Rubin Reports

Obama's State of the Union address touted an American return to world leadership, but concealed the failure of Obama's policies, especially in the Middle East.

It’s bad enough to be mugged repeatedly but it’s even worse to provide the weapons and money for the assailants while also praising them.

Why have those who govern Syria followed such a pattern for more than six decades under almost a dozen different regimes?

The Obama Administration's policy toward Syria is turning into a scandal on both strategic and humanitarian grounds.

The interesting news was not that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pelted with stuff while visiting Cairo, the important issue was who was doing the pelting. Once upon a time, anti-American radicals threw things at U.S. leaders. But now….the hurlers of objects were people from the Free Egyptians Party and other Egyptian liberals. At the same time, leading Christians refused to meet with Hillary.

A full analysis of the foreign policy aspects of the third debate between President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Remember that the idea that someone “won” the debate in terms of an outside observer’s standpoint or even based on a poll is misleading. The only important thing is whether either candidate swayed additional voters to his side.

Secret Service security arrangements were overruled.

We are going to be told often in the next two months that things are going to get better in Egypt. It's likely that they are going to get worse.

Israel’s “friends” abroad simply can’t seem to get out of their minds the idea that the country faces such terrible threats that it must make big concessions and beg for peace with the Palestinians on just about any terms, or try to appease hostile surrounding countries in order to stave off their wrath.

Demonstrators charged that police undercover agents entered the protest areas, threw stones, and then went back behind the police lines.

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

No Jew need ever starve, because they always make a good living as a critic of Israel.

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.

One of my most fun professional memories was when I walked endlessly, circling round and round and round that hall in Algeria in November 1988 with a burly, no-nonsense, and brilliant newspaper correspondent named Youssef Ibrahim, who was then working for the New York Times. Friendly, funny, sarcastic, and with absolutely no illusions or romanticism about the absurdities of Arab politics and the idiocies of Arab political ideology, Ibrahim’s only shortcoming is that there are not one thousand more exactly like him. If he was the kind of person leading Arab countries and people they would be far more prosperous, peaceful, happier and democratic.

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.

While war with Iran might eventually be inevitable and necessary, that’s not true at this moment - when Iran is far from being able to build nuclear weapons, much less deliver them on missiles. And such an operation does genuinely pose serious problems for Israel and also - even if it does not participate directly in any way - for the United States.

The interviewer responds, "There was also Balfour."

While one can certainly sympathize with the idea of letting an elected parliament being allowed to take office, that's not necessarily such a clear call in strategic terms. The Egyptian parliament--which will write the constitution and thus define the powers of the president--is almost 75 percent rabidly anti-American and antisemitic.

A friend of mine listened to the sermon given at the Ramadan evening prayer in a village near the north Syria town of Idleeb August 7. The closer one gets to ground level in the Middle East the crazier things become. Sure, by the time the Western-educated, suit and tie wearing leader sits down with the Western reporter everything sounds calm and cool. But the earth is boiling.

Middle East expert, Barry Rubin discussed the region, prospects for peace and revolutionary Islamism.

To a remarkable extent—and this has nothing to do with his views or policies—Bibi Netanyahu is the only functioning politician in Israel today. No wonder he is prime minister, will finish his current term, and will almost certainly be reelected in 2013. Consider the alternatives.

There is no political ideology, government program, or redistribution of wealth that is going to cure humanity’s ills. In today’s secular, even anti-religious, Western society, religious people are seen as aggressive, intolerant, and foolish. But there are two things a decent religious person possesses that others don’t: A belief that there is a divine judge, which may make them curb their behavior; and a desire for self-improvement, to reduce their sins and strive for something higher.

Barack Obama is not a Communist, a fascist, a Muslim, a Marxist, a Progressive or even a socialist. Obama and those who control much of America’s academia, mass media, and entertainment industry—plus a number of trade unions and hundreds of foundations, think tanks, and front groups—are believers in a new, very American form of leftism.

There is a debate over the causes of terrorism and anti-Americanism in the world. One possible view is that the principal problem is that of genuine conflict. The adversaries hold certain ideological ideas—say, revolutionary Islamism—to which American society and policies are antithetical. The collision (as with Communism, Nazism, and aggressive Japanese militarism in earlier decades) is inevitable. The United States is inconveniencing the totalitarians both because of what it does (policies) and because of what it represents (freedom, democracy, capitalism).

The Palestinian Authority has received more aid money per person than anyone else in history and yet the results have been remarkably unimpressive. The Western taxpayers give the money, the PA leaders steal or use the money for political purposes, and the average Palestinian suffers more from this situation than from the largely extinct "Israeli occupation."

If ever I've seen a single sentence that spells disaster in the Middle East, this is it:“`People say things in a campaign and then when they get elected they actually have to govern,’ [U.S. State Department] spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.”

Here we are in the middle of 2012, and all of the events of the last eighteen months don’t seem to have taught the current administration’s policymakers or its supportive scribes anything. Can’t they even consider: “Hmm, perhaps this “Arab Spring” thing isn’t working out so well … “, or, “Maybe the rapid rise of revolutionary Islamist movements is just a little bit scary. Maybe we should be cautious about promoting it”? Can’t they?

This story brought home to me that to do one’s task rightly, to bear witness honestly, and to face the consequences without flinching should be the hallmarks of my field.

True, sanctions are hurting Iran but this regime is hardly delicate and gives every appearance of using negotiations only as a stalling tactic. Anybody who thinks the Iranian regime will crack under sanctions is living in wishful-thinking world. No matter how many chances Obama gives Iran, it’s still going to go full-speed ahead toward obtaining nuclear weapons and matching them up to long-range missiles.

One of the factors in British policy was a hope that if the Germans were flattered and treated properly, they would not be aggressive.