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"US President Barack Obama's Middle East policy is in ruins. Like no president before him, he tried to win over the Arab world. After some initial hesitation, he came out clearly on the side of the democratic revolutions. … In this context, he must accept the fact that he has snubbed old close allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian military. And now parts of the freed societies are turning against the country which helped bring them into being. Anti-Americanism in the Arab world has even increased to levels greater than in the Bush era. It's a bitter outcome for Obama."
"Obama was naive to believe that one only needed to adopt a new tone and show more respect in order to dispel deep-seated reservations about the free world. In practice, the policies of the Obama administration in the region were not as naive as they may have seemed at times, and the Americans have always been much more involved in the Middle East than the passive Europeans. But Washington has provided the image of a distracted superpower in the process of decline to the societies there. This image of weakness is being exploited by Salafists and al-Qaida, who are active in North Africa from Somalia to Mali."
"One thing is clear: If jihadists believe they can attack American installations and kill an ambassador on the anniversary of Sept. 11, then America's deterrent power has declined considerably. For a superpower, it is not enough just to want to be loved. You have to scare the bad guys to keep them in check."
Let's not stop there. Let's quote some more from that same article:
The deeply held American belief that all you have to do is liberate people from serfdom and dictatorship, and then democracy and a market economy will develop more or less on their own, burned to ash in the trial by fire of Iraq. A fact that academics and historically informed diplomats have always known can now be observed throughout the Arab world: Deeply ingrained cultural attitudes do not change simply because one political regime replaces another. In the long process of building a democratic society, it is not possible to simply skip stages."
"The conservative US media have already -- excessively -- labeled the anti-US protests in Egypt, Libya and Yemen as a 'wildfire' and interpreted them as a result of Obama's 'weakness.'"
"It's lucky for Obama that his opponent Romney is acting in such a hapless manner. Instead of condemning the attacks in a statesman-like fashion and assuring the president of his support, Romney criticized the government's alleged 'apology' to the demonstrators. That was not just nonsense, but partisan maneuvering at a moment when patriotism would have been appropriate. With his attack, Romney has scored an own goal."
"Three years after Obama's speech in Cairo, which was supposed to initiate a new beginning in the Middle East, the United States now has even less support in the region than before. That's not a failure of this president. Instead, it is the consequences of an American foreign policy that for decades favored power over democracy, and a hard line over human rights -- and which will suffer from a credibility problem for a long time for precisely those reasons."
"Mitt Romney has, however, failed to recognize the very core of the American dilemma. He attacked Obama with twisted facts shortly after the announcement of the death of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. He claimed that the US government had sympathized with the attackers in Benghazi. But not only was that factually wrong, it also demonstrated an alarmingly high level of foreign policy incompetence to his own party. None of this would matter, except that Romney wants Obama's job -- and might even get it on Nov. 6."
"The West must be tough on terrorism. And it must show that it can differentiate between rabble-rousers and peaceful Muslims."
Well, that is certaintly your own opinon that this thing has been 'brewing' for decades.
Oh, and by the way, it's not just my opinion. It has been discussed by many people over the years. This has been pretty well documented. See ""Ancient History": U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly of Intervention". So, as Ron Paul has asserted, we've had our nose in others businesses for a long time, and Obama thought his way of intervening was more enlightened. As current events have shown, his policies of appeasement and helping people who we apparently know nothing about have made things worse.
Oh, and by the way, it's not just my opinion. It has been discussed by many people over the years. This has been pretty well documented. See ""Ancient History": U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly of Intervention". So, as Ron Paul has asserted, we've had our nose in others businesses for a long time, and Obama thought his way of intervening was more enlightened. As current events have shown, his policies of appeasement and helping people who we apparently know nothing about have made things worse.
So you are saying Obama should show hatred towards people we know nothing about? Sure, why not start a new war with a country or several countries of people we know nothing about.
Oh, this is hilarious. Do you Obama-haters realize how ridiculous you sound? I guess not.
Keep posting. America needs to see how irrational you are.
Oh and keep posting this stuff. This shows the rest of the world just how much a large section of the US blindly follows their Democrat Party leader without ever questioning what he does and how much kool-aid they drink. Oh BTW, I questioned George Bush also, I'm not a fan of his either.
So you are saying Obama should show hatred towards people we know nothing about? Sure, why not start a new war with a country or several countries of people we know nothing about.
Nice attempt at a false dilemma argument, but failed. I didn't at all say what you suggest and if you bothered to read the rest of my posts, you would infer anything but that.
Nice attempt at a false dilemma argument, but failed. I didn't at all say what you suggest and if you bothered to read the rest of my posts, you would infer anything but that.
Obviously you were not clear enough what you meant to say, maybe you should give it another try.
Why is everyone acting like this is the first time there have been widespread riots in the Middle East? My God, these images look like reruns of videos I have seen throughout my entire life. Has Obama been influencing our politics for that long? No.
Every POTUS has dealt with unrest and riots over there, and this will continue until we get the h*ll out of there. The anti-American sentiment over there was not caused by Obama. It has been generations in the making and will continue for generations to come.
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At least you now don't think of FOX as being press. 
