Spengler Discovers Beautiful Barack Obama

This too shall pass.
Post Reply
Hoosiernorm
Posts: 2206
Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2011 7:59 pm

Spengler Discovers Beautiful Barack Obama

Post by Hoosiernorm »

Spengler Discovers Beautiful Barack Obama

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_Eas ... 50313.html

With an Israeli-Palestinian agreement unlikelier than ever in the past 20 years, why did President Barack Obama go to Israel? Where did you want he should go?

Apropos of this week's Passover holiday, when Jews around the world relive their liberation from Egyptian slavery, Obama has made a personal Exodus of sorts, from his July 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim world to his March 2013 arrival in Jerusalem.

Apart from Jordan, there aren't many Arab venues for Obama to



visit. Sectarian war is spreading from Syria to Lebanon and Iraq, and the governability of Egypt is questionable. The great personal project of the American president, namely reconciliation with the Muslim world, has disintegrated.

Two decisive changes in Obama's stance towards Israel are widely noted. The first is that the president asked Israel to do nothing in particular prior to peace talks, in sharp contrast to his first-term push for a settlement freeze. The second was Obama's endorsement of Israel's self-understanding, namely that the modern State of Israel is the successor of the biblical Jewish kingdom and the historic homeland of the Jewish people.

For those of us who called attention to Obama's anti-colonial bent, imprinted by a childhood spent partly in Indonesia and strong identification with a Muslim father and stepfather, this change is most welcome. Whatever Obama's personal sympathies, he heads the American state, and the American state has interests. These interests are endangered by the emerging Sunni-Shi'ite war and the attendant threat of WMD proliferation. America has only one stable, powerful and reliable ally in the region, namely Israel. By process of elimination, Obama had nowhere else to go.

It's hard to categorize Obama's current policy stance. He long since abandoned the ''realism'' of Robert Gates and Brent Scowcroft, and seems to have abandoned the idealism of his own foreign policy team. The departure of his human rights czarina Samantha Power in February suggests as much. If neo-conservativism is the outlook of a liberal who has been mugged, perhaps we should call this neo-realism.
Been busy doing stuff
Ibrahim
Posts: 6524
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2011 2:06 am

Re: Spengler Discovers Beautiful Barack Obama

Post by Ibrahim »

Spenger's analysis of the importance of Israel to the US is the usual fraudulent J-street lobby boilerplate, and as usual his wider regional analysis is hopeless, but the fact remains that the Obama visit was everything that Israeli conservatives and Zionists in general could want. He gave them carte blanche. Anything he said about the need to halt Settlers was mitigated by the declaration that the US would back Israel "no matter what."

Rather than some alleged "shift in policy," what this seems to prove is that previous hysterics over Obama being anti-Israel were so much made up nonsense by conservative pundits. There was never anything to pin it on, and now instead of admitting they were wrong hacks like Spengler pretend their are getting some favorable political shift.



I guess the only fly in the ointment would be that he managed to get Yahu to apologize to Turkey for the flotilla massacre, and pledge monetary compensation for the families of the victims. Now that I think about it, that happened in the same week that the PKK called for a ceasefire. Good week for Erdogan, good week for Israel, good week for Obama. Yet another bad week for Palestinians, but they're used to it.
Hoosiernorm
Posts: 2206
Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2011 7:59 pm

Re: Spengler Discovers Beautiful Barack Obama

Post by Hoosiernorm »

Considering the prior essays by Spengler, this is a shift in attitude for the Goldster.
Been busy doing stuff
User avatar
Enki
Posts: 5052
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:04 pm

Re: Spengler Discovers Beautiful Barack Obama

Post by Enki »

Hoosiernorm wrote:Considering the prior essays by Spengler, this is a shift in attitude for the Goldster.
A glacial one.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
User avatar
Doc
Posts: 12562
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 6:10 pm

Re: Spengler Discovers Beautiful Barack Obama

Post by Doc »

By process of elimination, Obama had nowhere else to go.


I think David is saying that he has not changed his position but rather Obama has changed his. :lol:

Which is indeed the case. As the old saying goes Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose... Until every involved realizes that things won't improve much in the ME. But I have faith they will figure it out sooner or later. No worries here.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
Ibrahim
Posts: 6524
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2011 2:06 am

Re: Spengler Discovers Beautiful Barack Obama

Post by Ibrahim »

Hoosiernorm wrote:Considering the prior essays by Spengler, this is a shift in attitude for the Goldster.
Yes, that's true.
Post Reply