and its Hizbullah and Iraqi based proxies have killed many times more US soldiers and US civilians in the past 20 years than al Qaeda has, – and Iran is nearing the acquisition of nuclear bomb and constantly claiming Israel is a “cancerous tumor” that needs to be “cut out” of the Middle East?
The answer can be found in Obama’ first documented foreign “policy” speech in 2002 dubbed the “Iraq War Speech” where Obama unambiguously declared:
“You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality. . . .” – Barack Obama’s Iraq Speech dated Oct. 2, 2002
From Obama’s very first recorded words on US foreign policy, Saudi Arabia, and not Iran, was to Obama, America’s Number one enemy.
President Obama’s inimical abhorrence of the House of Saud was further codified in US President Obama’s May 19, 2011 major Foreign Policy speech where he repeatedly explicitly attacked Bahrain, Saudi’s key ally, as well as again clearly targeting the “elite” Saud Family when he stated:
Prosperity also requires tearing down walls that stand in the way of progress -– the corruption of elites who steal from their people; the red tape that stops an idea from becoming a business; the patronage that distributes wealth based on tribe or sect. – NY Times, 5/19/11 “Obama’s Mideast Speech”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/middleeast/20prexy-text.html?pagewanted=all
Obama, from his 2002 speech on a Chicago street to his 2011 speech at the State Department, sees the House of Saud as the very personification of Obama’s “elites who steal from their people,” and of “the patronage that distributes wealth based on tribe or sect.”
But Obama’s one act which symbolically crystallizes the essence of what has been, is, and will be the Obama Doctrine is Obama’s very first act as US President. Obama’s first act was he formally and publically returned the bust of Winston Churchill to Great Britain that had long adorned the Bush Oval Office.
Obama viscerally rejected Churchill’s White House presence because it was Winston Churchill and his “Lawrence of Arabia” generation of British foreign establishment that, in effect, had “divided and conquered” the Muslim Ummah, and empowered the balkanized Sunni “elite” kingdoms at the expense of the Shi’ites and the Ottoman Empire. While empowering the local Sunni Kingdoms, Churchill disempowered a possible unified Muslim Caliphate, and the Shi’ites.
At core, to Obama, Lawrence of Arabia wasn’t a heroic liberator of Arabia, but a villainous enslaver of the Ummah. To Obama, the Churchill’s very Middle East “borders” themselves are colonial vestiges which divide and enshackle the Muslim Ummah and prevent it from achieving its true greatness and superpower status on a par with the EU, the US, China, and Russia.
Consequently, Obama, from day one of his US Presidency, has been the first anti-Winston Churchill US President. The Obama Doctrine is “Whatever Churchill did, Obama would, and will, undo.” Churchill empowered the Sunnis, Obama will dispossess the Sunnis. Churchill created Israel, Obama will dismember Israel.
Within this tightly focused foreign policy imperative, Obama sees the total empowerment of Iran as the quickest and surest route to obliterate the shackles of the Churchill’s vestigial enslaving pro-Sunni “elite” localized fiefdoms that practically prevent the unification of the Muslim Global Ummah.
As a consequence, of the “Obama Doctrine”, Obama’s Iranian Nuclear policy can be summed up as “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” As a result, Obama’s overall Iranian political empowerment policy in Iraq and Afghanistan and Lebanon isn’t weakness, “naivete,” or “vacillation,” but Obama’s central overarching, immutable goal. Obama plays Turkey like the “useful idiot” “sick man” it still is.
Yes, common Iranians are paying a lot more for bread. Yes, the Iranian Rial is all but worthless. But by all accounts, the sanctions have only sharpened and accelerated Iran’s timeline to build an atomic bomb, and stopped any attempt to militarily stop Iran’s nuclear program. Iran understands Obama’s need to “false flag” Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon into believing Obama’s Justice Department’s sanctions are doing something. Otherwise, Obama’s Pro-Iran policy would be impossible to hide.
