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Loose Canons

Obama’s Unstable Middle East

By on 3.21.11 @ 6:08AM

Subordinating American military power to the whims and caprices of the UN crowd.

Last weekend, nearly three weeks after Obama declared that terrorist dictator Gaddafi must leave, U.S. and British forces launched more than 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Libyan targets and — with the French — established a no-fly zone denying Gaddafi’s air forces the ability to kill the rebels still remaining in the eastern city of Benghazi.

But what are we attempting to accomplish in Libya? Obama and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen have made it clear that we are not trying to remove Gaddafi and only want to protect Libyan civilians from him. And Obama has said that our commitment will last only for days or weeks. So what is the end state that President Obama’s strategy is designed to achieve?

A quick survey of Obama’s Middle East seems to reveal a region as unstable as it has been since Messrs. Sikes and Picot met to divvy up the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in 1916. Looking a bit deeper, we see that Obama’s doctrine is destabilizing the Middle Eastern nations that are at best unreliably aligned with us while our principal enemies — the terror-sponsoring nations such as Iran and Syria — are unaffected by his ministrations.

European liberals and Islamists around the world are rejoicing at President Obama’s decision to renounce leadership and commit American military power in UN-sanctioned action against Gaddafi’s forces. They rejoice because Obama has granted the achievement of their ultimate goal: American foreign policy and the employment of American military power have been subordinated to the whims and caprices of their multilateralism.

Progress since President Obama began his campaign to remake our relationship with the Arab world is measured in these facts: Saudi Arabia managed to crush nascent internal protests and send tanks to Bahrain to prop up the latter’s own little despotism. Libya, Yemen and Tunisia are aflame. Egypt is hanging on the edge, holding a post-revolutionary constitutional referendum and Iraq is caught between Maliki’s strongman ambitions and al-Sadr’s Iran-funded Shiite supremacy. Lebanon’s Hizballah — also Iran-funded and armed — is being used as a deterrent against an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Among the loudest lobbyists for the UN action and U.S. intervention in Libya were the Saudis and the Arab League. Having failed to get the Arab League to take military action on its own — and fearing that Iran was behind the unrest in Bahrain and Libya — the Saudis were calling for quick action by the UN. The Arab League blessed the idea of a no-fly zone over Libya but weren’t willing to provide their own air forces to help.

Obama’s presidency was predicated on the evils of unilateral American action and repairing our broken relations with the Islamic world. But he has now intervened in a Middle Eastern civil war. Yet our Libyan war, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, isn’t aimed at our principal enemies — the terror-sponsors in Iran, Syria and — yes, Saudi Arabia — which weren’t the focus of President Bush’s nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan and aren’t now the focus of Obama’s new military action.

The Libyan operation, as Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) said on yesterday’s Fox News Sunday, is not about protecting American interests. This is about Obama’s desire to subordinate American power to the “international community.” He was maneuvered into this action by the Europeans, the Arab League, and the ladies on his national security team led by Hillary Clinton.

As I’ve written many times, the war the terror-sponsoring nations wage against us can only be won by forcing those nations to cease their support of Islamic terrorism. We have no interest in Libya sufficient to justify the use of American military power. Obama declared that Gaddafi must go, but the mission he assigned doesn’t include removing Gaddafi. Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on the same Sunday morning show that our mission was only to enforce the UN’s decision, protect civilians, and establish safe corridors for humanitarian relief.

How long will we be fighting in Libya? Obama has said it would be days, not weeks. The Bosnia NFZ lasted about three years. The NFZ established over Saddam’s Iraq lasted from 1991 until 2003. There is no strategic goal in Libya, so there is no end point to this operation. If our desire is to protect civilians from Gaddafi and we aren’t going to remove him, we could be there indefinitely.

Bahrain’s despotism is one of our more important allies in the Middle East, the nation where we base our Fifth Fleet. The rebellion against the Bahraini government may well have been created in Iran.

Because Bahrain shares a border with Saudi Arabia and because it feared Iran’s influence there, the Saudis sent about 1,000 troops into Bahrain to help its government defeat the rebels. Whatever the immediate result, the Iranians will not cease their support for revolution in Bahrain and other nations they perceive to be aligned with the West.

