Yesterday, when most of the mainstream media busied themselves
pounding Mitt Romney for having the chutzpah to denounce the initial
apology for American freedom of speech issued by the U.S. embassy in
Cairo, they were missing a much more important story. As Islamist
attacks on the U.S. escalated throughout the Middle East, it became
apparent that the Obama administration’s recent bout of back slapping
celebration over its foreign and defense policy was completely
unjustified. Not only were the White House, the Pentagon and the State
Department sleeping while terrorist forces plotted a full-scale assault
on our mission in Benghazi, Libya but other al Qaeda operatives were at
work throughout the region plotting mischief.
As the
New York Times reports today,
the assault on the U.S. embassy in Sana, Yemen was apparently fomented
by one Abdul Majid al-Zandani, whom they describe as, “a onetime mentor
to Osama bin Laden” and someone who, “was named a ‘specially designated
global terrorist’ by the United States Treasury Department in 2004.”
Would it be considered in bad taste to ask why, if the Obama
administration’s counter-terrorism policy is such a raging success, such
a person is still on the loose? Equally interesting is the answer to
the question of how it is that in Libya, a country where American
influence is supposed to be currently strong, this administration found
itself surprised by the appearance of armed foes. Though Democrats spent
the last week furiously patting themselves on the back for having such a
tough and successful leader at the helm, it appears that not only is
the country just as unpopular in the Middle East as it was when George
W. Bush was president, but that the security situation there may be
rapidly unraveling. Though no one in Washington is allowed to say the
phrase “war on terror” anymore, it appears that Islamists have no
trouble in continuing their war on America.
These events in Libya, Egypt and Yemen may be just the tip of the
Islamist iceberg. We now know that the kerfuffle over a trailer for an
anti-Muslim movie was merely a cover for attacks on American targets in
the Middle East by an al-Qaeda movement that is, despite the death of
Osama bin Laden, very much alive and well. As the
Times
relates, U.S. forces continue to try to battle al-Qaeda. Earlier this
week, one of the group’s top operatives in Yemen was killed by a U.S.
drone strike. But not all of America’s security problems can be solved
with remote control bombs.
Rather than this topic being a source of strength for President
Obama, the embarrassing and tragic events of the past few days show it
to be a weakness. This is a president who came into office desperate to
ingratiate himself with the Arab and Muslim worlds, but who has
discovered that a policy of engagement with Islamists has utterly
failed.
In Egypt, Obama equivocated while the Muslim Brotherhood rose to
power. He has chosen to embrace the now Islamist government there with
debt forgiveness and continued aid only to see it stand by and watch
while our embassy was assaulted.
In Iran, the president spent years on failed policies of engagement
and diplomacy. Rather than set red lines on the Iranian nuclear program
that would trigger action rather than more talk, he has made it
abundantly clear he is more interested in stopping Israel from
forestalling Tehran’s bomb than he is about the threat itself.
It is true that Osama bin Laden is dead, but that creditable action
hasn’t ended the Islamist threat. The president has lost his way in the
Middle East and is too full of self-regard to acknowledge the problem.
Rather than dumping on Romney for stating the obvious about a
disgraceful apology, the media needs to start scrutinizing an
administration with a floundering foreign policy.
Whether he knows it or
not, the president’s long-running touchdown dance over bin Laden is
over.
What
is happening in the Middle East is a direct reflection on the Obama Foreign
Policies. Watching Hillary today apologizing for a citizen’s right of speech
was absolutely deplorable. Regardless of what he said or did, he has that
right. We had better begin to understand that those radicals will never buy
into our right of free speech, and to apologize for it, well is shameful. Where
was this administrations outrage when they put a crucifix in
a bottle of urine and called it art. No where. Why. because Christians didn't
start rioting in the street like savages. Didn't hear any apologies about our
freedom of speech then.
