Prof. Barry Rubin's death revives interest in video interview about his views on west's Mid-East policies

Barry Rubin, a prominent Middle East policy analyst, died in
Israel on Monday following an 18-month struggle with lung cancer. Prof. Rubin survived just past his 64th birthday.  He is survived by his journalist wife, Judith Colp Rubin, and their daughter and son.

Barry Rubin’s reach in the world of Middle East scholarship was broad and deep.  He served as director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, a columnist at The Jerusalem Post, the editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs and a contributor to the PJ Media website.

History-buff Rubins participated in Civil War re-enactments

Rubin, a D.C. native, had been a Fulbright scholar and a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received his doctorate from Georgetown University in 1978. He was a noted skeptic of Palestinian nationalism, saying that Islamism was too deeply embedded in the region to accommodate a true peace with Israel.


“Clearly, the Obama administration does not understand Middle Eastern regimes and terrorist organizations, and if it doesn’t, it will meet miserable defeats,” he wrote on Jan. 12 at PJMedia.

His passing revives interest in his ideas. We re-publish an article of Mr. Rubin's on the Obama administration's Middle East policy, supplemented with a TV interview he did with us in 2011.

"The Solution: How to Deal with Obama Middle-East Policy" by Barry Rubin 

It is likely that the efforts of the Obama Administration during its second term will fail, not only because of its lack of understanding of the region and its ideology, but also due to the specific agenda.  No Middle Eastern country (only hostile ones or movements) can depend on the United States.  And to clarify this further:  No country -- including Israel -- can depend on the Obama Administration.

But as I noted above, this U.S. policy of Obama’s second term will fail. For example, the main goals of the second term are four big issues:

1)  Israel-Palestinian peace

2) Egypt government coalition with Muslim Brotherhood

3) Syrian civil war resolution with rebel victory

4)  U.S.-Iran rapprochement resolving nuclear issue.

Video 1- Leftist journalistic-bias intentionally whitewashes malevolence of Muslim Brotherhood

Yet because of irreconcilable differences, these may well be unresolvable. Due to such failures and hardline radical positions (Palestinians, Muslim Brotherhood, Syrian Islamists and regime, Iranian regime), the next administration would probably be forced back on recognition of extremism, support of allies, and U.S. interests.

Thus, regarding the “peace process,” we may well see the typical pattern in which the Palestinians wreck the peace process by rejecting or demanding even more concessions. Once again, it will only be necessary to wait until American negotiators learn better why their goals are impossible. Radicals will just raise their demands and demonstrate their anti-Americanism, and necessary priorities will shift.

How Obama's bungled Middle-East agenda bodes for the future

"The Solution: How to Deal with Obama Middle-East Policy" by Barry Rubin 

It is likely that the efforts of the Obama Administration during its second term will fail, not only because of its lack of understanding of the region and its ideology, but also due to the specific agenda.

No Middle Eastern country (only hostile ones or movements) can depend on the United States.  And to clarify this further:  No country -- including Israel -- can depend on the Obama Administration.

But as I noted above, this U.S. policy of Obama’s second term will fail. For example, the main goals of the second term are four big issues:

--Israel-Palestinian peace

--Egypt government coalition with Muslim Brotherhood

--Syrian civil war resolution with rebel victory

--U.S.-Iran rapprochement resolving nuclear issue.

Yet because of irreconcilable differences, these may well be unresolvable. Due to such failures and hardline radical positions (Palestinians, Muslim Brotherhood, Syrian Islamists and regime, Iranian regime), the next administration would probably be forced back on recognition of extremism, support of allies, and U.S. interests.

Thus, regarding the “peace process,” we may well see the typical pattern in which the Palestinians wreck the peace process by rejecting or demanding even more concessions. Once again, it will only be necessary to wait until American negotiators learn better why their goals are impossible. Radicals will just raise their demands and demonstrate their anti-Americanism, and necessary priorities will shift.

"Russia-Iran Axis Gets Access" by Barry Rubin in PJ Media

The original supposed intent of this whole Syria exercise–punishing Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons–has achieved zero. In fact,  it has backfired.

“Russian credibility is not in question,”  my colleague Dr. Jonathan Spyer pointed out, American credibility is in question.

