After a thorough review, the Obama administration has lowered its foreign policy objectives for the Middle East:
Susan Rice leads US to more modest Mideast strategy[.]
Expansive role of two years ago is scaled down[.]
At the United Nations last month, Obama laid out the priorities he has adopted as a result of the review. The United States, he declared, would focus on negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, brokering peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and mitigating the strife in Syria. Everything else would take a back seat.
Is that all? What will they do after lunch? Engineer the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?
Peace with Iran that wants nuclear weapons and still holds Death to America Festivals?
Thousands of Iranians shouted "Death to America" as they rallied Monday on the anniversary of the 1979 US embassy takeover, in a setback to hopes for a thaw in relations.
Feel the thaw!
And peace between Israel and the Palestinians is something they still think they can achieve? Really?
Israel is becoming more aggressive in protesting anti-Israeli (and often outright anti-Semitic) Palestinian propaganda. Israel constantly reminds the UN and the West in particular that Palestinian media has, for decades, spewed this sort of hate, which is at odds with the Palestinian official line (a desire for peace with Israel.) Israel is particularly angry at how Palestinians praise recently released prisoners (who have killed Israeli civilians) as heroes.
I'm thinking we're short a peace partner here.
And given the life line we threw Assad with that faux WMD deal that is shielding Assad's offensive against rebels, is our plan for our third priority to mitigate the strife in Syria a faster Assad victory?
These are lowered sights for the upcoming sixth year of the Obama presidency in 2014? After we've pivoted away from the Middle East to focus on Asia?
With John Kerry as our chief diplomat when he couldn't pass a global test on the Middle East if the questions simply involved pointing to Iran, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Syria on a map?
Good grief, what did they think they'd achieve before they settled on these "more modest" objectives? Did they really believe their own BS about that Cairo Outreach to the Moslem world?
We are so screwed.