Yemen is also on Saudi Arabia’s border but its violent protests have not drawn Saudi intervention. Government forces there have fired on protesters and killed dozens if not hundreds. Yemen is another al-Qaeda nursery but it hasn’t — at least obviously — fallen under Iran’s hegemony. Its threat to Saudi Arabia not being apparent, there is no hint of Saudi intervention.

Egypt’s future is up for grabs. The removal of Hosni Mubarak was largely peaceful thanks to the Egyptian army’s refusal to intervene. Last weekend Egyptians voted on an army-sponsored constitutional referendum to establish limits on presidential power. But the growing influence of the Islamic Brotherhood and other Islamists has terrified the Coptic Christian community. Egypt will not be stabilized for months or years to come, and when it is it may be another Islamist dictatorship and sponsor of terror.

Iraq is suffering increased terrorism on the eve of the last U.S. forces withdrawing. Iraqis have taken to the streets, demonstrating against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government and its inability to provide security. Maliki, in turn, has stalled sharing power over the nation’s security and armed forces, generating more political heat from former PM Iyad Allawi and playing into the hands of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who returned months ago from years of “study” in Iran.

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About the Author

Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies. You can follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (37) |

Melvin| 3.21.11 @ 7:53AM

Well little Barry seems to have a quite a large problem on his hands doesn't he? So little time in public office, but so much damage political, and physical will take succeeding Presidents years upon years to straighten out, until another idealistic buffoon stumbles into Pennsylvania Ave. and we have to start all over again.
That is if we are still around to start all over again.

Timothy L. Pennell| 3.21.11 @ 9:44AM

"And I saw the BEAST rise from the Sea. And he was given a MOUTH, to speak Haughty and Blasphemous words. And he was allowed to exercise authority for forty two Months." Revelation 13-5.
So, you see, he doesn't have any problems. Everything is going according to plan, perfectly.
He has WEAKENED the ONE COUNTRY, capable of standing up to EVIL. And he is CONSOLIDATING the Enemies of ISRAEL.
He runs around Playing Golf, Throwing Lavish Parties, Dining on KOBE BEEF and IRANIAN CAVIAR, having his Personal PIZZA GUY and her personal TRAINER flown in to D.C. every week, and going on FABULOUS VACATIONS, while we stand in SOUP LINES and the WORLD BURNS, because HE DOESN'T CARE.
The Son of a Muslim/Marxist and an Atheist/Communist. Raised in Muslim Kenya and Muslim Indonesia? A man who surrounds himself with EVIL, all his life?
A guy who surrounds himself with Communists/Marxists/Maoists/Terrorists/White Haters/Jew Haters/ Christian Haters/AMERICA HATERS, all his life, is the President of the United States? And he refuses to stop BANKRUTING us, and WEAKENING our ability to FIGHT OUR ENEMIS, and EMBOLDENING OUR ENEMIES, and lashing out, ONLY, at GOD'S Chosen People: ISRAEL.
You can't make it up.
He knew what he was saying, when he said: "We are the ones we've been waiting for."
So HAUGHTY. So BLASPHEMOUS. Don't you agree?
The thing is, he wasn't talking to US.

Alan Brooks| 3.21.11 @ 12:49PM

"He runs around Playing Golf, Throwing Lavish Parties, Dining on KOBE BEEF and IRANIAN CAVIAR, having his Personal PIZZA GUY and her personal TRAINER flown in to D.C. every week, and going on FABULOUS VACATIONS"

You want the president of the US to eat bologna sandwiches off paper plates?? so you think only whites can live the good life?

Tim the Enchanter| 3.21.11 @ 2:09PM

You're a jerk. Plain English.

Sam Levi| 3.21.11 @ 2:29PM

What's wrong with Bologna sandwhiches off of a paper plate? I have to do it routinely, why shouldn't the alleged President?

Rip Phillips| 3.21.11 @ 2:42PM

Why the liberal racist hate?

LiveFreeOrDie| 3.21.11 @ 3:04PM

Such a ridiculous statement doesn't rate a rebuttal, just wanted to point out it's always the lib who inserts race into any conversation.

WhiteBikerTrash| 3.21.11 @ 3:14PM

Alan, can we agree on something? Obama is half white! raised for the most part in an upper middle class white suburb, by his upper middle class grandmother and grandfather! So why is it that you and others like you push his "Blackness"? He has as much connection with the Black poor as he does with the American Indian poor on the reservation!

