Saturday, October 16, 2010

Obama Causing America's Stature in the Middle East to Deteriorate - US News and World Report

Link

It may very well be that President Obama is as smart as he appears to believe he is. If so, more power to him. The problem is that he equates smart with knowledgeable, and the two are very different. Palestinians and Israelis know the situation on the ground intimately; and they know each other, probably better than either party wishes to. And they both know what is acceptable and unacceptable to the other side.

The president has no such background, and as smart as he is, he is screwing this (and Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Iran, etc, etc) up by his lack of accumulated knowledge. Even worse, he has the certainty of the amateur in the correctness of his positions, and neither side is taking him, or the US, seriously in the ongoing negotiations and disputes.

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