With the Obama Doctrine, Obama’s entire foreign policy makes sense: It explains why Obama toppled Egypt, Saudi Arabia’s key Sunni ally. In a heartbeat, Obama rendered Egypt permanently paralyzed to assist the Saudis against Iran. As a result, Obama made the Saudis feel warm and fuzzy after the Mubarak betrayal by “selling” them 50 gazillion dollars of US weapons – that will be delivered a decade after Iran gets and uses its nukes, and successfully attacks Saudi Arabia’s Eastern/Persian Gulf oil fields that hold 95% of Saudi’s oil.
In accordance with this doctrine, Obama obliterated the Sunni Qaddafi with hundreds of million dollar Tomahawk missiles, deleting the precious cache of Tomahawks (for possible use against Iran) where there was a truly heavily armed Libyan opposition who could fight for themselves and instead left an absolute Islamist maelstrom wrapped in chaos enveloped in bedlam and mayhem. As a result, Obama has mutely watched well over ten thousand Syrian Sunnis be massacred by Iran’s Shi’ite handmaiden, Assad, and hasn’t even shipped in one 5 kilometer range anti-tank weapon that would easily spay Assad’s rampaging tanks and artillery.
Somehow Reagan wasn’t afraid to send the Afghans anti-air stingers down Soviet helicopters when the USSR had 5,000 ICBM nukes locked and loaded at Washington DC, but Obama is petrified to send embattled Sunni Syrian unarmed civilians a single Band-Aid, lest Obama might upset Iran and his ability to close his Iranian Nuclear Grand “Bargain” just in time for the 2012 elections.
And as a final policy puzzle piece, Obama’s noisy objection to an Israeli attack on Iran is, in reality, a deafeningly silent total rejection of Saudi Arabia’s push for America to militarily attack Iran. The Saudis know Iran is infinitely more of a threat to Saudi Arabia than to Israel.
Obama has publically amped up the five-alarm fire-fight with Israel to make the Iran issue appear to be an “Israel only” issue, thereby preemptively embarrassing the Saudis out of even asking for the US to strike. For as long as Obama and his minions are vituperatively publicly attacking Israel about an Israeli attack and even threatening to do a “reverse-Liberty” and shoot down attacking Israeli planes, the Saudis know they have no hope of even broaching the “Attack Iran” issue with Obama.
So for Obama it’s a win-win-win, actively attack Israel, blame Israel for destabilizing the Middle East, attack Israel’s American supporters as dual loyalists, and passively pre-reject the Saudis request for an attack on Iran’s facilities before the Saudis even ask for one.
What all this means is Obama has quietly turned 50 years of US Foreign policy on its head without even a single congressional hearing. If Obama isn’t sending Band-Aids to Homs, he sure ain’t sending Bunker-busters to Fordo.
The Egyptian “Pillar” of US strategic interests is now yesterday’s dust. The vaunted Saudi “Pillar” of US Middle East policy since World War I is now a prime US target for destruction. Israel is live bait. Obama’s true foreign policy objective seems to be nothing less than the full nuclear weaponization of Iran. Anything else is a smoke-screen for Obama to look like he’s doing something, but in reality he is doing nothing to stop Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
In conclusion, Obama is actively “democratically” toppling all U.S. Middle East allies, and soon a nuclear-armed Iran will control 70% of the World’s Oil Reserves, charging $500 a barrel for oil.
Under the Obama “Domino” Doctrine, in the not so far future, the House of Saud and all the Gulf monarchies will be the very first “elite” colonial vestiges which will have to be annihilated by Iran for Iran to unify the Muslim Ummah to achieve its historical and rightful greatness and power. In the longer-term, once Iran has liquidated the House of Saud and acquired its limitless oil wealth, the Iranian Rial and the price of bread for the common Iranian will return to normal, and Iran can the focus on destroying Israel.
And in the short-term, Obama and the world will watch Assad commit a holocaust against the unarmed Syrian Sunnis, and, of course, Obama’s golf game will see some improvement.