Will Obama Fail?

The president is in danger of not succeeding because of the ruins his predecessor left between the Yellow Sea and the Red Sea. Will Obama fail later on? That question might seem inappropriate, as he has just received the “Encouragement Prize for Peace”, but maybe, it is therefore even more relevant.

Grim

Of course, in America, the grim comments of rightist angry white men, the resentful kind that also pollute our Binnenhof (Dutch Houses of Parliament), are everywhere. The Boltons almost choked in their rage. “Words, words, words”, they said. What did Obama have to offer so far? I can somewhat understand that distrust regarding nice words; Bush only dished up lies and stupidities for eight years in a row. But those Republicans were right: Obama still has to support his words with achievements. His words have to mean as much as they dazzle.

Swallowed

Obama is in danger of failing, due to the ruins that Bush left between the Red Sea and the Yellow Sea. Sending more troops to Afghanistan to save a corrupt regime, in order to prevent something worse from happening, will not strengthen his image in the Muslim world as a president of peace. The same goes for the staggering nuclear power Pakistan, in case the civil war escalates and creates a push for intervention. The Iran problem pales in comparison to that scenario.

With his trip to Cairo this spring, Obama bridged a gap to the Arab world, but if his words are not followed by actions, that bridge will collapse in no time. The leading standard measure of his good will toward the Arabs is his approach towards the “Unholy Land”. The Goldstone report makes it clear that Israel has exceeded its bounds in the Gaza war.

Nevertheless, America has immediately taken this report off the table and even pressured Abbas to withdraw his charge at the U.N. Court. Otherwise no peace talks, according to minister Lieberman, who, as an Israeli from the Soviet Union, knows everything about a stone-hard “nyet.”

Hamas

The American tolerance for these Lebensraum politics is not only a further encouragement for the Palestinians to trade in Abbas for Hamas; it will also prove to be a massive strategic mistake some decades from now. For twenty years, after the fall of the Wall that marked the end of the Soviet empire, America has been the only superpower. But the U.S. wasted its opportunity to force Israel to agree to essential concessions, and has let itself be lulled to sleep by the thought that the Arab countries, which, until 1989 had a patron in Moscow, did not have any other choice than Washington.

That was indeed how it used to be. For Arabs, an alternative now looms: Beijing. China is already colonizing Africa at a rapid pace, and its enormous hunger for energy will soon make it focus on the Middle East. China will make an attractive alternative for the Arab autocrats, just as it did for the African dictators, because it does not whine about democracy and it pays well. Those Arab regimes will sell their oil to China all the faster if that enables them to detach themselves from the American Israeli policy. Then the discontent their citizens feel about this issue will lessen and not cause them to turn against their own countries as fast.

This will become a nice riddle for Big Geert Wilders: because of his blind Muslim hatred and biased support for Israel, his voters won’t be able to afford to use their cars to go anywhere.