The New Neo

The NY Times gently chides Obama on his Middle East policy. For them, that’s the equivalent of a hit piece.

Among the nuggets contained in the article, there’s a phone conversation on Feb 1, 2011, in which Obama told Mubarak he had to step down. Mubaraks’s answer:

“You don’t understand this part of the world…You’re young.”

The rest of the Times piece goes on to detail just how right Mubarak was about Obama’s lack of understanding. But I think Mubarak was being too kind. It’s not Obama’s youth that caused his actions; he ain’t that young, anyway. And although it may be true that Obama doesn’t understand that part of the world, it also may be true that he understands it quite well and has a different intention than most people think—the old “fool vs. knave” argument that we’ve had so many times on this blog.

After the phone call, Obama publicly called for Mubarak’s resignation. Here’s what the Times has to say about that [emphasis mine]:

With those words, Mr. Obama upended three decades of American relations with its most stalwart ally in the Arab world, putting the weight of the United States squarely on the side of the Arab street.

It was a risky move by the American president, flying in the face of advice from elders on his staff at the State Department and at the Pentagon, who had spent decades nursing the autocratic ”” but staunchly pro-American ”” Egyptian government.

Many decades of bipartisan nursing, I might add. Out the window (or under the bus).

It’s one thing to overturn the regime of Saddam Hussein. He was no ally, and he was a much more bloodthirsty tyrant than Mubarak, both internally within Iraq itself and in terms of his relations with neighboring countries. But with the overthrow of ally Mubarak, Obama out-neoconned the neocons, throwing his (and our) lot in with the Arab street, and almost certainly with the Islamists.

Then there’s this:

Nineteen months later, Mr. Obama was at the State Department consoling some of the very officials he had overruled.

I’m sure they were comforted marvelous much.

Again with the narcissism [emphasis mine]:

Speaking privately to grieving State Department workers, the president tried to make sense of the unfolding events. He talked about how he had been a child abroad, taught to appreciate American diplomats who risked their lives for their country.

The Times refers to “hard lessons” Obama has learned since becoming president:

…[B]old words and support for democratic aspirations are not enough to engender good will in this region, especially not when hampered by America’s own national security interests.

I wonder whether Obama has actually learned those lessons. But the Times ignores that fact that, if he indeed ever thought that “bold words and support for democratic aspirations” would be “enough to engender good will in this region,” then he was dangerously naive and stunningly stupid.

But perhaps he is/was just that naive and just that stupid. I wrote about that possibility back in June of 2009:

Does Obama himself actually believe his speech caused the people of Iran to protest the elections and to demonstrate for their freedom? I don’t know. But if he does, it would fit in with something I’ve noticed before, both in Obama and on the Left in general: their elevation of the power of words over acts. After all, it’s worked that way for Obama his whole life so far. (see this for a discussion of why wordsmiths tend to go ga-ga over Obama).

When the Right, in trying to figure Obama out, says “watch what he does, not what he says,” they’re using a principle that seems self-evident. But it’s not that way for liberals and the Left, who are often far more interested in declarations of intent, in eloquence rather than achievement. If a person has the right goals in mind, if a person sounds like a good person, that’s the most important thing. And if liberals and the soft Left (the hard Left is quite different) are moved so mightily by words and speeches, they tend to conclude that everyone in the world shares that tendency.

But back to the Times article. Here’s another Obama failing it points out:

To some, the stark difference between the outcomes in Cairo and Bahrain illustrates something else, too: his impatience with old-fashioned back-room diplomacy, and his corresponding failure to build close personal relationships with foreign leaders that can, especially in the Middle East, help the White House to influence decisions made abroad.

Another revelation from the article is that Obama’s support for the Arab street in Tunisia and Egypt stemmed from his chagrin over his lack of support for the protesters in Iran. Earth to Obama: Iran is not an ally of ours, but Egypt was (even Obama seems to notice the “was” part). That’s why supporting the toppling of the government of Iran is not the same as supporting the toppling of Egypt’s leader.

Again, it’s very hard to imagine Obama doesn’t already know this. Fool or knave?

And again, again, again with the narcissism:

Mr. Obama felt keenly, one aide said, the need for the United States, and for he himself, to stand as a moral example. “He knows that the protesters want to hear from the American president, but not just any American president,” a senior aide to Mr. Obama said. “They want to hear from this American president.” In other words, they wanted to hear from the first black president of the United States, a symbol of the possibility of change.

One of the many things Obama does not seem to know about Egypt is that there is quite a bit of anti-black racism there:

Dark-skinned Egyptian President Anwar Sadat faced insults of not looking “Egyptian enough” and “Nasser’s black poodle.” An Egyptian Nubian soccer player Mahmoud Abdel Razek stopped playing football due to racist slurs by rival Egyptian fans during a game.

According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), Black African immigrants to Egypt often face physical violence and verbal abuse at the hands of the general public and law enforcement officials. refugee from Sudan are especially targeted, with racial slurs like “oonga boonga” and “samara” (meaning “black”) constituting the most typical insults

The Times article goes on to give Obama credit, at least, for prescience in knowing that the Arab street would win in Egypt and Mubarak would lose. It doesn’t seem to occur to them, however, that Obama’s “prescience” might have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. When he withdrew support for Mubarak and publicly abandoned him, calling for his resignation, Obama almost certainly substantially weakened Mubarak’s position.

More:

…[I]n the following weeks, Mr. Obama fell silent. Away from the public eye, he was coming under assault from leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, even Israel. Angry at the treatment of Mr. Mubarak, which officials from the Gulf states feared could forecast their own abandonment, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates drew a line in the sand. Some American and Arab diplomats say that response could have been avoided if Mr. Obama had worked quietly to ease Mr. Mubarak out, rather than going public.

Ya think?

There’s much, much more. But I’ll just close with this, because it counters Obama’s overwhelming narcissism rather effectively:

The tensions between Mr. Obama and the Gulf states, both American and Arab diplomats say, derive from an Obama character trait: he has not built many personal relationships with foreign leaders. “He’s not good with personal relationships; that’s not what interests him,” said one United States diplomat. “But in the Middle East, those relationships are essential. The lack of them deprives D.C. of the ability to influence leadership decisions.”

Arab officials echo that sentiment, describing Mr. Obama as a cool, cerebral man who discounts the importance of personal chemistry in politics. “You can’t fix these problems by remote control,” said one Arab diplomat with long experience in Washington. “He doesn’t have friends who are world leaders. He doesn’t believe in patting anybody on the back, nicknames.

“You can’t accomplish what you want to accomplish” with such an impersonal style, the diplomat said.

I said I’d close with that. But I’m going to go against my word and add one more thing. The Times article ends with a quote from a former assistant secretary of state named Jeffrey Feltman, who said:

…“[T]he event I find politically most disturbing is the attack on Embassy Tunis.” Angry protesters breached the grounds of the American diplomatic compound there last week ”” in a country previously known for its moderation and secularism ”” despite Mr. Obama’s early support for the democracy movement there. “That really shakes me out of complacency about what I thought I knew.”

I am puzzled. Looking at Feltman’s biography, I see that he’s an accomplished Middle East hand who’s served under both Democrats and Republicans. Could he really be so surprised about the forces we are up against, and their potential power even in moderate Arab and/or Islamic nations?

One thing that seems to be the case, though, is that recent events in Egypt and elsewhere in the region seem to have “really shaken” the NY Times out of its own complacency about Obama’s Middle East policy. For the moment, anyway.

Way too little, way too late.