U.S. Foreign Policy Faces Grave Danger, Part 5

In March 2005, Bush adviser Karen Hughes was named to a State Department post, Deputy Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. In late September 2005 she traveled to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to open a dialogue with important Muslim countries. Her task was to persuade them that Bush’s War on Terror was not a War against Islam.

On September 26, 2005, Hughes met with a small group of Egyptians who had studied in the U.S. She told them “it’s sometimes hard to talk about difficult issues,” but that “we’re open to ideas.”

Prominent Egyptians told Hughes that the U.S. can improve its image in the Middle East only by changing its policies, namely, that its policies on Iraq, Iran, Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what the U.S. said was inconsistent with its [favorable] treatment of repressive Arab governments.

Concern over Matttis plan to appoint Anne Patterson to high Pentagon post

US Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis’ plan to appoint former US ambassador to Cairo Anne Patterson as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the third top Pentagon position, is causing disquiet in American Jewish circles and Jerusalem.

Western Democracy Gone Mad

For decades, but especially following the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. government has tried to promote the establishment of democracies in the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere around the globe.

This should come as no surprise.  Centers for the Study of Democracy have become an integral feature of universities throughout the United States and Western Europe.  They replaced older schools of realpolitik that used to be taught.  Professors, politicians, and international organizations aggressively promote the doctrine of democracy.

Egypt and Libya to Join Iran’s Terror Network

From 2011 with relevancy for today:

 

The West still doesn’t understand how Iran rules the Middle East.

Iran, the number one state sponsor of terrorism by far, has bludgeoned its way into controlling Lebanon and Gaza, and has become the backbone of Syrian terrorism. Iran also bombed and butchered its way into the dominant role in Iraq and Afghanistan (after America thought it had won those wars), and now is empowering the Muslim Brotherhood terrorists to get control of Egypt.

Now America and the West have paved the way for another Iranian victory in Libya. We are rejoicing about the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi, while we should be mourning. Libyan chaos is now the ideal setting for Iran to bring that nation into its deadly terrorist web. The government that replaces Qadhafi will be a thousand times worse.

And you can prove this is going to happen! (More on that later.)

What Russia is up to in Syria and the ‘progressive’ U.S. suicide

As oft said here, America is suiciding itself, and in more ways than this article states.

Note: As in other rare cases when an article deserves special recognition, a majority of this article will stay posted here. Still be sure to click the source link for the full article.

 

A new round of the “Great Game”* in Syria demonstrates not so much Moscow’s growing power, as the intellectual vacuum in the West.

Western leaders, the media and experts state the obvious: the Kremlin is trying to save Assad. Of course, yes, but principal points remain outside of the focus of their attention.

It is not only about Syria. It’s about two polar ideologies, two worldviews that are incompatible with each other.

What Happens After a Superpower Dies?

A necessary repeat, and from 2014:

 

 

What happens when a superpower dies? What happens when the geopolitical order that has stabilized the world for several decades crumbles?

We are all about to learn firsthand.

Ousted Egyptian president Morsi sentenced to death

A Cairo court Saturday sentenced former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to death after his conviction in a 2011 jailbreak. Sentenced with him were 120 other defendants including  Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Badie, a former parliament speaker, Mohamed Saad El-Katatny and, in absentia, treasurer Khairat el-Shater and the radical TV preacher Yusouf Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar.

What Happens After a Superpower Dies?

What happens when a superpower dies? What happens when the geopolitical order that has stabilized the world for several decades crumbles?

We are all about to learn firsthand.

Obama Policies Turning Egypt Against U.S.

Pro-military Egyptians want to shift to Russian alliance

The Obama administration support for Muslim Brotherhood Islamists in Egypt is driving the powerful military there against the United States and toward Moscow, according to U.S. officials and reports from the region.

The pro-Muslim Brotherhood stance is undermining decades of U.S. policy toward the Middle East state and prompting concerns that the United States is about to “lose” Egypt as a strategic partner, said officials familiar with intelligence reports.

Saudis, Gulf emirates actively aided Egypt’s military coup, settling score for Mubarak ouster

The lightening coup which Wednesday, July 3, overthrew President Mohamed Morsi put in reverse gear for the first time the Obama administration’s policy of sponsoring the Muslim Brotherhood movement as a moderate force for Arab rule and partner in its Middle East policies. debkafile reveals that the Egyptian military could not have managed their clockwork coup without the aid of Saudi and Dubai intelligence and funding.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE threw their weight and purses behind Egypt’s generals aiming to put their first big spoke in the US-sponsored Arab Revolt (or Spring), after they failed to hold the tide back in Libya, Egypt and thus far Syria.

