Rubin Reports

Kerry subscribes--as is so fashionable today in the Obama Administration and academia--to the abusive relationship approach to foreign policy.

Obama has not abandoned the pro-Islamist policy that has created a far more dangerous security situation for Israel.

We are now at the beginning of Egypt’s involvement, directly or indirectly, in a new wave of terrorist assault on Israel. If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Egypt, a likelihood made less probable perhaps by the military’s dissolution of parliament, this offensive will enjoy official support. Even if the army remains in control, the Brotherhood and Salafists will use their considerable assets to back this new insurgency war.

In this test, find which entry does not belong on this list.

Classic westerns demonstrate that Americans have long been tolerant and understanding toward other peoples.

The bottom line is the belief that if the Muslim Brotherhood is kept happy it won’t cause any trouble.

Smart people can make bad judgments; regular people with common sense often make bad judgments less often. But stupid, arrogant people with terrible ideas are a disaster.

President Barack Obama’s speech is a fascinating document. The theme is this: absolutely nothing can go wrong with political change in the Middle East and that the United States helps moderate forces, defined as anyone who isn't actively trying to kill Americans. The fact that some-to-many of those revolutionary forces favor killing Americans is outside his purview. And the fact that his policy has supported militantly anti-democratic groups far more than the (far weaker) moderate ones is airbrushed away.

The ideas that this is some far left thing is a slander by Islamists.

You can no longer argue that solving the Arab-Israeli or Israel-Palestinian conflict will fix the region.

When I read the platform I am shocked and disappointed. I can pick at the issues of popularity, Afghanistan and Iraq. But the failure to deal with revolutionary Islamism is ridiculously glaring (they didn’t use the tiniest fig leaf to cover themselves), making a mockery about the democracy and human rights’ pretensions. The treatment of Middle East allies is shockingly insulting. The issues of Syria and Egypt are simply dodged. There is not a single mention of the opposition in Iran. All terrorists not involved directly in the September 11, 2001, attacks are ignored. There is not the slightest hint that any regional strategy exists at all.

There is a debate over the causes of terrorism and anti-Americanism in the world. One possible view is that the principal problem is that of genuine conflict. The adversaries hold certain ideological ideas—say, revolutionary Islamism—to which American society and policies are antithetical. The collision (as with Communism, Nazism, and aggressive Japanese militarism in earlier decades) is inevitable. The United States is inconveniencing the totalitarians both because of what it does (policies) and because of what it represents (freedom, democracy, capitalism).

It is now conceivable that the two leading presidential candidates will be Islamists and thus Egypt will have an Islamist president. That would mean the timetable for turning the country into an Islamist Sharia state could be vastly accelerated.

Why are the Palestinians—their leaders’ intransigence, the radicalism of a public opinion nurtured in this direction for years, the effect of the competition from Hamas, and so on—left out of the equation?

Al-Destour, an independent Egyptian newspaper, has just had a full issue seized on charges of “fueling sedition” and “harming the president through phrases and wording punishable by law.”

Even in the Dutch mass media there are shocking things written on a regular basis about Jews and Israel.

Despite Obama's disastrous Middle East policy, in practice, there have been no real, material, or huge problems in direct U.S.-Israel relations.

As the Turkish PM continues to undermine Turkish democracy, throw hundreds of moderates into jail, destroy the nation’s institutions, support Iran, throw hysterical tantrums about how much he hates Israel, promote Islamism in the region, and is fresh from yet another meeting with Hamas leaders, Obama continues to use Erdogan as his guru.

You have a massive counterterrorist project costing $1 trillion but when it comes down to it the thing repeatedly fails.

Because of political reasons and especially due to the ideological monopoly of certain forces over Western institutions, most of the academics, analysts, journalists, and politicians who speak on these issues get away with pushing the moderation thesis. They are virtually never asked to provide proof. This wrong idea thus sets current U.S. policy and creates a great risk of future crisis, instability, repression, and severe damage to U.S. interests.

In 2012-2013, the vultures in the Middle East are coming home to roost. Of course, the main cause of developments in the region is the long, failed legacy of radical Arab nationalism which is now being replaced by what we’ll be calling in 20 or 30 years the long, failed legacy of revolutionary Islamism. But the secondary cause is the mistaken policy of President Barack Obama.

The problem is not cynicism but naivete.

The United States is only at the start of a nasty conflict in Libya which is going to be very anti-American. It is shocking that there is so little recognition of that fact and an apparently sincere belief that all the problems there are due to a You-Tube video. Having a big problem is bad enough; refusing to recognize that one has a bad problem is potentially fatal.

There will be no “permanent end” to this rocket war madness or all of the other varieties of madness that are getting worse in the region.

Suddenly, as the still-alive Confederates reached the Union line, we charged forward to go into action.

If billions of dollars have not bought PA support for a two-state solution in 20 years why should anything change now?

Pretending there’s no elephant in the world doesn’t protect anyone from getting trampled.

Middle East expert, Barry Rubin discussed the region, prospects for peace and revolutionary Islamism.

The Islamists are not “moderate” and many of the alleged moderates are not moderate. Hence, the hope for moderation and real democracy is limited by the small numbers of those who hold them.

Do you want to arm the Syrian rebels so they can establish another Sharia state?