How’s that 3-D chess in the Middle East going for you, Obama?
Even Time magazine thinks Obama’s Palestine/Israel policy isn’t going well:
Obama had prioritized resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But his demands ”” of a complete settlement freeze by Israel and reciprocal gestures toward normalizing ties with Israel by Arab governments ”” has been rejected on both sides. And while no recent Administration has had much success in this realm, veterans of the peace process concur that the President’s initial approach was flawed. It may have even done more harm than good, they argue, by raising expectations that could not be met, leaving both sides mistrustful of Washington’s intentions and creating a situation where either Netanyahu or Abbas would be painted into a corner.
Maybe it’s even 4-D chess Obama’s playing, it’s so complex.
Apart from all substance, did Time really write that Obama’s “demands . . . has” been rejected by both sides? Why yes, it did. Apparently the 3-D chess of constructing a grammatical sentence is too much for Time!
I would bet that his game of 3-d chess is going great – indeed he is winning so handily that it is nearly amazing. Few worldwide have really caught on to the fact that he is playing a different game. Once you realize that and realize what the winning conditions of his chosen game are it’s going quite well on that front (domestic agendas not so much).
Many of the international leaders have figured it out (and is why they are starting to seek allies in places other than us for the first time since WWI) and people are starting to in the US. But still over all there are over 50% in our country that haven’t figured it out (though many are getting uneasy over his current healthcare actions) and a huge portion of international populace that hasn’t even gotten that feeling.
Albert Einstein used to summarize Occam’s Razor by saying, “Make everything as simple as possible — but no simpler than that”.
Just as it’s possible to go wrong by oversimplifying, likewise you can over-complicate things and bury yourself in irrelevant details and second-guessing. 4D chess isn’t needed here.
I could judge Mr. Obama’s Mideast policies based on such things, but I’ll leave that for another time. Let me just say this — if Mr. Obama’s foreign policy depends, as it seems to do, upon him being smarter than everyone else, then he will fail. He cannot outthink the world; he cannot outwit the world.
Alternatively, perhaps what we’re seeing is breathtaking naivete. Perhaps Mr. Obama has been cursing under his breath ever since his undergraduate days, saying “why didn’t those idiotic former Presidents ever try it THIS way?” By that scenario, he is now playing out all the things he wishes past Presidents had done, which, in his mind, would surely have led to success. (Unfortunately, he is also ignoring the many things past Presidents have done that were successful. So perhaps he thinks he’s smarter than all of his predecessors too.)
The problem with this is that he must govern; he must lead; he must decide. And you can’t make important decisions based on “why not”. If he doesn’t see why appeasing Mideast foes and strong-arming Mideast allies won’t work, history will tell him — after the fact — why not.
And if his mistakes seem mind-numbingly naive, after the fact, he will be able to say: “You think I was naive? No more than YOU were when you elected me.”
And he’ll be right.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Nero did similar with rome…
they intend to lose in 2010..
they already worked out that there was no way to make the changes and not lose one election
thats why they are all set to trigger between 2010 and 2012… the reps will come back, then everything will fall apart, and voila…
One of the memes that most annoys me is the Obama is brilliant. He’s not. In the total absence of data I would put him at the intelligence of the average college student, but no higher. I base this upon assessment of his extemporaneous verbal (e.g., vocabulary, sophistication of syntax) and abstract reasoning skills (e.g., recognizing analogies or parallels, for which I see no evidence).
This assessment comports well with his reticence about his college academic performance, poor judgment (Skip Gates – yikes!) and lack of verifiable accomplishment at…well…anything. The only basis for arguing otherwise is Dreams, but that makes one wonder which is the outlier, the life or the book.
Obama’s speeches, as well as almost no doubt his (Ayer’s) book, have been written by other people. If Obama could showcase anything original or think he could get away with it (ie. Dreams), he would; he can’t. In order for the administration’s mideast strategy to work, they need an Olmert in office, but they have Netanyahu. How far will the Democrats try to go in pushing their facade of a mideast peace agenda by intimidating and betraying Israel before even Netanyahu is neutralized? Don’t underestimate how far the left-wing will go in pursuing their power ambitions.
Daniel in Brookline, spot on. The naivete of believing that the good ideas haven’t really, really been tried yet by the right people in endemic on the left, and Obama gives all evidence of seeing the world that way. It’s part of how they convince themselves that the right is so evil, because we won’t try what are so obviously good ideas. That even the farthest right of Americans believes in negotiating first is not credible to the left, because they are so sure it would work, the lack of peace means it has not been tried. Those canny foreigners knew we were just pretending to negotiate.
When they get in and attempt these negotiations in a stern voice and nothing happens, they then turn around and say it’s because no one trusts us because of the bad actions of conservatives in the past. A neat, circular argument. Whatever happens, the narrative of their wisdom is preserved.
Caroline Glick, at Jewish World Review, reports –
“Once again, US President Barack Obama has demonstrated his intention of “putting light” between America and Israel. His hostility towards Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during the latter’s visit to Washington this week was breathtaking.
It isn’t every day that you can see an American President leaving the Prime Minister of an allied government twisting in the wind for weeks before deciding to grant him an audience at the White House.
It isn’t every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital US ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night rather than greeted like a friend at the front door; is forbidden to have his picture taken with the President; is forced to leave the White House alone, through a side exit; and is ordered to keep the contents of his meeting with the President secret.”
This report was denied by the BO administration but has the ring of truth (we’ll find out soon enough). Even if not true, BO is putting more than a little light between the USA and Israel. His popularity among Jewish voters is beginning to slip.
Apart from all substance, did Time really write that Obama’s “demands . . . has” been rejected by both sides?
Mrs Whatsit: Well spotted!
Not that I’m much better — I do that kind of thing all the time, but then I sadly lack the backup of editors and fact-checkers.
I must say neo does a good job of keeping it clean in her writing.
The naivete of believing that the good ideas haven’t really, really been tried yet by the right people in endemic on the left, and Obama gives all evidence of seeing the world that way.
AVI: Yes, he does. For those prone to optimism, such as myself, Obama’s chickens are coming home to roost and it will take a generation or two for Americans to forget the bankruptcy of Obama and his New Left/New Age approaches.
And the amazing thing is that they don’t grasp that a system so fragile that it can only work when run by exactly the right people is doomed to failure, because sooner or later exactly the right people won’t be running it. Even a healthy, intrinsically robust system can struggle when run by the wrong people, Indonesians with a family history of emotional problems leaping to mind in this connection.
Wait a second. Obama “raising expectations that could not be met” ???? Nooooooo