Will Obama Do To The Arab World What He Has Done For Israel - Palestinian Peace?

Barry Rubin writes about the Obama administration quandary in Syria: Panic in Washington: Is Iran and Syria's Regime Winning and What to Do?. Part of the concern relates not to Syria's continued control by Assad per se, but rather the implications for Iranian influence in the reason.

But

Iran is not going to take over the Middle East, nor is it about to win a lot of Sunni followers. Iran’s limit of influence is mainly in Lebanon and Syria (where its ally only controls half the country) and to a lesser extent Iraq. Tehran can fool around in Yemen, Bahrain, and southwest Afghanistan a bit too, but that’s about it. There are real limits.

Rubin explains 3 reasons why Iran and its proxies appear to be winning. in brief:

• Iran’s proxies are better organized than the Syrian rebels.
• The Iran bloc gives more support to its proxies than do the Sunni bloc or the West.
• This means that the United States has worse and weaker proxies than does the other side.

We have already seen that the Obama administration has consistently made the mistake of relying on the Muslim Brotherhood as a counter to Islamist extremists -- and has insisted that the key to turning things around in the Middle East in general is to pursue a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

That being the case, Rubin sees some possible goals of the Obama administration, given its fascination with the Muslim Brotherhood:

• US policymakers could be convinced to enter an open alliance with Sunnis -- including the Muslim Brotherhood, in order to counter Shiite Muslims
• The Saudis and others could be pressured by the US to get along with the Muslim Brotherhood
• Israel would be pressured not to interfere with this new alliance concocted by the Obama administration

Read the whole thing.

Obama has a vision of the Muslim Brotherhood as a key to
stability in the Middle East. Credit: Wiki Commons

It appears that as badly as Obama brought to a standstill the very peace process that he started his term determined to pursue in 2009 -- the foolishness of a policy such as this will only lead to greater disaster.

But this time, it will be for the Arab world at large.

At a time that Christians in Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese as well as Kurds in Iraqi and Syrian along with Syrian Druze are increasingly looking for a protector, The US is currently ignoring them -- and passing up an opportunity to work with Christians and more moderate Sunni Muslims to subvert Hizballah with a view towards stabilizing the area.

Instead, Obama is determined to follow his pro-Muslim Brotherhood agenda, with doubtful -- if not disastrous -- results.

-----

If you found this post interesting or informative, please it below. Thanks!

Technorati Tag: Obama and Iran and Syria and Muslim Brotherhood.