http://www.bollyn.com/home#article_12244Obumbler's Middle East strategy on the rocks...
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19686
We always knew that the utterly corrupt to the core, USA's Government is full of it...the rhetoric is very loud....but we always watch its dirty deeds unfold worldwide...to discover the true meaning of the UK/USA/ISRAHELL alliance of evils...
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2010/06/albatross.html
Israel's policy actions, especially since its massive military onslaught on Gaza in early 2009, have seriously damaged its international standing. More importantly, they have also undermined President Barak Obama's efforts to reach out to the Muslim world for a 'new beginning', and better understanding and relations, which he articulated in two landmark speeches - one in Cairo and another in Istanbul - last year.
When the President set out on his Muslim-friendly mission, he clearly had two main objectives in mind. One was to improve America's standing, which had been badly tarnished under his predecessor, George W Bush, among the Muslims and in the world.
Another was to delegitimize and marginalize anti-US Muslim extremism that had become so rampant around the world.
His Cairo and Istanbul speeches were widely welcomed by Muslims, with an expectation that they will be followed by concomitant policy actions.
He seemed to be aware that the outcome of his mission was going to be contingent upon his success in a number of interrelated areas. They included securing a smooth US military withdrawal from Iraq, enabling Afghanistan and Pakistan to remove extremist groups, most importantly the Taliban, from their midst, and inducing the Iranian Islamic regime to unclench its fist to reach an accommodation with the US and its allies, especially over its nuclear program.
More significantly, he considered a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on a two-state solution, as absolutely essential to his efforts, as he seemed to have no illusion about the centrality of this conflict to increased Muslim discontent with the US and to the enrichment of such Muslim extremist groups as Al CIAda....
In the process, he could not overlook the important role that Turkey could play in helping him to realize his objectives. This was for several reasons. First of all, under the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AK) since 2002, Turkey had achieved a high degree of democratic transformation.
While maintaining its strong membership of NATO and strategic partnership with Israel - the only Muslim country to have had such a relationship with the Jewish state - it had also enhanced its relations with the Muslim countries, including Islamic Iran. As part of this, it had also moved to play a meaningful role in a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian problem.
The AK leadership considered its shift in Turkish foreign policy from a Hobsian position, which views the world as a crucible for the survival of the strongest, to a Kantian posture that upholds the idea of the world as a global village, to be critical to the strengthening of Turkey's position as an effective bridge between East and West, empowering the country to act more constructively in the region and beyond.
President Obama could only find such Turkey a useful conduit for reaching out to the Muslim world.
However, against this backdrop, Israel has increasingly felt uncomfortable with Turkey's transformation. Equally, Turkey has found Israel's treatment of Palestinians, most importantly by its illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip since the Strip's takeover by the Palestinian radical movement Hamas three years ago, as well as Israel's illegal expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem despite repeated international calls for a halt to them, contrary to its foreign policy priorities.
The result has been a deterioration of relations between the two sides, which saw its first public airing in a major clash between the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli President Shimon Perez in Davos last year over Israel's use of disproportionate force and killing of many innocent Palestinians during its Gaza military campaign early in the year.
The latest Israeli seizure of an aid flotilla on high seas and killing of its nine peace activists and wounding many more - most of them Turks - has angered Turkey to the extent that its government has recalled its ambassador from Israel and undertaken a review of all its ties with the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, the same Israeli actions that have alienated Israel's only Muslim ally have also become very troublesome for the Obama administration. It has placed the administration in a difficult position to choose between two increasingly antagonistic allies.
Its refusal to condemn Israel and back Ankara's call for a credible international investigation of Israeli raid on aid flotilla has infuriated Ankara. Vice President Joe Biden's public expression of support for Israel's actions has added salt to the injury.
These developments have prompted many Turks to take up the cause of radical Islamism in support of the Palestinian people - something, which was unthinkable a few years ago. Beyond this, they have provided renewed oxygen to forces of radical political Islam throughout the Muslim world against not only Israel, but also the United States.
Whatever capital Obama had gained as a result of his Cairo and Istanbul speeches is now in serious jeopardy as a result of his failure so far to match his words with deeds. He has let America's traditional support of Israel to derail his Muslim agenda for better understanding and relations.
On the other hand, Israel has managed to achieve what it has always wanted: a continuation of rift between the US and the Muslim world as a means to maintain its supremacy as the only close US ally in the region.
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