February 3, 2013
Our Foreign Policy Establishment: Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places

By Clarice Feldman

Like the addlepated women who write love letters to an imprisoned murderer in the belief that the love of a good woman will turn him around, the U.S. foreign policy establishment repeatedly acts as though the power of their love and financial generosity will turn foreign thugs into responsible democratic leaders. They did this with the Soviet Union until Reagan upset their game, and now they are doing it with the Islamists.

This week there's been lots of ink on the disastrous affairs in the Middle East and North Africa and I'll discuss what I consider the best of the commentary, but if you want a Cliffs Notes on the issue, my friend Cecil Turner offers up something as good as anyone's:

One of the basic tenets of national policy is to make one's tactics and operations serve the larger strategy. It's difficult to discern the strategy with this crew, but unless it's to foster a resurgence of radical Islam, our operations don't seem to be supporting it.

The trajectory of the Arab Spring is well known. The revolt against the established regimes began in Tunisia, spread to Egypt, then Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria. It's now manifesting itself in Northern Mali, and Nigeria may be next in line as nations fall like dominos. In each case, it appears that the hopes anyone entertained for a new order proved baseless. There simply were no democratic roots in that soil and quickly Islamists took advantage of the upended order to set their stamp on the new regimes. Days ago even Algeria suffered a major attack by Al Qaeda which had penetrated a large gas plant there.

The Tunisian revolt, I admit, looked promising for those who hope for a more open, democratic Moslem world. On January 14, 2011, Tunisia's kleptocratic dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled after a massive revolt spurred by an impoverished fruit vendor decrying corruption. Today, violence and intimidation from Tunisian extremists -- Salafists and outfits calling themselves Leagues for the Protection of the Revolution -- threaten any move toward a free and democratic Tunisia.

Eleven days after Ben Ali fled Tunisia, 18 days of protest began in Egypt's Tahrir Square. President Obama publicly abandoned support for Hosni Mubarak as he did shortly later for Moammar Gaddafi. Mubarak was tried and imprisoned; Gaddafi was murdered. In Tunisia, the Islamists (Annahda) gained control through the vote, and in Egypt the Islamist Moslem Brotherhood did as well. In Libya they did not. Nor did the Shia revolt in Bahrain prevail against stronger Saudi forces, though the situation remains unstable. Yemen sacked Ali Abdullah Saleh but it remains the site of secessionist movements. Faoud Ajami describes it as follows:

"This is Afghanistan with a coastline, al Qaeda's new frontier"

About the same time that Ajami was warning about Yemen, Yemeni forces intercepted a ship heading there from Iran carrying explosives and weapons including anti-aircraft missiles.

In Syria, where Democratic Senators like John F Kerry , Nancy Pelosi and Jay Rockefeller once beat a path to curry favor with its leader Assad, and Vogue's Anna Wintour, Obama fundraiser and almost Ambassadorial nominee, fluffed up the regime's image, the internal war grows only bloodier:

As the rebellion approached its second anniversary, an estimated 60,000 people had been killed. In the north, the ancient city of Aleppo was reduced to rubble. Several hundred thousand Syrians had fled to neighboring countries. The rebellion has not been able to topple the regime, and the rulers have not been able to crush the rebellion. The very future of Syria -- its borders and territorial unity -- has been called into question. Clearly, this was not the place for a peaceful, democratic transformation. This was the forbidding landscape of an unsparing religious war. A rebellion that is answered by fighter planes and cluster bombs and Scud missiles bespeaks of a country with a pathology all its own.

Read more:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/o...l#ixzz2JqMqNBBu

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Don't worry ...........we have Secretry of State John Kerry to be our next John Travolta !!