Louis Jenkins| 3.21.11 @ 8:15AM

Let's wake up America. Do we really care about the mis-mash of Arab countries doing this and that? Do we really care who is in control of a patch of sand? All we really want is what is brought out of the ground-oil. How did we get this way? Hillary and the United Nations? Obama and the EU? The current administration isn't going to drill locally, and they've so much as said so last week. The USA is going to continue to trade off souls for oil when we have plenty here at home. A waste of manpower and resources. When are those dumb heads going to awake?

Michael L. Hauschild| 3.21.11 @ 8:58AM

Spot on, Mr. Babbin. The UN is a committee, committees do not win Wars. Obama is not acting as President of the United States (and as such Commander in Chief of the American Forces). He has deferred our “Super Power” status and become a vassal to the League of Nations. Our Military has taken the brunt of a series of milquetoast leaders who suffer under the delusion that their mission, is not to win wars but to participate in conflicts. We never get to attend the surrender ceremony, no one even knows what “reparations” are, and the rebuilding process consists mostly of providing arms so that losers can protect themselves from the next “no-fly zone” domino.

Mimi| 3.21.11 @ 9:06AM

I'm a GO for a few days... to prevent any massacre. The now " Old Views of The 20th Century" ....genocide, holicost are over! This better be a short venture! We need "OIL" today, tomorrow and maybe 50 - 100 years...To starve us of our ability to get it for ourselves is blatent folly for this administration...60's flower children..time to grow -up. We have a large, huge country sea to sea..many roads..cars get us to work !....we are NOT Europe! GET REAL, GET DRILLING.!!!

Thomas| 3.21.11 @ 10:08AM

Let me ask a question of my own here. Under what tenet of international law is the United States invading the sovereign territory of Libya? Muammar Gaddafhi is the internationally recognized leader of the internationally recognized government of Libya. He, and his government, are engaged in defending them selves from the armed attack of insurrectionist rebels. This civil war has not threatened any neighboring country, it is a purely internal matter. There is no legal justification for the actions taken by France, Great Britain and the United States.

Now, Muammar is a very bad guy. And our sympathies may lie with the rebels. Material assistance, communication assistance and even intelligence assistance, to the rebels, may be justifiable. But, we have gone far beyond that. The U.S has physically attacked the legitimate government of a sovereign nation. We are waging war against Libya, illegally. Whether we have "interests" in a country, or not, does not effect the legal aspects of invasion. If we are justified in invading Libya under these circumstances, then China would be justified in invading the U.S. if widespread civil unrest occurs here.

This ignores the broader question of just exactly who are we supporting in this conflict. Who are the rebels and what do they want, beyond the removal of Muammar Gaddafhi? Exactly how righteous is our cause, here?

These " wag the dog" situations never turn out well.

Alan Brooks| 3.21.11 @ 12:51PM

"Under what tenet of international law is the United States invading the sovereign territory of Libya"

We are BOMBING, not invading.

LiveFreeOrDie| 3.21.11 @ 3:18PM

/sarc

Oh right, good point...

/sarc off

russ in nc| 3.21.11 @ 10:16AM

I think the attack on Libya is legal because the United Nations is saying it's okay. As for what the US Congress has to say...no one cares.

Thomas| 3.21.11 @ 11:19AM

So, if the UN says it's alright to attack the U.S, for any reason, this would make it legal? How about if the UN says decides to tax your income, or regulate emissions in the U.S. or any of a hundred other internal matters in the U.S.? Would that be legal?
Think about it.

Alan Brooks| 3.21.11 @ 12:53PM

russ is being sarcastic, Thomas! you can't see so right off?

Sam Levi| 3.21.11 @ 2:32PM

Why not? They are already trying to nullify our Second Amendment rights.

tv22| 3.21.11 @ 10:29AM

Sort of funny that liberals seem to miss that there is only one reason to try to "stabilize" Libya while far worse atrocities have happened and continue to happen in other places - oil. Imagine the howling that would be going on had this happened three years ago!

Unfortunately, the President has no goal and therefore no exit strategy other than a time based metric, which he seems to favor in fluid situations such as military action. Such metrics of course require the cooperation of the people you are trying to kill. So if a Libyan civil war continues to rage, are we just going to walk away and let things really go to hell?

Who Knows?| 3.21.11 @ 12:04PM

The fish rots from the head down.

To kill the snake, you must cut off the head.

Statement one refers to the USA, as led by Obama, who was chosen by the American people. What’s that stinky odor in D.C.?