“The Russian weapons lifeline to the dictator is buzzing with increased activity,” Spyer continues.  ”The arms ships that make their way from the Ukrainian port of Oktabyrsk have increased in number in recent weeks, shipping analysts say. They are bringing the vital spare parts for Assad’s planes and tanks.”

But there’s more.

Was this a pay-off for the Putin-Syria deal to get Iran to agree? Was it an advantage that the Kremlin grabbed in order to show that Russia can do anything it wants now? If so, it was a heavy one indeed. Pay close attention.

Russian media reported Moscow is selling Iran five batteries of S-300 missiles for $700 million. The sale was frozen three years ago when the UN imposed sanctions. Russia will probably claim the weapons are for defense.

And of course, it is for defense, presuming Iran needs to defend a nuclear reactor or missile bases from Israel.

This step tightens the Iran-Russia alliance, presumably a way to make Iran feel more secure as it backs Syria. Russia may also have made an agreement to build a second nuclear reactor in Bushehr.

In other words, the Russia-Iran alliance is stronger; America is weaker; Syria is more secure, though it is still a very long way to win the civil war. But Iran—where the Obama Administration is cutting the sanctions—is more powerful and further away from any effective containment.

Here is Ammar Abdulhamid, who is an honorable and  sincere Syrian supporter of moderate rebels but knows he isn’t finding any:

“So the Russians have put on the table a plan whose implementation requires thousands of peacekeepers and experts working together over a period of several years to dismantle Assad’s chemical supplies and production capabilities. In practice, this requires cessation of all hostilities by all parties, in other words, an end to the civil war.”

 ”End the civil war and the Russian plan can work. But how do we end the civil war? Well, how about a limited strike against Assad’s military and security establishment to convince him to cease hostilities? There you go, we’re back where we started: in order to make Russia’s plan work we need to strike Assad, and in order to strike Assad, we need an American President who is willing to do it and does not go into convulsions each time we get to this point.”

I unfortunately don”t agree with Abdulhamid, but I would if he had received the moderate opposition he wanted.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth O’Bagy, who became famous overnight by being quoted as the rationale for saying Syrian rebels are moderates by Kerry, McCain, and the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, was fired by her pro-rebel lobbying group for faking her PhD.

 Turns out she DID lie about her PhD,  BUT they had to get rid of her without pointing to the real scandal that the Syrian rebels are not moderate.

Did anyone learn anything? Again, they really fired her for embarrassment, because it showed that State Department just bought intelligence it wanted–saying Syrian rebels are moderate–by Kerry, McCain, theWashington Post and Wall Street Journal. A few months later she said the opposite.

The real issue–they are lying and faking intelligence–became disguised as a technical issue. Read more

Obama's attitudes towards Israel and the Middle East

Obama on his own Middle East record: Zero Percent Success by Prof. Barry Rubin in PJ Media Oct 10, 2012
  
.... The (Obama Administration's) "peace process" policy has failed.  And this administration has done more to undermine Israel’s security than all the previous presidencies put together. The problems include: pushing Israel to ease the pressure on Hamas in the Gaza Strip; helping a genocide-oriented anti-Israel government into power in Egypt; same thing in Syria; making America’s leading ally in the region a Turkish regime that was viciously anti-Israel; and more.  Read more.
 

Romney's vs. Obama's attitudes on Israel by Daniel Pipes in Israel Hayom Sept 4, 2012

"President [Barack] Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus," Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president, said in his high-profile speech accepting his party's nomination last week, repeating a slang phrase for sacrificing a friend for selfish reasons that he has used before, notably in May 2011 and January this year.

This criticism of Obama fits a persistent Republican critique. Several other recent presidential candidates have also used or endorsed the same "bus" formulation to describe Obama’s attitude to Israel: Herman Cain in May 2011, Rick Perry in September 2011, Newt Gingrich in January 2012, and Rick Santorum in February 2012.

These Republican attacks on Obama's relations with Israel have several important implications for U.S. foreign policy. First, out of the many Middle East-related issues, Israel, and Israel alone, retains a permanent role in U.S. electoral politics, influencing how a significant numbers of voters — not just Jews but also Arabs, Muslims, Evangelical Christians, conservatives and liberals — vote for president.
Read more

DemoCast.TV shows commentary on the course of the Obama Administration's Middle East policies and its impact on the America-Israel relationship.



US Jewry’s cherished values by CAROLINE B. GLICK in The Jerusalem Post  10/11/2012

For 70% of American Jews, party loyalty trumps all of their conceivable rational interests.

