Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

I assume that you all have read the assignment which was my blogs from 7-20-06 and 9-26-05. My favorite political commentator on tv is David Gergen of CNN. Gergen had worked in the Nixon, Ford, Regan and Clinton administrations. He considers himself an independent. I agree with his views about 90% of the time. So it got my attention when Gergen said that Obama's speech was the most powerful by an American president EVER on the Middle East. After I read the excerpts in the newspaer, I thought this was an unusual hyperbole from Gergen. Then I realized that Gergen was not saying much afterall. There has not been any presidential speech ever on the Middle East that was of any significance. So this is actually a small step. But at least it is a small step in the right direction.

Other presidents have tried. Carter got Begin and Sadat to sign a peace agreement. Clinton came close to getting Arafat to agree to a peace plan before Arafat chickened out. I don't know if Obama can even match the achievements of these two men. But in order to have a breakthrough in impossible situations, you need an unexpected person to step up. It took Nixon, a staunch anti-communist to open up China. If Ariel Sharon, one of the biggest hawks in Israel history, had not suffered a stroke, he may have been able to achieve peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Obama, with his unusual heritage and world-wide popularity, is maybe our best bet to succeed here. His speech won't win over any extremists but may win over a few moderates. It is a small step in a marathon but as I wrote before, we can never have stability in the Middle East without solving the Israel-palestinian conflict.

I personally would not have given the speech now. There is very little immediate reward for this as things are not going to change with one speech. In the meawhile back at home every part of speech can be nit picked by his adversaries. They can also criticize him for leaving home while the financial crisis and two wars are going on at the same time. But Obama is not shortsighted. He understands that without winning back Arab moderates and start the path to peace in Israel, we are going to face even more problems in the future. He understands that when Bush ignored Afghanistan and went into Iraq we lost credibility with the moderates in the Arab world. He wants to start the effort to bring them back to our side as soon as possible.

I think his admission that Iraq was a war of choice is right. I don't think that is an apology or a sign of weakness. Let's face it, even the extremists know that we are the most powerful. But threatening our enemies has not work. North Korea and Iran are certainly bolder than before. What he said about the Israel-Palestinian conflict was also good. It is not what Netanyahu wants to hear but I think Sharon would have approved. What I don't like about the speech is when he quotes the Koran, the Bible and the Talmud. That strikes me as kissing up to all the religions involved. The other thing is that he did not address Pakistan, the second largest Muslim country in the world. It also has nuclear weapons. If Iraq was the war that shouldn't have been and Afghanistan is the war that needs to be, then Pakistan may be the war that will be. I would have like to see what he would do to prevent that and try to convince the Pakistanians to be on our side.

Did it change many minds? Probably not but I think maybe a few moderates are leaning back toward us now. I think now that Obama has to come back and work on the financial crisis, it is time for Hillary to keep working on the Middle East. Maybe Bill can help?

One bit of good news. Since Israel's battle with Hezbollah in 2006 the western leaning politicians in Lebanon have been losing ground to Hezbollah. Today the western-backed March 14 bloc won election in Lebanon. Usually an U.S. endorsement in this region is a kiss of death. So victory by this bloc is a pleasant surprise. Did it have anything to do with Obama's speech? I doubted it but it couldn't have hurt. Hopefully Obama is smart enough to not take any credit because that would hurt our allies in the region in the future.