Why, it came from---all across America!

Picture it---a majority of rotten, verily fat and fat headed sick citizens, from places like liberal Portland, Oregon, smugly positive in their “disease”, actively sending their offal to Washington, D.C., and other political environs, via FREE VOTES.

And, D.C., itself, a sucking cesspool of longstanding, eagerly attracting such nihilistic emanations from afar.

What a PUSH-PULL!

Outside America, myriad “countries” are controlled by snakes like Gaddafi, who’ve managed to bite their way to close to absolute power. (Of course, there are the enemies within America, as well, as dumbed down citizens have taken their shots and come up snake eyes, by and nihilistically LARGE.)

So, the rotting fish, America, with head Obama, in the battle du jour, takes on the snake of Libya.

Who could, logically, expect the rotten fish head to even TRY to cut off the snake head?

Opportunity is knocking, and we hear you, but you can’t come in!

Just as I long ago understood the scam that is global warming, and all “green” revolutions cum socialistic endeavors, likewise it is getting SO OLD to have to wallow in ongoing stupidity about the snake Islam!

Someday, if maybe America survives, the majority of its citizens will then be in agreement about SNAKES circa 2011, just as we are now about Chamberlain and Hitler in Munich.

The clearest way, perhaps, to NOW be in such truth, is to recognize that we are living through a series of “\Munich” events. How else can we see Obama’s “treaty” with Iran, following the 2009 uprising there against their stolen “elections”?

Yes---one TRULY need not give any more attention to the “Earth is flat” global warming scam---

AND, all you need to know about the Islamic SNAKE is that unless the HEAD of Iran is attacked, and eventually severed, Libya et al are just distracting details. Of course, Saudi Arabia must, in its turn, with its Wahabbi “schools”, be cut off, as well.

All the rest are minor details, in the big picture.

As Jesus, and all God Realized humans might say---

Come slowly, or come quickly, but SURELY come to Me.

PS---consider the following quote from “The Politics of Experience”, by R.D. Laing, a British psychiatrist, written in 1967:

“Man, most fundamentally, is not engaged in the discovery of what is there, nor in production, nor even in communication, nor in invention. He is enabling being to emerge from nonbeing.

…..

There are men who feel called upon to generate even themselves out of nothing, since their underlying feeling is that they have not been adequately created or have been created only for destruction.” Pages 42-43

That last sentence seems to me to perfectly encapsulate the essence of the top MEN of Islam----they are most definitely NOT adequately created, and ARE destruction, animated: Shiva = the Destroyer.

jillosophy| 3.21.11 @ 12:09PM

How does that saying go? "People get the government they deserve"? Let the ME burn. If they are all eventually governed by islamist theocracies, so be it. If they then continue to attack us from inside & outside our borders with their different versions of jihad - end them once and for all. Simple. Until then, live and let die. Tragic, but that is the reality.

diviz| 3.21.11 @ 12:19PM

How is attack and proable invasion of Libiya distinguished from the invasion of Iraq?

GavInTucson| 3.21.11 @ 1:26PM

Well, one thing that distinguishes one from the other is that Bush got authorization from the Congress to do so.

Øbama has not.

Doctor Right| 3.21.11 @ 12:24PM

"Obama's doctrine is destabilizing the Middle Eastern nations that are at best unreliably aligned with us while our principal enemies -- the terror-sponsoring nations such as Iran and Syria -- are unaffected by his ministrations."

That's pretty much sums up the situation, doesn't it?

The question now becomes a matter of motive.

loulou| 3.21.11 @ 12:46PM

When Arabs are killing Arabs we best stay out of the way.

Leo| 3.21.11 @ 1:50PM

Agreed 100%,
When your enemies are destroying each other, stay out of their way. Unfortunately current occupant in WH is pushing this country into
uncharted waters. As palin said only death fish goes with the flow so is BHO.

Seek| 3.21.11 @ 12:57PM

Why is it that the most butt-ugly of the Arabs are the ones who are most attracted to Islamic fundamentalism? Come to think of it, has anyone here ever met a handsome fundamentalist of any religion? Bad looks and bad thinking seem to go hand in hand.

Will| 3.21.11 @ 1:02PM

So, it begs the question, where is Mo-mah? North Korea?, Zimbabwe? Farrakhan's house? Why on earth would you bomb the joint but let the beast live to fight another day? Oh yeah, I keep forgetting, you play for the other team.

