Obama’s Failure

President Barack Obama will soon give a speech to the American people announcing upcoming airstrikes against Islamic extremists’ positions in Syria. Yevgeny Satanovskiy, director of the Middle East Institute, described the effects of U.S. policy in the Middle East in his interview with Aktyalnye Kommentarii.

The United States, and President Obama personally, have failed at everything they possibly could have in the Middle East; they lost the war against global terrorism. They have brought Iraq to a state of absolute catastrophe, and the same is definitely in store for Afghanistan. The events in the Middle East, in terms of American policy, are an all-around failure. Libya has become a zone of complete anarchy. An American ambassador was killed there, and the American embassy is occupied by terrorists. Libya today is a source of arsenals that could wipe out half of Africa.

Support of radicals in Egypt and Tunisia resulted in a near-collapse of these countries. In Egypt, President Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood were overthrown by the military, despite strong support from Barack Obama. Today, the country is involved in a difficult counter-terrorism war, while its relations with the U.S. have become lukewarm; the terrorists are supported by Obama’s main ally in the region — Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, as well as Israel, realized that they have been betrayed over Iran — which Obama is starting to toy with — and over security commitments. Israel was still under massive international pressure during the war when, for the first time in a while, Obama attempted extortion by imposing a ban on the supply of weapons and aircraft fuel to Israel.

Ousting Bashar al-Assad didn’t happen, and those people the United States was counting on turned out to be fanatics. The Islamic State — Qatar’s creation — occupied one-third of Syria and about 40 percent of Iraq, and turned out to be absolute medieval savages.

Obama’s indecision to proceed with the ground operation and his use of localized air strikes as the only way of dealing with the situation prove an absolute failure of American foreign policy.

Finally, Erdogan became president of Turkey after winning his opponents and defeating the opposition, represented by the Hizmet movement and its leader, Fethullah Gülen, who was, the Turkish leader is absolutely sure, backed by Americans.

Pakistan is engaged in a cold war with America; that is a fact.

Moreover, Obama’s dialogue with Iran, which will definitely stop the potential military operation against the country, is a turning point that gives Iran an opportunity to receive nuclear weapons, which it will undoubtedly get. This ruins the entire nuclear nonproliferation movement of the decades after World War II. An absolute disaster.

America is de-escalating its presence in the Middle East, having lost the war on terror. It is important for Democrats to satisfy voters before the congressional election in November, so that Obama is not perceived as an outsider and the Islamic State’s genocide of Christians is not held against him.

Obama will attempt token efforts, but not a full-fledged war against Islamic extremists, because if he wins them, then, for example, an independent Kurdistan will be pro-Turkish, which America is not interested in. The American president will continue with some kind of military activity against the Islamic terrorists, so that no one can say that he didn’t do anything. Americans still talk about supporting the so-called moderate opposition in Syria, which is basically non-existent, and about overthrowing Assad. They have to overthrow Assad — to lay pipe through Syria to Turkey to access their gas and oil, which will minimize Russia’s presence in Europe. Obama depends on these political and economic circumstances.