YNET NEWS: Op-ed: Obama offers hesitant response while America’s most important Mideast ally collapses
American President Barack Obama has divorced the Middle East, even if it he did not declare it or present the world with the divorce certificate.
US Administration officials are treating the protests in Egypt as a constitutive event in the Mideast and comparing them to the revolution in Europe in the wake of the Berlin Wall’s collapse. However, Obama, loyal to his worldview that the US should not build or ruin foreign regimes, presented the world with a hesitant response over the weekend: He did not support Mubarak, but also did not go all the way to the other end of the spectrum and called for general elections or the replacement of the Egyptian regime.
Obama could have led a revolution in the Middle East: As the leader of the Free World, he could have facilitated peace agreements, if not by coercion then at least by exerting massive pressure. Yet precisely when he chose to take one step back, America’s most important ally in the Middle East, Egypt, collapsed right before his eyes. >>> Orly Azoulay | Sunday, January 30, 2011
