The Middle East Is Becoming A Disaster

President Barack Obama meets with his national security advisors in the Situation Room of the White House, Aug. 7, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The Making Of A Disaster -- Roger Cohen, New York Times

LONDON — Almost 13 years after 9/11, a jihadi organization with a murderous anti-Western ideology controls territory in Iraq and Syria, which are closer to Europe and the United States than Afghanistan is. It commands resources and camps and even a Syrian military base. It spreads its propaganda through social media. It has set the West on edge through the recorded beheading of the American journalist James Foley — with the promise of more to come.

What went wrong? The United States and its allies did not go to war to eradicate Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan only to face — after the expenditure of so much blood and treasure — a more proximate terrorist threat with a Qaeda-like ideology. The “war on terror,” it seems, produced only a metastasized variety of terror.

More than 500, and perhaps as many as 800, British Muslims have headed for Syria and Iraq to enlist in the jihadi ranks. In France, that number stands at about 900. Two adolescent girls, 15 and 17, were detained last week in Paris and face charges of conspiring with a terrorist organization. The ideological appeal of the likes of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is intact. It may be increasing, despite efforts to build an interfaith dialogue, reach out to moderate Islam, and pre-empt radicalization.

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My Comment: So typical of Roger Cohen from the New York Times .... blaming Bush and others for much of the disaster in the Middle East. Cough .... cough .... someone should remind Roger Cohen on who has been the President of the United States for the past five and a half years .... and who came to power in 2009 when much of the sectarian bloodshed in the Middle East was either in the decline and/or had been eliminated.

What I now see is a positioning of the White House .... with their allies in the media .... in trying their best to explain and rationalize why the Middle East is now in the state that it is. This is unfortunate .... instead of looking for blame what the U.S. should do .... with the few allies that it has left in the Middle East .... is look for solutions and strategies that work. Unfortunately .... President Obama no longer has that credibility with our allies in the Middle East .... and more to the point .... he has not positioned himself with the American public on why and how the crisis in the Middle East can impact us .... and what policies and positions should be pursued. This absence of strategy, foresight, and leadership in confronting the rise of the Islamic State may .... in the end .... become President Obama's lasting foreign policy legacy.