Instability

Over the past five years, the so-called "Arab spring" has morphed into a spring board for Islamists. During that time, a string of foreign policy failures have damaged our credibility in the Middle East and worse, made the United States look indecisive and weak. Public hatred of the United States throughout the Arab World (Egypt is a good example) makes the Bush years look like a love-in by comparison. And an abdication of U.S. leadership can only lead to even worse things in the future.

In Libya, the ill-conceived overthrow of the dictator Mohamar Kaddifi (promoted as an attempt to avert a 'humanitarian crisis") lead to internecine warfare among rival Islamist gangs and released tens of thousands of dangerous weapons (e.g., surface to air missiles capable of taking down a commercial airliner) into the region, many winding up in the hands of al Qaida affiliated groups. Kaddafi's overthrow led to Benghazi (remember Benghazi?), the death of a US ambassador, and the subsequent Obama administration coverup that is on-going to this day.

In Egypt, "democratic elections" resulting the empowerment of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (who were courted for a time by President Obama and are far, far from the "moderates" his administration implied they were). Things in Egypt got so bad so quickly that President Mohammad Morsi (a Muslim brotherhood member) was overthrown by Egypt's military (a good thing).

In Syria, the dictator Bashar Hafez al Assad has used brutal methods to overcome opposition (much of it Islamist based) in what has become a real humanitarian crisis and civil war. Rather than acting early when there may have been an opportunity to affect the outcome, the Obama administration sat on its hands. Now Assad will likely remain in power (which may be a better outcome than an Islamist Syria).

In Jordan, al Qaida affiliated groups are posing an increasing threat to the stability of a reasonably moderate country. Sudan and Somalia are failed states. The entire Arab crescent is a mess. In Lebanon, Hezballah thugs hold an otherwise moderate country hostage.

So what is the tired old meme reintroduced by the Obama administration and it's new Secretary of State, John Kerry. Yesterday, John Kerry stated:

Peace is in the common interest of everybody in this region. And as many ministers said to me today in the meeting that we had – many of them – they said that the core issue of instability in this region and in many other parts of the world is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The only way to resolve that is through direct negotiations, and the only ones who can make that happen are not President Obama, John Kerry, Nasser Judeh, but it is the parties themselves. They have to make that decision.

So now the Obama administration and it's Secretary of State parrot the old, discredited Arab meme that "core issue of instability in this region" is attributable to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Left, of course will lap this up, even though it is demonstrably untrue. But worse, it's a feint—an attempt to draw attention away from the many serious foreign policy failures of this President and at the same time using a strategy that has become S.O.P. for this administration, laying the blame elsewhere—in this case on Israel.

At a time when the Middle East is imploding, you'd think that this president would have better things to do than attempt to resurrect peace talks when the Palestinians have no interest in peace (unless, of course, Israel ceases to exist) and the Arab world has every interest in using the "conflict" as an excuse for their own miserable economic and cultural failures.