Rubin Reports

He knows how to deal with the West and will hopefully keep the money rolling in but cannot do anything and won’t try.

Why would a leading figure in Turkey's ruling Islamist party identify the era of rising Islamism as a “great shame…[in which the Middle East ] fell prey to the thirst of barbarian bloodshed”?

The first thing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does is send a warm message of congratulations to the reelected president.

With a 'friend' like Erdogan, Obama’s policy toward Syria, Iran, the advance of revolutionary Islamism, and the Israel-Palestinian “peace process,” is in serious trouble.

What happens, then, if the regime doesn’t give in and the army doesn’t stop the demonstrations?

Liberals would than blame Israel than examine the faulty assumptions that comprise their worldview.

Despite the current policy's serious problems and visibly dangerous outcomes there is no major debate it.

Obama went to sleep and he has yet to wake up. And there's graphic proof for that assertion in the streets of Benghazi today.

The Palestinian leadership's goal of wiping out Israel has not changed. Only if it ever does will there be any chance of a two-state solution.

While such a visit would resolve previous criticism that Obama never visited Israel as president, it is a mistake, especially given the timing, for a number of reasons.

When asked whether they preferred to model Egypt on Saudi Arabia or Turkey regarding religion’s role in government, thy chose Saudi Arabia by a 61 to 17 percent margin. Note that Western pundits and experts keep insisting that there is some kind of Turkish model of moderate Islamism. Aside from the fact that Turks aren’t Arabs, this is a sign of the base of support for a fully sharia state.

Originally published at Rubin Reports. Note: I beg you to read this article and I've never said that before. I think in the wake of the...

Tom Friedman doesn’t understand the Middle East, though he has persuaded a big audience otherwise.

We are now at the beginning of Egypt’s involvement, directly or indirectly, in a new wave of terrorist assault on Israel. If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Egypt, a likelihood made less probable perhaps by the military’s dissolution of parliament, this offensive will enjoy official support. Even if the army remains in control, the Brotherhood and Salafists will use their considerable assets to back this new insurgency war.

One argument we will be increasingly hearing is that President Barack Obama couldn’t have done anything to change events in the Middle East. This is ironic of course because when things were going well he wanted to take credit as the inspiration for the "Arab Spring."

America could be said to be building a united front against Iran, but at what price?

In August 2010, Obama ordered a secret report on unrest in the Arab world.

Obama Administration policy is to put into power yet another anti-Western regime that will oppress its own people and put a high priority on trying to wipe out Israel.

Let me make it plain. There will be mass murder, even genocide in Syria.

After an eight-month-long battle in which more than 3500 people have been killed, there’s no telling who will be ruling Syria when the dust settles, or even when the dust will settle.

While foreign policy did not figure large in the second presidential debate, the Middle East again emerged as the overwhelmingly main international issue. In the beginning of the debate, President Barack Obama claimed that he put a high priority on energy independence, an assertion well refuted by Governor Mitt Romney. A president who wanted energy independence, from the unreliability of Middle East supplies, could easily expand oil drilling on federal land; the use of new technology to produce oil and gas; a major pipeline from Canada; and the continued production and use of coal for generating power. To do none of these things and put his effort into restricting traditional energy sources and push hard for untested, long-term, and failed “green energy” schemes subverts energy independence. But the main emphasis in the debate was on the Benghazi assassinations.

Of course, everyone knows that this ceasefire won't last. The key to anything more durable is if the Egyptian government decides that it wants to avoid another war because of its own interests.

The basic grand strategy for the Middle East should be to form and lead a very broad and very loose—not institutionalized—alignment of forces opposing Islamism.

Even Muslim Brotherhood think-tanks have said that the Shia, and especially Iran, are more dangerous threats than is Israel.

What can the Copts do except resign themselves to continued persecution?

The supposed advantage of democracy is that the media, academia, and others speak—where did I hear this before?—truth to power.

A situation is being set up in which a future Muslim Brotherhood regime in Syria can blackmail the United States.

Does anyone notice that the Palestinians keep demanding more preconditions, Israeli concessions but never come to the table?

The internal drive to delegitimize America may aimed at overcoming natural American patriotism by those who would transform the country’s thinking.

Egypt's draft constitution enshrines Sharia rule without rubbing people’s faces in it.