Ethiopia Ignores Egyptian Warnings on Nile

JERUSALEM — Defying threats of war emanating from Egypt, Ethiopia’s parliament has endorsed an agreement with five other African countries refuting Egypt’s claim to near-exclusive rights to the waters of the Nile River.

The vote last Thursday was approved unanimously by the 547-member legislature after Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said that Egypt’s leaders would not go to war unless they “go mad.”

Top Turkish officials: Rapid steps to restore Turkey-Israel ties to commence in coming days

The past few days have been good to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. On Thursday, a domestic rival, Abbdullah Ojalan, leader of the separatist Kurds, announced a historic ceasefire, and on Friday his demands from his bitter rival Benjamin Netanyahu were conceded entirely. The precise wording of the apology, the precise phrasings that diplomats, negotiators, and presidential advisors have been laboring on for years aren’t really important. The outcome was one: Israel has apologized, and has agreed to pay compensation and take steps towards lifting the siege on Gaza.

…

The public enmity with Israel played well into Erdogan’s hands, who meanwhile tightened his ties with Syria’s Bashar Assad and the regime in Iran. When the uprisings of the Arab Spring unraveled, he became a hero who, despite opposing intervention in Libya – largely due to Turkey’s immense investments in the country – supported the new government there, urged Egypt’s Mubarak to resign and then quickly fostered a relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood’s regime. His shaky relationship with Jerusalem added considerable weight to his legitimacy in the Arab world, which has traditionally been suspicious of Turkey because it isn’t an Arab state and due to its close ties with Israel. Just months after the uprising began in Syria, Erdogan changed his attitude toward Assad as well. After making efforts to try and persuade Assad to carry out reforms, Erdogan realized that his personal relationship with Assad would not help him bring about changes in Syria. All of a sudden, Assad was transformed into a bitter enemy who needed to be removed, and Erdogan decided that Turkey would become a rear base for the Syrian opposition. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey now became the new axis driving events in the Middle East, with Turkey as the anchor for American policy vis-à-vis Syria, Iraq and even Iran, with which Turkey maintains widespread commercial ties despite the sanctions, having received a partial exemption.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad seeks strategic axis with Egypt

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the first visit to Cairo by an Iranian leader in more than three decades, called for a strategic alliance with Egypt and said he had offered the cash-strapped Arab state a loan, but drew a cool response.

…

“We must all understand that the only option is to set up this alliance because it is in the interests of the Egyptian and Iranian peoples and other nations of the region,” the official MENA news agency quoted him in remarks to Egyptian journalists published on Wednesday.

Russia says Assad made ‘grave, perhaps fatal error’

He knows exactly what happened to Gaddafi and Mubarak, as well as Saddam Hussein. When his last grip on power starts to give way, he will likely choose to set the entire Middle East on fire rather than retire and spend the rest of his life in a secluded beach house.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has committed ‘grave, perhaps fatal error’ and that chances of him retaining power are getting “smaller and smaller” every day.

Medvedev made the statements in an interview with CNN. His remarks were the most vocal Russian statement that Assad’s days could be numbered. But he reiterated calls for talks between the government and its foes and repeated Moscow’s position that Assad must not be pushed out by external forces.

The Cairo-Tehran Express

Egyptian-Iranian intelligence meeting prompts fears of a new Middle East terror axis

U.S. intelligence agencies recently monitored a secret meeting between Egypt’s intelligence chief and a senior Iranian spy that is raising new fears the Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo could begin covertly supporting global terrorism.

According to U.S. officials, the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service, Maj. Gen. Murad Muwafi, met in early August with a senior official of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

Disclosure of the Egyptian-Iranian intelligence meeting comes as the Obama administration is planning to provide $1 billion in aid to bail out Egypt’s new Islamist government. The administration is said to be seeking closer ties to the new regime in Cairo, following the ouster in February 2011 of long-time ally Hosni Mubarak.

Many members of the pro-democratic, anti-Muslim Brotherhood opposition in Egypt believe the Obama administration has made a covert pact to support the Morsi regime.

Full article: The Cairo-Tehran Express (Washington Free Beacon)