Category: Politics – سياسة

Ten years after Nine-Eleven attacks, President Barack Obama gathered his efforts to prioritize the nuclear deal with Iran which severely shake the world and the Middle East and smashed all the traditional norms in Washington.

The aftermath of the nuclear deal with Iran and after nearly a 100 years of the Sykes-Picot agreement for a new formation for the Middle East, the region felt the urge of having their own regional system besides the international one.

This regional system contains of four great powers the Arab Gulf States, Israel, Turkey and Iran. They all have political agendas and aspirations to dominate andultimately be the regional super power. During the past two or even three decades, the situation was going quiet smoothly between these four pillars taking into consideration two important facts; one, is the “stable alliances” between the US and the Gulf States, Israel and Turkey, two,  is the “stable aggression” between the US and Iran.

Iran took advantage of the following factors to climb on them seeking openness to the world, having less sanctions yet more engaged in the world politics, economy and security.

First: Obama’s policies

The excessive reliance on diplomacy and retroversion policies that the Obama administration’s adopted, which “many of the US congressmen opposes”.  And most importantly the harm that hit the oldest and the most traditional alliance between the US and the Gulf states and between the US and Israel.

Second: Muslim countries clash

The clashes between Saudi Arabia and Turkey over Muslim brotherhood organization and between Saudi Arabia and Egypt over President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s attitude and statements; has made Saudi A. busy with its clashes and helped Iran achieve better  diplomatic relations “but still limited” advancements with both Turkey and Egypt. 

Third: Corrupted/useless international organizations

The useless role of the UN and other affiliated international organizations as well as the delay in producing new laws and/or establishing new non-governmental organizations to address the new normal in the world; has helped Iran use this momentum of weakness to exit its isolation despite the tens of accusations against it.

Fourth: Weak Arab world

The weakness of the Arab pillar, the dependency on the US as well as the lack of strategy to maintain its upper-hand and its interest in the region without a western support, has helped Iran offering herself as a coherent pillar, independent, powerful, and has a vision and a strategy in the Middle East and the world.

Fifth: Arab Spring

The Arab Spring has helped Iran in penetrating in the Levant so effectively to the extent that it imposed high stakes in the region and now any settlement has to be in Iran’s interest.

Time was on the Iranians side, it was the right time for them to build stakes in the region and so they did successfully.

I am not arguing that the Nuclear deal between the west and Iran is bad, on the contrary I see it very important and promising when it comes to trade and security especially with neighbors, however, the only problem in my point of view is TIME.

President Obama did not only ignore the interest of US allies in the Middle East especially Saudi Arabia but also intended to bring the deal into effect at a time when all Arab countries are severely weakened by the Arab Spring and terrorism that has gone to a higher level that even the US itself couldn’t put an end to it despite the F-22 and F-16 that are targeting ISIS areas of control in Iraq and Syria.

The deal has also came at a time when Saudi Arabia needed the US to back her up against the Iranian expansion in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq and most importantly,  it came at a time when the US decided to shift its role in the world order and stopped engaging in ANY conflict in the world.

The Iran deal was absolutely not at the right Time.

The P5+1 agreement had shifted the balance of power and the security of the regional and world orders and so far it has produced a new normal for the way America deals with its allies and has put the region on the urge of a war because of the high tensions that has been awakened between Saudi Arabia and Iran and has harmed the relations between Israel and the US.

I would like to conclude my argument by saying: I’m not against ending the violence mode between Iran and the west, because I believe it will have good impact on the long run however, President Obama’s insistence on ignoring the implications of this rapid rapprochement with Iran and the marginalization of the Arabs’ important role in the region is the thing I mainly oppose.

It should also be noted that any attempt to destabilize the Gulf States and especially Saudi Arabia means the end of an Arabic dream; as all other Arab countries are busy dealing with their problems and conflicts. And if the US is seeking a balance of power in the region, it should take an immediate step forward to heal the wounds with its allies and obstruct the Iranian expansion fantasy in the Arab world.

Guess this is the next administration’s daily workout until they get back in shape with their allies.

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President Barack Obama made recently some significant improvements in his both domestic and foreign policy strategy. It seems that he is running out of time and that he would like to start scoring points before Republicans take control over the congress in its both chambers in 2015.

Afghanistan, to begin with; Obama decided to extend the US troops presence there to avoid repeating the same mistake he did in Iraq and to ensure a direct role in healing the wounds of the country that was ravaged by war.

This step came after the breakdown of his strategy in Iraq and the emergence of the Islamic State group, and it seems that he finally found out that withdrawing from Iraq when the country was absolutely fractured and unstable-in terms of military, security and political coherence-was an extreme bad idea. Therefore, it looks like he doesn’t want to repeat the same scenario in Afghanistan if the US troops withdrew by the end of 2016.

