U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry departed from New Delhi on Friday. Credit Pool photo by Lucas Jackson
U.S. Struggles In Middle East, With Fewer Allies And Less Influence -- Arshad Mohammed, Reuters
(Reuters) - The U.S failure to secure a firm ceasefire in the Gaza Strip despite two weeks of intense diplomacy reflects new regional dynamics in which the world's most powerful actor has diminished influence and fewer allies.
When Secretary of State John Kerry left Washington on July 21 on a mission to try to halt the latest Israeli-Palestinian war, more than 400 Palestinians had been killed, mostly civilians, along with 20 Israelis, 18 of them soldiers.
Nearly two weeks later, after Kerry's extensive face-to-face diplomacy in Cairo, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Paris and scores of telephone calls, the death tolls have tripled, two ceasefires have collapsed and the violence rages.
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My Comment: A sobering assessment on the decline of U.S. influence in the region. Read it all.
6 comments:
They have been worse than ineffective.
They thought they had pulled the rabbit out of the hat with the 72hour truce and it would shut down the criticism. Well it didn't work and it may be an accurate omen of the fate of all future attempts by this administration to "do something".
The problem is no one in the Middle East is listening to Washington. In all of my years of studying how the U.S. conducts foreign policy .... I have never seen anything like this. This reminds me of what happened to Russia's position on the international scene when the Soviet Union collapsed .... with the exception of Russia's nuclear stockpile no one took Moscow seriously then.
WNU,
It's possible that this cease-fire fiasco marks the point that it's all gotten away from DC and they are just reacting and it's all very public.
Yup .... and many in the Middle East are making the situation worse by making their disagreements with Washington very public ... hence forcing Washington to react even more loudly.
I am crying crocodile tears and am ecstatic that these know-it-alls are getting their comeuppance except the world is going to crap and these guys are piloting the ship.
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