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By Crethi Plethi

(source: The Financial Times)

At a time when the world leaders talk about intervention in Syria as a result of the latest chemical attack in Damascus it’s perhaps equally important to raise the question who is (or are) responsible for the chaos in Syria and in the whole Middle East for that matter. Because every Western political leader has their say about Syria right now and they also know (or think they know) exactly what needs to be done. However, the reality is that not one of them really understands the middle East and subsequently don’t have a clue about what measures should be taken to put the genie back in the bottle. So unless Western politicians learn to deal with the Middle East in a realistic manner they will continue to make the same mistakes in dealing with the Middle East as they did in the past few years.

Of course, the jihadists are easily to blame as the ones who are responsible for the majority of the death and wounded in the Middle East nowadays (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Libya). What in the West was (or still is by many) seen as a spontaneous movement of moderate Arabs who revolted against the prevailing nationalist dictators (Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain) quickly degenerated into a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in the Middle East.

At this moment, nowhere is this more apparent than in Syria.

But in indirect meaning, US president Barack Obama is also to blame for many of the death and wounded in the Middle East as he did more harm than good since he delivered his Cairo speech in 2009. During this speech, where the invitees of the Muslim Brotherhood sat in the front row despite Mubarak’s objections, Obama let the “Islamist” genie out of the bottle especially the Muslim brotherhood’s Islamist’ influence in the entire Middle East. It was only a matter of time before the Middle East would explode.

Obama’s ‘appeasement theology’ makes it clear that he does not understand the reality of the Middle East. In fact, this marks the constant failures of many Western political leaders when dealing with the Middle East, because the political errors of today are a direct result of how they look through Western democratic values at the complex social, cultural and religious problems in the Middle East. But who cares, what works for us works for them, right?

Can we pause for a moment and point out a few failures of Obama’s Middle East policy:

1. Obama’s supposedly friendship with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who actually is nothing more than a radical Islamist and antisemite, severely undermined stability in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Favoring his friendship with Erdogan, Obama isn’t going to speake up against his so-called friend when it comes to Israel, Kurds, Cyprus, the Armenian genocide, support for Hamas, and transforming Turkish secular society into an undemocratic Islamist society. Moreover, it was Erdogan who after the Israeli Gaza flotilla raid in 2010 demonized Israel publicly and terminated a long-term friendship with his former ally, who by the way is also UN member and an ally of the United States. But Obama did little to speake up for Israel. Meanwhile there is no country in the world where so many journalists are imprisoned as in Turkey. So much for freedom.
2. With Obama’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt, one of the leading countries in the Middle East, dropped into chaos after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak. The anti-semitic Muslim Brothers’ candidate Muhammad Morsi became president (who the Western media stubbornly calls the democratic elected president of Egypt) and an Islamic constitution was forced upon the Egyptian people only three and a half years after Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009. Moreover, the Egyptians had to endure a rising tide of Islamic violence in their towns and neighbourhoods, with the Coptic Christians as the main victims. General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, head of the Egyptian armed forces, is trying to get grip of the situation again, but Obama continues to be supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood which for the most people in Egypt makes it clear that Obama supports terrorism. (To be honest, republican John McCain isn’t getting the picture either).
3. Obama tried to appease the Syrian government during his first term as president of the United States which as a result convinced Bashar al-Assad he had nothing to fear from the Americans, and now a civil war is raging in Syria and Bashar al-Assad is still in power. Obama has no clue in how to deal with Syria while the civil war only ensured that Iran and Sunni Islamists now have a foothold near Israel’s border, Russia is waiting for an opportunity to get directly involved and Hizbullah is already directly involved in the Syrian Civil War.
4. Do we really need to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian issue when it comes to Obama’s policies? Although the US continues to give military aid to Israel, Obama’s diplomacy efforts have done more harm than good. Thanks to the lax attitude of Obama, the Palestinians now have a ‘Non-Member Observer State’ Status in the UN despite the fact that this is a breach of the provisions of the Oslo agreements. Obama’s accomodating attitude with the Palestinians is diametrically opposed to his critical observations concerning the west bank (calling the armistice lines borders and the settlements an obstacle for peace) and during the Israeli-Hamas war in 2012. Obama lacked the political will to force the Palestinians to the negotiation table at the beginning of Israel’s previous 10-month settlements construction freeze in the West Bank. Although Mahmoud Abbas agreed to talk shortly before the freeze was scheduled to end, he broke off talks immediately when the freeze wasn’t extended.
5. And we could go on, for example, what about Obama’s cowardly attitude during the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi 2012, Libya, where ambassador Chris Stevens was murdered by Islamists who received support from the Muslim Brotherhood, indeed the same Muslim Brothers that sat on the front row during Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech. But you know that already, don’t you?

To summarize, Obama has the worst record of all US presidents when it comes to Middle East diplomacy in a time when decisive measures where needed in support of moderate voices in the Middle East. Instead, Obama managed to strengthen his enemies (the anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Israeli and anti-American Islamists) and to estrange his allies (Israel, the Gulf States, Egypt, the moderate Arabs) who no longer have confidence in Obama’s policies. Obama sacrificed their interests in a blink of an eye, all this in support of his appeasement with Islam and in particular the Muslim Brotherhood.

Political leaders in the West don’t understand the Middle East at all. Perhaps they can better listen to the opinions of moderate Arabs. In any case, Arabs can explain how complicated the Middle Eastern issues have become as this letter in The Financial Times today illustrates. This letter should teach Western leaders that the problems in the Middle East will not be solved with unrealistic Western appeasement:

A short guide to the Middle East

Sir,
Iran is backing Assad.
Gulf states are against Assad!
Assad is against Muslim Brotherhood.
Muslim Brotherhood and Obama are against General Sisi.
But Gulf states are pro-Sisi!
Which means they are against Muslim Brotherhood!
Iran is pro-Hamas,
but Hamas is backing Muslim Brotherhood!
Obama is backing Muslim Brotherhood,
yet Hamas is against the US!
Gulf states are pro-US.
But Turkey is with Gulf states against Assad;
yet Turkey is pro-Muslim Brotherhood against General Sisi.
And General Sisi is being backed by the Gulf states!
Welcome to the Middle East and have a nice day.

— KN Al-Sabah, London EC4, UK, “The Financial Times“

Crethi Plethi is the pseudonym [or Nom de guerre] for Harald van Es and is the founder and director of CrethiPlethi.com. He writes articles for CrethiPlethi.com in Dutch and English on the Middle East, Revolutionary Islamism, Multiculturalism and Europe. He has lived in Jaffa (Tel Aviv), Israel. He currently lives in the Netherlands. For all the exclusive blog entries by Crethi Plethi, go here.