My first job after undergrad was as a paralegal at a law firm, where I met some attorneys who had come up with a term that embodied their daily existence: cross-moginating. This farcical verb referred to the act of shuffling documents back and forth but not really achieving anything.
Insanity, is it often said, is repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results, and today the Obama administration is being criticized for once again misunderstanding the balance of power in the Middle East.
In dividing the protagonists in the style of former President Bush — that is, into pro-American moderates who must be supported vs. anti-progress fanatics who must be wiped out — President Obama risks repeating the same mistakes of times past.
Granted, Obama has reached out to some Middle Eastern countries in ways not seen in some decades, and indeed, the United States shares many strategic goals with other culturally, politically and economically significant powers in the region, i.e. Syria, Egypt and Turkey.
But how different is Obama’s Middle East Policy? He’s withdrawing many but not all US troops from Iraq, but 50,000 troops can hardly be considered an end to the occupation. Still, it’s a good development, and the same logic could have been applied to Afghanistan as well. But meanwhile, he has escalated the war there with his troop surge plus regular drone attacks within territorial Pakistan. And on Israel-Palestine, well, Ussama Makdisa says it best:
The same dynamic that was at work during the failed Camp David Summit of 2000 is again evident: an Israeli leadership openly unwilling to make peace on the basis of genuine reciprocity, let alone justice or equality is meeting a Palestinian leadership utterly dependent on an American ability to pressure Israel into significant concessions, under the aegis of an American administration with the same kind of pro-Israel mentality and frame of reference that oversaw the last failed round.
The Obama administrate has been cross-moginating: shifting troops, shifting rhetoric, but not really achieving too much.
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