Mubarak’s Release Means Obama’s Middle East Policies Failed

Even though it was foreseeable, Hosni Mubarak’s release, to which everything was leading in the past few days, was still a very unpleasant surprise to the Muslim Brotherhood, the revolutionary mob in Egypt and the U.S. However, when saying "the U.S.," we always have to quite clearly spell out what we mean by that word. The U.S., like any normal country, is far from united. This superpower’s two powerful elite groups wage quite a fierce battle with each other, which is no less ferocious than the war between the Tutsi and Hutu, though perhaps it uses slightly more civilized methods.

There are many models for these friendly relations, from the conflict between the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds to the war between supporters of hard power and soft power. There are a lot of conspiracies in these relations, but in general, the U.S. elite has quite different interests, grouped around the country’s two sources of power: industrial potential and the financial system.

Purely from a descriptive point of view, it doesn’t matter exactly what these groups are called. What is important is that the Democrats, who today are represented by President Barack Obama, are people that promote the interests of the international financial bureaucracy, while the Republicans are the front men of the largest multinational corporations.

The post-colonial Middle East, which has chosen to lean toward the West, was basically the suzerain of the multinational corporations that were at the peak of their power. In a manner of speaking, Middle Eastern rulers were pro-Republican.

However, as time went on, the international financiers, who were armed with the dollar and the capability to use it, started to gather more weight. Whatever could not be won was purchased.

The Arab Spring has provided the Democrats with a wonderful opportunity not only to solve U.S. geostrategic problems, but also to give a shove to their parallel elite group opponents.

No wonder Obama reacted with such a sympathetic attitude to the Arab peoples’ desire for democracy and freedom. The Muslim Brotherhood became his trump card in the Middle East game, during which the "pro-Republican" Tunisia and Egypt were crushed one after the other, and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh was dropped into the depths of a civil war. The war in Syria should have ended in Riyadh and Amman rather than Damascus, which would have put an end to Obama’s opponents’ control in this key and critically important region.

It would be naive to assume that the Republicans were like housewives sitting in front of the TV and waiting to see how this show would end.

Obama's policies began to show noticeable cracks in Libya, where runaway Islamists deliberately slaughtered his ambassador. To this day it remains a dark and murky story, but it was the starting point after which Obama was forced to use a back-up plan, in which the Muslim Brotherhood was not included. The problem is that in all countries where the “Brothers” came to power, they faced their own inability to put forward constructive programs to overcome the crisis and fierce resistance of the people who had formerly held various important administrative positions.

Egypt, as the central and main country in the Arab world, became the main battlefield between the Democrats and the Republicans. It was Egypt where the "Brothers" had suffered their most crushing defeat after a fabulous coming to power.

But let's face it: They were not the only ones who suffered a loss. One of the primary losers was Obama’s chief financial pocket in the Middle East, Qatar. Qatar was even forced to change its reigning monarch in an allegedly decorous manner. Though in reality it was more like a banal palace coup, but without the required fireworks and smashing of palace windows.

Obama has to use a contingency plan, in which Iran takes the Muslim Brotherhood’s place. His goal is to finish what the Brotherhood had started and rid the Middle East of the Republican allies. The Brotherhood could be controlled and paid from the Qatar pocket. Iran, on the other hand, can only be negotiated with and that too is doubtful. However, Obama has no other choice because the previous plan was not just bulging at the seams, it was falling apart before our eyes.

In light of what is happening, Hosni Mubarak’s release is a slap in Obama’s face. It was a show of force by the Egyptian military, which continues to rely on Obama's opponents in the U.S. And the secular military has a good reason to openly support the main Wahhabi monarchy of the Gulf of Saudi Arabia. It is not Obama’s friend either.

In these circumstances, negotiating with Iran is essential for Obama — he is starting to fall behind, to lag. However, now that Iran has seen Obama’s blatantly weak position, it can raise the bar much higher in its demands in future negotiations.

Now, precision work will be necessary for Obama to get through all the pitfalls and surface icebergs. With every day that goes by, his position in the Middle East is becoming increasingly shaky. And that means that the boxing match between America’s two elite groups continues.