Rubin Reports

With the Obama Administration leading from behind and stressing the need for a UN consensus to do anything, it is now stuck with a passive stance on the Syrian civil war.

Ironically, if Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed a peace agreement, the recruiting and encouragement of extremism in the region would be at far higher levels than it is now.

The Obama Administration's Middle East errors are deepened and the lessons of experience once again rejected in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s latest defense of these wrong-headed policies in a speech given at my first employers, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. Her argument is that the United States should ignore violence and extremism while helping to build democracies. The problem is that most of the violence and extremism comes from forces that the Obama Administration supports or groups basically allied with those forces. The violence and extremism is the inevitable outcome, not a declining byproduct, of this process.

The great advantage of the Obama administration and the far left has been concealment and deniability. They deny their extremism and sugar-coat their message, helped by the mass media and other institutions. But the Occupy Wall Street movement isn’t this sophisticated “New New Left” but instead is like the Old Left and 1960s’ New Left in its rhetoric, methods, and symbols. It openly talks about anarchism, Communism, Marxism, and overthrowing capitalism.

Of course, Romney was correct in what he said. Indeed, he was merely stating the obvious. In the current upside-down era, telling the truth is heresy, or at least there are powerful establishment figures who try to make it seem so.

Even in the Dutch mass media there are shocking things written on a regular basis about Jews and Israel.

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 tide seems to be turning in Syria. While the civil war is far from over, the regime is clearly weakening; the rebels are expanding their operations and effectiveness. There have also been more high-level defections. What does this mean and why is this happening? There are three main factors that are making a rebel victory seem more likely.

When I read the platform I am shocked and disappointed. I can pick at the issues of popularity, Afghanistan and Iraq. But the failure to deal with revolutionary Islamism is ridiculously glaring (they didn’t use the tiniest fig leaf to cover themselves), making a mockery about the democracy and human rights’ pretensions. The treatment of Middle East allies is shockingly insulting. The issues of Syria and Egypt are simply dodged. There is not a single mention of the opposition in Iran. All terrorists not involved directly in the September 11, 2001, attacks are ignored. There is not the slightest hint that any regional strategy exists at all.

In other words, to speak in English in Washington to make the Americans happy is one thing; to do things in practice is something else entirely.

Satire but Very Close to Actual Experience.

In other words, bad developments are sometimes reported though there is an attempt to explain it away. This does leave some margin for readers and viewers to use their brains. Are these explanations credible? Why do things keep getting worse? If Obama is such a big supporter of Israel why does he keep subverting its interests? If Obama has made people in the region love America why do they keep hating America? Come to think of it, if Obama is such a big supporter of America why does he keep subverting U.S. interests?

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

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?

You might think that six Khamenei followers might split the hardline vote but don't worry as that will be taken care of in the ballot-counting if necessary.

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

What the Obama Administration has done is like trying to reduce crime by turning over the cities to the Mafia and letting it make the laws and also run the police and court systems.

In Tunesia, where non-Islamists are actually the majority, the elimination of Choukri Belaid wasn't just a crime, but a political strategy.

Is there no one who remembers this recent history?

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

The works and the moderate individuals exist but they are not given support, even in Western countries, nor do they have the resources to wage the battle.

Over and over again I’ve written about what President Barack Obama should do. Now the voters have given him a whole new chance. He could take it and change his policy. I don't believe he will do that but let me lay out both what he's been wrong and what he should do, just in case Obama is seeking a different approach.

The problem is not cynicism but naivete.

Israeli officials will be very polite in discussions and sarcastic when they talk among themselves afterward.

Living well, as the saying goes, is the best revenge, even if it comes at the cost of international criticism.

A large number of pro-Obama and radical or even anti-Israel cadre are Jews.

The bottom line is the belief that if the Muslim Brotherhood is kept happy it won’t cause any trouble.

I want to discuss three articles that I basically agree with to point out how they miss the key issue and thus are somewhat misleading. I’m glad to see these three articles being published but it’s a case of -to quote Lenin- two steps forward, one step back.

It is astonishing to note how much the Obama Administration, supposedly so sensitive to the views of Arabs and Muslims, has ignored the concerns of America’s own Arab allies.

The left has sided with the reactionaries and against their comrades in other countries because they hate their own countries’ systems more.