LK| 3.21.11 @ 1:03PM

Aren't these "rebels" in Libya, you know the ones we always see on tv acting out on the "arab street" the same ones who were dancing and celebrating when 3000 Americans were killed in the twin towers?
Jeb you are right on as usual.

LiveFreeOrDie| 3.21.11 @ 3:22PM

Yes. Why else would Obama protect them?

OLDRAY| 3.21.11 @ 1:35PM

Good article by Mr Babbin. Excellent post by Mr Pennell. Obama has given the initiative to Iran and associated terrorists. It will cost us dearly in lives and treasure. In like fashion (but for far different reasons) Netanyahu has allowed Hamas and Hizbollah to build up steadily and permitted Obama policy to block him from attacking the source of evil in Iran. This hesitant policy can prove deadly to Israel and threaten Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

Richard Baker| 3.21.11 @ 1:45PM

The Kenyan needs to have his head examined. Subordinating the US to the Star Wars bar set which occupies most of the UN is absolutely NUTS. This clown is not calculating or smart. He's in WAY over his head and the country is, of course, more beloved internationally since he became President, sure. He gives mediocrity a bad name.

Sam Levi| 3.21.11 @ 2:26PM

I personally feel that if Iran wants nuclear weapons so badly that we and the Israelis should by all means send them a few.
"Dear Iran,
You wanted nuclear weapons? You should have them in about 8 minutes. Hope you have lots of SPF. Catch!
Regards,
Infidel"

martin j smith| 3.21.11 @ 3:48PM

Obama does nothing with concern for himself and his personal aggrandisement and of course his political standing and power. So wither his notion of Libya: Well don't blame me if it fails--I was pushed into this by France,Great Britain,Clinton,Bush, Bush and more Bush. Unless,Obama has told his "allies"that he will be in this only if it succeeds in his terms or else-adios amigos. Lets see if the Socialist Left gets into anti-war street protests and lets see if the US Left gets into anti-war protests. Then lets see how Obama handles this. If Obama defies his base --I would say that he needs psychiatric help at least on a reality base level. But beyond that lets see how the MSM anti-war crowd plays this out. But beyond that i would now and have asked the question if the Europeans are so concerned about how the people of Libya are treated--what about Iran ? After having see the Socialist Left in the US and Europe and other places in action the only conclusion I have is this: Its about the political benefit and economic benefit of the US and Europe to the extent that OIL is king and that is the one area of agreement.

Nite| 3.21.11 @ 7:24PM

Obama and the Lefties have a plan and it will not be for the good of the US and Israel. He has pretty much eliminated our friends and is promoting our enemies. Hummm, he also seems pretty friendly with the Muslim Brotherhood, who has been behind a lot of these uprisings.

Dee See| 3.21.11 @ 11:47PM

---AS Fukishima and those radiation particles
now coming down in California, on top of the
usual Barium. Cadmium CHEM-trails

---AS our RED China Free Traitors remain just
that

---AS the VERY REAL likelihood of regime change
in Beijing in the face of 'genocide consciousness'
is never, ever mentioned ANYWHERE

---AS there's still not a word about defaulting on
the absurd Globalist FAKE currency debt-creation

---AS Britain and France continue to be flooded by the Third World, and as America's borders
dissolve in the wake of Janet Napolitano's secret
agreement with Mexico to issue 80 MILLION
'trusted traveller' (i.e. GREEN) cards

---AS our entire Rockefeller 'Council of Churches'
ARMINIAN Heresy dispensing religious establishment, when not promoting sodomy,
remains utterly silent while preaching compliance
and 'submission'

---AS third generation EUGENISTS a la Bill Gates dictate
agendas, finance, direct and design our 5 decades reigning 'suicide culture'

AS WE AWAIT
------------------------HUAC meets NUREMBERG

Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 11:42PM

is good

More Articles by Jed Babbin

More Articles From Loose Canons

How Long Is This War?

May 20, 2013 | Jed Babbin

Next: The Benghazi Select Committee

May 13, 2013 | Jed Babbin

Nobody Died in Watergate

May 9, 2013 | Jed Babbin

Benghazi Bullchips

May 6, 2013 | Jed Babbin

Obama’s Thin Red Line

April 29, 2013 | Jed Babbin

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/03/21/obamas-unstable-middle-east

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