‘ARAB SPRING’ TURNS TO ‘FREEDOM SUMMER’
What is the Obama foreign policy doctrine?
What is the Obama foreign policy doctrine? If you cannot identify it, is that because there isn’t one? Or is there?
Could it be that this administration doesn’t want you to know its foreign policy doctrine, when in fact it exists and is well underway?
Obama campaigned, we thought, on a platform against nation building – against endless wars. He was going to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan and close Gitmo. Then came the “Arab Spring,” this sickeningly romanticized notion that young, idealistic students of Arabic descent were spontaneously rising up to throw off the yoke of tyrannical regimes. The implausible effectiveness of the “organic protesters,” coupled with the consistent support by Western forces, suggests it was as spontaneous as the attack on our Benghazi consulate.
First they overthrew the weak government in Tunisia, with Obama’s tacit support. Then there was Libya, where he faced very little pushback. Who could object to overthrowing Moammar Gadhafi? While still maintaining openly that he is against nation building, Obama was very publicly and forcefully building his second nation.
The first time eyebrows were really raised was with Egypt. For 30 years, Egypt has been the one stabilizing force in the Middle East – the buffer between radical Islamic hegemony and the democratic West. Egypt was the one country that had a secure peace with Israel. Even that regime was toppled with Obama’s overt support.
In each case, the Muslim Brotherhood managed to take control, whether through elections or force and organization. Each time, the action or inaction of the Obama administration toppled three stable, nonsectarian regimes, only to see them replaced by three Islamic regimes with varying levels of support for instituting Shariah law. In all three, it was open season on women, Christians and other minorities who faced genocide even with the overt support of police and the government.
Many foreign policy experts noted that the danger of this plan (or lack of a plan) is a classic expression of the axiom that it is better to go with the devil you know. Nobody knew what devil would emerge with the collapse of the three devils we knew. Or did they?