Obama’s gutting of Medicare to pay for Obamacare has harmed the medical choices for older Jewish Americans.

His war on tax deductions for charitable contributions has placed synagogues, Jewish schools and nursing homes in financial jeopardy.

So with economics ruled out as a reason to support Obama we are left with American-Jewish values.

But is Obama really advancing those values? What are those values anyway?  Read more

Video chronicle of commentary on US-Israel relations during the Obama Administration from JooTube.TV:



Ms. Glick concludes: "The most disturbing aspect of the surveys of American Jewish voters is not that they are willing to vote for the most hostile US president Israel has ever experienced in order to remain true to their party. The most disturbing aspect of the American Jewish community’s devotion to Obama and the Democrats is that it indicates that the vast majority of American Jews have abandoned their faculties for independent thought and judgment in favor of conformism and slavish partisanship. They have rendered themselves unreachable."

How Obama's soft-on-Islamism policies undermine liberty in Middle-East & America- Prof Barry Rubin

Prof. Barry Rubin, known for his Middle East strategies work at the GLORIA Center at the IDC in Herzliya, Israel, is also Middle East Editor for PJ Media.

What to Say When You’re Handed the Obama-Is-Good-for-Israel Talking Points
[Jews for Obama boast that] "Obama just gave Israeli President Shimon Peres a presidential medal
of freedom."  Well, he also has just helped give Israel a second Muslim Brotherhood-dominated regime next door and insists that this is a good thing.



Question: [Jews for Obama claim that] U.S.-Israel bilateral relations are good especially with regard to military aid.

Rubin:  That’s true, but only a small part of that relates to Obama’s benevolence. Why?

a.  Congress supports Israel. There was more pushback against Obama from Democratic members on this issue than on any other, foreign or domestic. Thus, Israel is the only “target” of Obama whose constituency has vocal defenders within his own party that raise the cost of his actions against it, at least during his first term. (Note that last phrase.)

b. The same applies to public opinion, which is strongly pro-Israel. This factor also inhibits Obama, at least during his first term. (Note that last phrase.)

c. Regarding military relations, the U.S. armed forces are generally quite pro-Israel and want these programs. Many of them are based on previous commitments, which Obama merely continues.

An especially important reason why Obama’s administration hasn’t been far more hostile to Israel in practice is that the Arabs and Iran shafted his policy. Remember that Obama offered to support the
Palestinians, pressure Israel, and accelerate talks if only the Arab states and Palestinian Authority showed some flexibility. They repeatedly rejected his efforts—refusing even to talk–giving him no
opportunity or incentive to press Israel for concessions. Note too, though, that the repeated humiliations handed him by the Arabs never made him criticize them publicly, change his general line, or back Israel more enthusiastically.

The same point applies to Iran. While Obama has intensified sanctions on Iran, he:

• Did so only after a long delay.

• Did less than Congress wanted/

• Exempted in effect China, Russia, and Turkey from observing the sanctions.

Obama has been visibly eager to make a deal with Tehran, even on bad terms. Only Iran’s hard line has prevented some kind of arrangement that favored Iran. Instead, though, Tehran has used Obama’s slowness and desire for some compromise in order to buy time for its nuclear program to progress.

Finally, there’s the most important factor of all. The main damage Obama has done to Israeli security is neither so much in the area of bilateral relations nor regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict but
as a result of his regional policy in the Middle East. This includes his:

• Soft line toward antisemitic, anti-Israel, and also anti-American Islamism.

• Support for overturning the Mubarak regime and encouragement for a
  Muslim Brotherhood takeover there. During the 2011 crisis, Obama never
  even consulted Israel. The outspoken antisemitism, calls for genocide
  against Israel’s citizens, and support for anti-Israel terrorism by the
  Muslim Brotherhood have had no effect on Obama’s policy and brought no
  criticism by the U.S. government of that movement.