Immigration reform is another example, President Obama announced his plan to save over four million undocumented immigrants living in the US. It seems that he felt the urgency of presenting a serious amendment that can boost a little bit his popularity and bring back the confidence in the American people of his party, after they expressed their outrageous anger of his domestic and foreign policy in the last congressional elections in November 2014.

Another important factor that demonstrates Obama’s partial awakening is appointing Ashton Carter as a new Secretary of Defense who is well-known of his bipartisan praise, his disagreement with Obama on withdrawing combat troops from Iraq in 2011 and his disagreement on the rapprochement from Iran .

So Obama has partially woke up from his isolation, however, there is still so many pending issues, most importantly are, his strategy towards the middle east especially Syria and his strategy to defeat IS. We all understand that due to the bad experiences of the US army in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama acts carefully in taking any military action on Syria, however, IS threat is becoming bigger, not in terms of intimidating the US national security only but in terms of popular and congressional anger over Obama and the Democratic party.

It should be noted that dissociating Bashar al-Assad’s elimination from defeating IS, could be Obama’s strategy! because he wants to please Iran and have the least clashes possible with its leaders in order to end the twelve year standoff between both countries as well as putting an end to its nuclear capabilities.

In the same context, despite all the criticism and the challenges that Obama is facing from his closest circle whether in the white house’s administration or in the congress and especially when it comes to the IS’ strategy and the Iranian deal, however, he is insisting on his strategy assuming that this is the best way possible to degrade and ultimately destroy IS and maintain peace in the region.

This was the main reason why Mr. Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense, stepped down or got fired-it does not matter-on Monday, 24 November 2014. Hagel was the only republican leader who opposed George Bush’s intervention in Iraq and calls for a timid military interference of the US in the world.

Despite all the childish acts that conservative republicans are doing, the lack of agenda and the division that is grunting their party, however, they are obviously united to wage war on Obama to weaken him and his party more.

This in return will help Democrats in the presidential elections in 2016, because people monitors every little and/or big step both parties take, therefore Democrats will still have the opportunity to show their unity and coherence to win the presidency.

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Sarah

12 September 2014

The unpopularity of President Barack Obama and his foreign policy strategy have put Democrats in a very bad situation on Tuesday night, and led to a severe loss in the Capitol Hill. However, it was a “good night” for the Republicans who successfully managed to win the house of senate with at least 52 seats and maintained their majority on the House of Representatives.

Practically, this means the end of Obama’s roll in the congress, as republicans will make sure to oppose any of the President’s policies, suggestions or bills, and it means that they will impose their agenda on him and his party.

Remarkably, the Republican Party spent over $4 billion on their campaign to defeat their opponents. The campaign is considered to be one of the most expensive campaigns that has been invested on a midterm elections in the United States’ history.

Republicans now have the opportunity to implement their agenda though I am afraid they still do not have one; thanks to the lack of the leadership and to the major division within their party (the tea party the conservatives and the independents).

However, we see that this victory and this expensive campaign was driven by lobbies’ interests and priorities to expedite the issuance of legislative laws for the Keystone XL pipelines, as well as passing bills on rolling back air quality regulations for oil refineries and expanding drilling in both federal lands and waters.

It is also expected that republicans’ top priority agenda will be focusing on cutting off ways on Obama to pass an immigration reform and will work on repealing Obamacare by relying on the fact that non-citizens are of benefit and that the money of the Americans is being spent on others.

Tough obstacles will not only face the President’s internal policy agenda but also his foreign policy one. We think that republicans will work on implementing more sanctions on Iran and might push toward a more military intervention in Syria especially after the negotiations in the pentagon that leaked earlier on the possibilities of hitting Assad regime’s military bases in Syria.

Democrats are not screwed yet, though!

According to a recent poll, 38% of the voters thought republican leaders would have positive impact, while Obama’s popularity reached 40% at its lowest these days. In addition to the fact, that Democrats’ candidates refused to invite Obama to their campaigns to be able to differentiate themselves from the “unpopular” President and make a whole new stream that offers new ideas and agendas to satisfy the people’s needs.

Besides, Obama’s internal policy was not that bad compared to the disastrous situation that he inherited from George Bush’s administration! The economy has been noticeably improving, the unemployment rate reached its lowest score at 5.9%, and the health care system helped over Ten-million people so far!

Therefore, I think that the Americans still have more confidence in the Democratic Party than the Republican Party and especially with the rise of the popularity of Hilary Clinton who tried so hard in her book to convince people that she opposed Obama in so many areas and especially his foreign policy.

As a result, I think that republicans are ready now to close the doors that Obama was working on opening, such as the Iranian agreement, war on ISIL, and the immigration reform and the president will still have a chance until the end of this year to push forward any of the above affairs.

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Sarah

01 September 2014