This is the lead story at The Independent today.
Who cares in the Middle East what Obama says?
President Obama has shown himself to be weak in his dealings with the Middle East, says Robert Fisk, and the Arab world is turning its back with contempt. Its future will be shaped without American influenceMonday, 30 May 2011
This month, in the Middle East, has seen the unmaking of the President of the United States. More than that, it has witnessed the lowest prestige of America in the region since Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz on the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in 1945.
While Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu played out their farce in Washington – Obama grovelling as usual – the Arabs got on with the serious business of changing their world, demonstrating and fighting and dying for freedoms they have never possessed. Obama waffled on about change in the Middle East – and about America’s new role in the region. It was pathetic. “What is this ‘role’ thing?” an Egyptian friend asked me at the weekend. “Do they still believe we care about what they think?”
Obama thinks that because he was in Washington on the day which the CIA shot some old terrorist in the head, that earned him respect.
“Arabs got on with the serious business of changing their world, demonstrating and fighting and dying for freedoms they have never possessed”
Arabs in Israel are allowed to vote.
“While Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu played out their farce in Washington – Obama grovelling as usual ”
I wonder what kind of drugs these cats are on. I didn’t see any grovelling .
Unless you count PM Netanyahu’s pleading of his case to the US public, which was making the President very very angry.
As far as the “role” and them not caring what we think anymore, sometimes ( constantly) they overplay their “pride and shame” game. Maybe they should try some common sense for a change.