Will the US and the Middle East Hang on until 2016 and Survive Obama?

While Americans have buried their heads like ostriches in their domestic fiscal and political problems, President Obama has continued to plunge the United States even deeper in the Arab distrust, and often hatred, of America that is largely Obama's doing. Friday, Saudi Arabia refused to accept its seat on the UN Security Council. It was an unprecedented and startling move aimed at protesting the Security Council's failure to resolve the Syrian civil war. The Saudi Kingdom is, in effect, protesting Washington's handling of some of the region's crises, particularly in Egypt and Syria. It also comes as ties between the US and Iran, the Saudi's regional foe, appear to be improving. The Saudi refusal to take its Security Council seat follows on from September's refusal of Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal to address the General Assembly meeting. Days later, the Kingdom's unease with Washington surfaced when President Obama spoke to Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani in a groundbreaking telephone call. Saudi Arabia was given one of the rotating seats on the 15-member Council in a vote by rhe General Assembly. The Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a statement rejecting the seat, saying the UN Security Council had failed in multiple cases in the Middle East. Particularly, it said the UN failure to act has enabled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime to perpetrate the killings of its people, including the use of chemical weapons, calling it genocide : "Allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill its people and burn them with chemical weapons in front of the entire world and without any deterrent or punishment is clear proof and evidence of the UN Security Council's inability to perform its duties and shoulder its responsibilities," the ministry said in the statement carried by the official Saudi news agency. The Saudi refusal statement also made reference to Israel, saying the Council has not been able to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over the past six decades. Expressions of support from Saudi Arabia's Gulf Arab friends contained no overt criticism of US policy, but echoed the Kingdom's complaints about the Security Council's failure to end the war in Syria and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The Arab League, Kuwait, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar expressed support for the Saudi action. Not only has the Obama lead-from-behind Middle East policy, if it can even be called a policy, already alienated Egypt, whose army leadership says it does not need American aid, which has been replaced by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in order to fill the gap caused by Obama's ill-thought decision to halt military aid to Egypt. This has also caused ordinary Egyptians to demonstrate against Obama, saying he is aligned with the Moslem Brotherhood and against their effort to establish a democracy. Most recently, Saudi Arabia's leaders were furious when the United States pulled back from possible military action against the Syrian regime in exchange for the Russian plan to dismantle Syria's chemical arsenal. Editorials in Arabic newspapers over the past several weeks have reflected the Gulf's concerns. In an opinion piece published in the Al-Hayat daily Arabic newspaper, columnist George Samaan wrote that if the Gulf states feel Washington is turning its back on them by improving ties with Iran, the Arab states could always look east to other countries. The Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily wrote that rather than Obama striking the Syrian regime, he struck US allies by calling Iran's president and pushing Gulf states to pursue their own defense policies, without even so much as consulting with Saudi Arabia, a long time US ally, before engaging with Iran. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has said that the Saudis felt "the rug had been pulled out from under them" and saw it as American "betrayal." AND, as always follows an Obama strategic error in the Middle East, the country most exposed to negative results is Israel, which is reliant on American support for its very survival. With Egypt and now Saudi Arabia angry with Obama, Israel is more than ever without regional allies. Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu is particularly worried that Obama will not hold out for a tough agreement with Iran, whom Israel suspects of continuing its military nuclear bomb program while fooling Obama and the UN into agreeing to a deal favorable to Iran. Netanyahu says pressure must be maintained until Iran halts all enrichment of uranium, a key step in producing a nuclear weapon; removes its stockpile of enriched uranium from the country; and closes suspicious enrichment facilities and shutters a facility that could produce plutonium, another potential gateway to nuclear arms. Despite Netanyahu's warnings, there are growing signs that any international deal with Iran will fall short of this. The plan rumored to be in the works was reported by the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz on Sunday to include the following, but would stop short of lifting sanctions, while nonetheless providing Iran some relief : Iran is ready to halt all enrichment of 20%, limit lower-level enrichment of 5% and scale back the number of centrifuges it is operating for enrichment; Iran expresses willingness to reduce the operations of its most controversial nuclear facilities, and perhaps open them to unannounced inspections. But according to Israeli sources, the Obama White House is already discussing releasing billions of dollars of Iranian deposits in US banks in order to give Iran "breathing room." Netanyahu's office declined comment on the report, though it confirmed the US has kept it updated on the nuclear talks. Conflict between Israel and Obama appears to be inevitable. While Israeli officials are intrigued by the Iranian offer, it said "officials in the prime minister's inner circle harbor a deep concern ... that the American president is going to be prepared to ease sanctions on Iran even before the talks have been completed." ~~~~~ Dear readers, it is hard to imagine an American President destroying US Middle East leadership. It is equally hard to imagine an American President destroying the American economy and plunging it into a non-repayable debt position. But today, we are seeing Barack Obama do both. How will America and the world cope until 2016? That is a difficult question to answer.