This point must be underlined. Do not forget for one moment that the Brotherhood is an explicitly antisemitic movement that calls for genocide against Jews in and often outside of Israel. It has never to the tiniest degree criticized or repented for its strong support for Nazi Germany. It is in fact the most important antisemitic movement in the world today. Anyone who claims that this movement is in fact moderate (denying its antisemitism and genocidal intentions) and helps it to achieve power, is acting profoundly against the interests of Israel and of the Jewish people. Period.
Read Prof. Rubin's full points

Obama bungles Mubarak crisis, "shatters the mystique of America's superpower status"; Iran sails warships Red Sea to oppose Egypt & Israel

Two excellent columns about the Obama Administration's bungling Mubarak's crisis:
As the lies come crashing down by Caroline Glick

The Obama administration's decision to ban relevant language from the official US policy discourse was ideologically motivated. And in choosing ideology over reality, the Obama administration has induced a situation where rather than construct policies to deal with reality, at all levels, US officials have been charged with constructing policies to deny and ignore reality.

Against this backdrop it becomes fairly clear why the Obama administration's handling of the political turmoil in Egypt has been so incompetent.

Upon entering office, Obama made a determined effort to ignore the political instability percolating under the surface throughout the authoritarian Arab world. US government officials were instructed to curtail programs aimed at developing liberal alternatives to authoritarianism and the Muslim Brotherhood. The justification for this behavior was again ideological.

The Obama administration's ideologically driven strategic ineptitude is evident everywhere.

From its slavish devotion to appeasing Iran, its single-minded insistence on withdrawing from Iraq, its announced commitment to withdrawing from Afghanistan, to its tolerance of Hugo Chavez, and its infantile reset button diplomacy towards Russia, the Obama administration's foreign policy is on a collision course with reality.

But nowhere is its premeditated incompetence more evident than in its obsession with the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.

Our leaders are doubtlessly tempted to simply take the path of least resistance and join Obama and his merry band of blind men as they move from lie to lie to defend their ideology from reality. ...

But doing so will not protect us when the dangers sown by the US's strategic dementia provoke the next conflagration.

Israel's best option is to simply tell the truth as loudly and forcefully as it can and base our policies on it. While doing so will win Israel no friends in the Obama administration or in Europe, it will prepare us for the day when the wall of lies they are building from Islamabad to Cairo to Ramallah come crashing down.

Egyptian women supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrate in this Tahrir Square video against Pres. Hosni Mubarak as a supporter Israel and America, the "infidel" states they've been inculcated to hate.
(Video courtesy NTEB2012)

Prof. Barry Rubin, back from the Herzliya Policy Conference around his office at the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, returns to analyze: "Egypt: Mubarak's not the one who should resign."

... The quality of the American leadership has grown worse.

There has been an attempt to spin President Husni Mubarak’s speech as some type of victory for the Obama Administration. Yet within hours this effort collapsed. The nation’s highest intelligence officials showed they had no idea what the Muslim Brotherhood represents, joked that they didn’t know any more than did CNN, and provided completely inaccurate information on the course of events in Egypt.

It was the Egyptian army that decided that Mubarak had to go in order to preserve its own power and privileges.

When the New York Times can write,

"American officials said Mr. Panetta was basing his statement not on secret intelligence but on media broadcasts,” It seems that Panetta—not Mubarak--should resign not so much for getting the story wrong but for not understanding what his job is supposed to be.

The president of the United States leapt into an issue he didn’t understand, put forward a bad policy, showed he didn’t comprehend the most basic principles of statecraft and diplomacy, publicly celebrated as if he were making a campaign speech projected events in Egypt that didn’t happen, and then admitted that he had no idea what was going on.

Even some of his biggest left-wing fans had to admit this was a debacle. "The mystique of America's superpower status has been shattered," said Steve Clemons, of the New America Foundation.

From the Middle East itself, the reviews are indeed shattering. The Saudis, just about the most cautious and conservative government there is in the world, publicly rebuked President Obama on his strategy. This is not primarily an issue concerning Israel. It’s an issue affecting anyone in the Middle East who opposes revolutionary Islamism and looks to the United States as a protector.

Iran's destroyer docks in Jeddah opposite Israel & Egypt

Prof. Rubin adds the news that:  two Islamic Republic of Iran warships just visited the Saudi port of Jeddah in the Red Sea. No, that wasn't a misprint, I said "Red Sea," and not "Persian Gulf." This is the first time Iranian warships have been in the Red Sea, just down the coast from Israel and just across from Egypt.

Not only is this a strategic alarm bell for the United States and Israel but also for the Saudis themselves. Bereft now of their last significant Arab ally and feeling unable to depend on the United States, the Saudis are facing their worst strategic situation since the 1950s at a time when Iran is spreading its influence and racing toward nuclear weapons.