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Frida Ghitis, CNN: Obama, Arab nations dance to different tunes
(CNN)What we have been watching is a carefully choreographed diplomatic dance, starring President Barack Obama and the Arab leaders who came to the United States for high-level talks at Camp David, Maryland. But the truth is that Obama's dance partners started moving to a different beat even before they arrived.
After a day of meetings at the presidential retreat, Obama appeared to take questions from reporters alone, declaring there will now be an expanded relationship as a result of the Camp David meeting, with greater security cooperation between the United States and Gulf Cooperation Council members.
But don't buy the niceties. They are an act.
WNU Editor: There has been many differences in the past between the U.S. and its Arab allies .... but it is different this time .... the Arabs are not listening. I suspect that the reason why is that for the Sunni - GCC bloc .... the stakes involved directly threatens their hold on power. Religion has always played a significant role in this part of the world, and many of its more bloodier conflicts are rooted in the Sunni - Shiite feud. But the peace was always kept (with a few exceptions) because of U.S. commitment and loyalty to the Arab monarchies. But times have changed .... Arab spring, Shiite militancy, Islamic State, Iranian nuclear program .... U.S. policy has shifted and the perception is that it was done without consulting and informing our allies. I have always been critical of former President Bush's Middle East policy .... but I give him credit on this .... he always kept the Arab leaders in the loop on what he was doing even though they disagreed with him. But in all fairness to President Obama .... he has become overwhelmed with events .... in the Middle East and elsewhere. He wants to keep the U.S. out of the many wars and conflicts that are now brewing throughout the world, but his decisions in the Middle East may produce the most disastrous result of them all .... a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
2 comments:
At the risk of being a broken record, again I say, the West's policies and operations against ISIS etc are taking us to a point of where the use of nukes is rapidly becoming an almost certainty.
Marine Corps doctrine is to get inside your opponents decision loop. S they have to continually react until eventually they are a discombobulated pile of mush.
Obama makes no decisions quickly. His go ahead with the Afghan surge to several months.
Often he makes no decisions at all.
It is not hard to get within his decision loop.
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