The Middle-East governments long empowered by the U.S. government in order to maintain a carefully orchestrated status-quo are being clawed at and in several wonderful instances, have been torn down. Obama, now wants to give Tunisia and Egypt a shit-ton of money because they are the “best positioned countries to serve as role models for democratic reform in the area.” Since when has the U.S. government felt this way and why were they so cozy with the previous regimes? Why then, did Obama alone refuse to call for Mubarak to step down? Why then, did the U.S. government tacitly allow thugs to attack and kill nonviolent protests in Egypt, not to mention using weapons made by the U.S. government (or its industrious contractors)? No, this money is being handed out in order to water-down and dilute revolutionary forces by funding reactionaries that will return the region to a U.S. colony. To think otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
At a time when the president is being criticized for not being sufficiently aligned with the needs of Israel (which is honestly fucking looney-tunes), if his donations to Egypt and Co. are not intended to secure the region’s peace with Israel, I think AIPAC would have a meltdown. The revolutionary events in the Middle-East are anything but within the interests of the U.S. government and Israel (except where we can co-opt the movement and hide another invasion of a Muslim country as “defending democratic activists” like Libya) and it is plainly obvious by the actions of government officials and the strategies our government employs in each instance.
If Arab revolutions were really in the interest of the U.S. government and its praise for such events were not hollow why does it repress revolution in countries like Bahrain, UAE, and Oman directly and through its colonial governments in Saudia Arabia? Why is it so happy with the possibility of revolution in Libya and Syria but not the previously mentioned countries? Surely the expression of democracy should be encouraged in all lands equally, no? And his speech on the subject only speaks of so-called “reform”… why is that? What we are seeing is in places like Egypt and Tunisia are definitely not “reform” but rather “revolution.” Why is it that Obama would rather the power structures in place be maintained and for reform take place “over a period of at least two centuries” as As’ad says?
No, the actions and words of the U.S. government have too many holes in them to be believable. If in a position to do so, I would heartily advise countries to refuse funds from the U.S. government as it will only dilute what the people of these countries have so far been able to succeed in doing independently of imperial powers. You don’t want to be part of the strings that will surely be attached to the stacks of bills given you by a U.S. president. Give it enough time and you will find yourself to have become an exact mirror image of the regime you worked so hard to overthrow, because it was with those monumental amounts of U.S. “aid” that allowed tyrants like Mubarak to retain power.
While Obama takes important steps in speeches like enforcing the 1967 Palestinian borders (with loopholes so big you could throw a Tomahawk missile through them), you will never see actions from him to pursue it just as any other Obama reform strategy. In September there is a vote in the United Nations to recognize Palestine, but we can already see that the United States will play its familiar role as Israel’s automatic veto when he says:
For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist. As for Israel, our friendship is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values. Our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable.
What an asshole, could his actions be anymore transparent? Anyone fooled by this wants to be fooled. Basically, the only thing you need to know to understand what the U.S. government’s policy for the Middle-East entails is this:
While critical of autocracy throughout the Mideast, he failed to mention at the region’s largest, richest and arguably most repressive nation, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. Nor did he discuss Jordan, a staunch U.S. ally that has a peace deal with Israel. Also left out was the United Arab Emirates, the wealthy, pro-American collection of mini-states on the Persian Gulf. And he gave little attention to Iran, where U.S. attempts at outreach have gone nowhere.
This speech was nothing more than a warning to nations who do not already bow at the U.S. government’s feet.
