Barry Rubin: Seinfeld’s Advice for Obama Administration Policy: Do the Opposite

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Seinfeld’s Advice for Obama Administration Policy: Do the Opposite

Jerry: Well here’s your chance to try the opposite. Instead of tuna salad and being intimidated by women, chicken salad and going right up to them.
George : Yeah, I should do the opposite, I should.
Jerry : If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

By Barry Rubin

Just your normal Middle East policy day in which every instinct the Obama administration has is wrong. Allied forces in Libya accidentally drop bombs on civilians. I thought the NATO forces were in Libya to protect civilians. Libya didn’t attack the United States. When Israel is attacked, responds directly, and accidentally kills civilians it is called a “war crime”; when the United States and its allies do it thousands of miles away in an unnecessary and ill-defined mission that’s an excusable accident. What are Western forces doing in Libya? And if they are really there to overthrow dictator Muammar Qadhafi why is he still in power?


But someone did attack America: al-Qaida with the help of the Taliban. Now it’s revealed that the United States is holding secret negotiations with the Taliban, the very same Taliban that participated in the September 11 attacks. Supposedly this is the moderate wing. What does that mean, they favored attacking only one of the World Trade Center towers? Naturally, the Afghan government’s leaders aren’t happy that the United States is negotiating with its enemy that would gladly cut off their heads.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press later this year. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and now on his new blog, Rubin Reports, on Pajamas Media

Technorati Tag: Middle East and Obama and Seingeld and Afghanistan.