Will Obama succeed in creating a United States of Islam in the Middle East?
Something
very big is going on in the Middle East. This is not about an
inflammatory film or a political assassination in Libya. Rather, recent
events confirm that throughout the Muslim world, radical Islam is on the
march. The radical Muslims have figured out a much better
strategy than the Al Qaeda strategy of the past decade. Instead of
terrorist acts aimed at directly wounding the “far enemy,” namely the
United States, Islamic radicals are using
democracy and public protest to defeat the “near enemy,” namely their
own autocratic governments, and seize power. Remarkably President Obama
seems to be responding in a way that helps the Islamic radicals, and
the vital question is why.
To
understand Obama, we need to back up and observe his Middle East policy
since he took office in early 2009. There is a weird double standard in
the way that President Obama has been acting in region. In Libya, he
used force to prevent “genocide” but he has refused to use force to
prevent much greater genocide in Syria. What makes Obama’s conduct
especially odd is that he undertook Libyan military intervention after a
civil struggle in which Muammar Qaddafi had killed around 250 people.
In Syria, however, tens of thousands have been killed by the regime and
still Obama refuses to use direct military force.
A
similar inconsistency defines Obama’s actions in Egypt and Iran. In
Egypt, Obama used diplomatic pressure to oust the Egyptian dictator
Hosni Mubarak, clearing the way for the Islamic radicals, led by the
Muslim Brotherhood, to win the subsequent parliamentary and presidential
elections. Using the rhetoric of democracy, Obama allied himself in
Egypt with the democracy protesters. Yet when there were equally massive
demonstrations in Iran a year and a half earlier, aimed at ousting the
regime of the mullahs, Obama urged caution and restraint. He refused to
embrace the protesters. Essentially he did nothing. Eventually the
Iranian police crushed the uprising and the Iranian rebellion dissolved.
So
we have a dual anomaly here. How can we explain why Obama uses force
here but not there, getting rid of one ruler but keeping others in
place? Even now Obama’s conduct in response to the latest Muslim
agitation is ambiguous. Far from standing up forthrightly for American
interests, Obama seems equally resolute in protecting the reputation of
the Islamic agitators and their newly-installed leaders.
To
date, the best attempt to account for Obama’s strange conduct is Walter
Russell Mead’s theory that Obama is “the least competent manager of
America’s Middle East diplomatic portfolio.” In other words, Obama is
an amateur and a bungler. Mead notes that “he has committed our forces
in the strategically irrelevant backwater of Libya,” that he has
“strained our ties with the established regimes without winning new
friends on the Arab street” and that he has “infuriated and frustrated
long-term friends but made no headway in reconciling enemies.”
But
surely Obama knows that Libya is strategically irrelevant; surely he
can see that he is antagonizing America’s friends and strengthening
America’s enemies. So Mead’s analysis begs the question: why would Obama
continue to act this way when the results are as obvious to him as to
Mead and the rest of us?
I
believe I can answer these questions and explain Obama’s double
standards. The key is to realize that Obama isn’t a fool. He isn’t
getting results opposite to the ones he intends; rather, he intends the
results he’s getting. He said during his inaugural speech that he
wanted to remake America and transform its place in the world, and this
is exactly what he is doing.
Obama’s
is an anti-colonialist, an ideology he adopted from his Kenyan father.
Recall that Obama’s autobiography is titled ”Dreams From My Father” In
that book, Obama details how he got his aspirations, his values, even
his core identity, from his absentee father. In a sample passage, Obama
writes, “It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa,
that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself.”
While
anti-colonialism may be an unfamiliar word to many Americans, it is a
very popular ideology even today in Asia, Africa, South America, and the
Middle East. Anti-colonialism is the doctrine that holds that America
and the West are the rogue nations of the world. Having adopted his
father’s anti-colonial way of thinking, President Obama has oriented his
foreign policy not so much toward containing Iran or North Korea but
rather toward containing America.
I’m
not suggesting Obama is a traitor, that he hates America, or that he’s
anti-American. Rather, he subscribes to an ideology that considers it a
good thing for America’s influence to be reduced. Obama wants to reduce
America’s footprint in the world because he believes we have been
stepping on the world.
How
is Obama doing this? Two dictators are out–Qaddafi and Mubarak–and two
dictatorial regimes–that of Assad in Syria and the mullahs in
Iran–remain in power. What do Qaddafi and Mubarak have in common? They
were both doing business with America. Mubarak was America’s most
reliable ally in the region, not counting Israel. Qaddafi was not
exactly an ally, but he had been behaving himself since America’s Iraq
invasion, outing terrorists, paying reparations for the Lockerbie
bombing, and so on.
Now both Qaddafi and Mubarak are gone.
In
Libya, it’s hard to say what the new regime will do. We have heard both
Islamist rumblings and secular rumblings, and now the Islamic rumblings
are getting louder. But undeniably in Egypt, we are seeing the
consolidation of a regime that is vastly more anti-American and
anti-Israel.
It’s
important to realize that in Egypt Obama is actively facilitating the
rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood. No one is suggesting that
Obama caused the Arab Spring. The Brotherhood won a free election. But
now there is a power struggle under way between the Brotherhood and the
Egyptian military. As a recent AP story reported, the Obama
administration has been warning the military: step aside and turn over
power to the Brotherhood, or America will cut off military and economic
aid.
This
could be explained as reflecting Obama’s unshakeable commitment to
democracy, but this commitment was absent during the massive popular
demonstrations in Iran in 2009. Then Obama stayed out, even praising the
reaction of the Iranian Supreme Leader, and eventually the democracy
movement was crushed. Similarly in Syria, Obama has shown himself
clearly reluctant to get involved, providing only modest support to the
rebels even in the wake of a massive military crackdown and tens of
thousands of casualties.
So
Assad continues to hang on, and the mullahs remain secure in power in
Iran. What do these regimes have in common? They are both hostile to
the United States, and allied with each other in subverting America’s
interests in the region. Both are also state sponsors of terrorism. If
the regimes in Syria and Iran were to fall, we can’t be sure what would
replace them, but we can be reasonably confident that the new
governments would be less hostile to America than the ones that are
there now.
Thus
Obama’s double-standards in the region can be explained by an
underlying single-standard. He wants to undermine America’s allies and
leave in place regimes that are indifferent or hostile to America. This
is what the anti-colonial ideology predicts he would do, and this is
what his actions show he is doing. No wonder that in recent days Obama
seems more concerned with containing America than with acting decisively
against the hostile forces of radical Islam in the Middle East.
Now
what? If Obama gets a second term, what might be the next pro-American
regime to fall? In my view, Saudi Arabia. If Obama is re-elected he
could demand that the Saudi royal family put itself on the ballot
against the Muslim Brotherhood. That is an election the Saudi royals
would most likely lose. If that happens then the three most important
countries in the Middle East (Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) would all
be in the grip of the radical Muslims.
We
are seeing in the region a powerful bid for the restoration of Islam as
a global power. One Muslim Brotherhood official put it bluntly. What
the radical Muslims seek, he said, is “a country called the United
States of Islam.” Remarkably this radical Muslim dream going back to
the 1920s is now being advanced by President Obama, who seems to think
it is somehow consonant with the dream from his father.
Just
as history will credit Ronald Reagan with helping to produce the
dissolution of the Soviet empire, history might credit Obama with
helping to produce the United States of Islam.
Dinesh D’Souza, narrator and co-director of the film “2016: Obama’s America,” is the author of the bestselling new book “Obama’s America: Unmaking the American Dream.” For more visitwww.DineshDSouza.com.
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