Democratic Platform: No Mention of Islamist Challenge, No Support for Arab Liberals
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President Barack Obama accepting the Democratic nomination Thursday night
Photo Credit: DNC
What can one say? The administration pushed out an allied government, then pressed against America’s best friends there, and helped produced a “democracy” that is hourly now headed toward being an anti-American dictatorship. There is no hint of any of these problems. And by the way—let’s make this clear—the administration didn’t just support the moderate liberal reformers but the anti-democratic Islamists. Incidentally, do any of those “universal rights” contradict Sharia law?
There’s a sentence on Libya (a relative success story) and Yemen (a disaster but what else is new?) Most interesting is the discussion of Iran and Syria.
Here is Iran, officially declared by the United States as the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, a country murdering Americans in Iraq and elsewhere, and a place where a massive opposition has been crushed. So what does the platform say about that?
“In Iran, President Obama spoke out in support of the pro-democracy protestors and imposed human rights sanctions on the Iranian government.”
Yes, that’s it. What human rights sanctions? How about: We support the Iranian people in struggling against and overthrowing a brutal dictatorship. And by the way we’re sorry we didn’t say anything when the regime stole the election and shot down demonstrators in the street but instead congratulated President Ahmadinejad on his reelection.
Concerning Syria:
“We have led the international community to politically and economically isolate the regime, to increase pressure on President Assad to step down, and to provide assistance to unify the Syrian opposition in order to enable a stable transition. Moving forward, we will work to hasten the end of the Assad regime and support a political transition to a stable and democratic Syria.”
Or, in other words, we acted as if Assad was our good buddy for more than two years and flattered him, then when we had to we finally recognized what he was like and we are giving guns to the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists to take over. Oh yes and we organized a transitional council dominated by anti-American Islamists.
Oh, I forgot they cannot talk about revolutionary Islamism.
If you want to talk about a war on women, note that the platform has a whole section of vague promises about “Standing up for Women’s Rights around the Globe” followed by one on “Gay Rights as Human Rights.” Given the failure to deal with the treatment of women and gays (not to mention Christians) by Islamists, this is a joke. Radical Islamism trumps everything including “universal values.”
Let us imagine a party platform in, say, 1950, that didn’t mention Communism, devoted just a few sentences to the USSR, ignored supporting the liberation of the satellite states, and put forward no strategy for dealing with this challenge. Liberals and Democrats (some because they are radicals in disguise; others because they are intimidated) met the challenge of the Cold War. They are not facing up to this one.
At first glance and to the general public, the Middle East and international affairs sections of the Democratic platform might seem impressive. In fact, they show an administration while it can claim some credits—often for merely continuing predecessors’ policies—is going to be extremely dangerous if it rules for four more years.
Visit Barry Rubin’s Blog, Rubin Reports.
tell a friendAbout the Author: Professor Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. See the GLORIA/MERIA site at www.gloria-center.org.
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very honest, inciteful and we hope Barry can find a hiding place for his honest appraisals ; hiding place from obama's black shirts.
The Democratic platform specifically threatens Iran with military action. The Republican platform does not.
thats because its a no brainer. the republicans are friends of Israel so they don't have to spell it out. You need a prime minister like Harper, not a president like Obama.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4278481,00.html
You think Ron Paul is a friend to Israel???
I think you have dissenters in every party but Obama is about as wishy washy as they get till he gets elected. at that point he clearly will not be
Ask Osama bin Laden how wishy washy is President Obama. Note that the policy that led to bin Laden's death was explicitly opposed during the 2008 campaign by both McCain and Romney.
Charlie-To me this is the most important foreign policy question.
The DNC platform "… clear that the window for diplomacy will not remain open indefinitely and that all options — including military force — remain on the table.”
believes that there is a clear threat to use military force, but since the language is not clear, there is no mention of the word military by President Obama, just the vague options, there is no threat at all.
If Iran thought the US would strike it would not risk staying in power and would have given up its nuclear weapons program.
You can draw a parallel with the issue of Jerusalem. The DNC platform, after 3 loud floor fights, supports Jerusalem as Israel's capitol, but The Obama Administration does not, even though it was the President that made the call to change the platform.
The Obama Administration also has made it clear that it will not support Israel's right to self-defense with a pre-emptive strike on Iran.
Mitt Romney has come out that he would support Israel in that case.
This issue is too important to use as a political football.
The question has to be what will really be done about the Iranian nuclear weapons threat.
To me it is crystal clear that if you cannot even commit to force verbally, under any scenario, you will never use force.
This also lines up with a pattern of only supporting Israel when it is politically expedient.
So when you look at both sides, even though the RNC platform does,t spell out military
The platform warns that President Barack Obama’s “failed engagement policy with Iran will lead to nuclear cascade.”
This is much more helpful than the DNC platform that says that the diplomatic engagement should not be open-ended when it is obvious that it is open-ended.
Umm no..Obama pulled out of Israel. 2/3 of the American troops are GONE & they know he has betrayed them. THEN to make matters much worse, he sent a US delegate to the Iranian Unaligned movement (for the 'caliphate'), so endorsing that 100% & THEN sent a pandering hand written kiss up note to the Iranian President saying he is not with Israel! Got it? He's out! Please catch up on the past 48 hours events. This usurper is NO friend to Israel or America!
Jean Pierre Katz "This issue is too important to use as a political football."
I agree. But this article, and lots of others, by Israel supporters, are doing just that — trying to make support for Israel a partisan one.
Jean Pierre Katz In fact, Obama HAS directly threatened military force with his own words. Here is one example:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/03/us-usa-israel-iran-idUSTRE82108520120303
No…..Ron Paul is not a friend of Israel's. That is why he had no chance of winning the nomination.
Right from the beginning of his term, he was 'warming up to the Islamists.'
Because he is one. He just loves the tyrannical Muslim brotherhood sooooo much. Sending them billions of taxpayer dollars & arming the bastards so they can cause Christian genocide & are preparing to go after Israel! What a traitor to free people everywhere!!
He is clear & present danger to the planet! When he decided it was 'policy' to host the radical muslims to host a 2 hour opening prayer at the DNC; the same ones that speak openly of overthrowing the 'filthy' US govt to insert Sharia law the dems should have gotten a clue. But the Obots are friggin clueless. 110%!
Here his entire foreign policy has been about enslaving people & inserting Sharia law in other countries & yet the idiot feminazis & homosexuals think he cares about them & their rights?? It's laughable if it wasn't so damn tragic how stupid these people are. And then he goes on TV today stating Romney has a bad foreign policy?!?! THE NERVE! Liberals that do not clearly see what he is doing need professional help. Period!
"'policy' to host the radical muslims to host a 2 hour opening prayer at the DNC"
This is a lie.
'Finally, there is a section extolling the kind of policy that the very same people would have ridiculed and reviled (and not incorrectly, by the way) a couple of years ago as Bush’s “neo-conservatism”:'.
If that platform statement isn't support for Arab liberals, I don't know what is.