{"id":3159,"date":"2011-09-19T19:25:55","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T02:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3159"},"modified":"2012-02-21T09:03:48","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:03:48","slug":"step-right-up-get-your-chance-at-democracy-with-one-of-these-fine-freedom-fighting-weapons-if-you-cant-buy-guns-please-step-to-the-back-of-the-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3159","title":{"rendered":"Step right up get your chance at democracy with one of these fine “freedom fighting” weapons – if you can’t buy guns please step to the back of the line"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the Arab demands for democratic rule; \u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity for the United States, but we are constrained by budget and to some extent constrained by political obstacles,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m determined that we\u2019re going to do as much as we can within those constraints to deal with the opportunities that I see from Tunisia to Libya and Egypt and beyond.\u201d Secretary of State Hillary Clinton<\/em> – as the US and Europe launch unprecedented moves to sell weapons to tyranical governments throughout the region.<\/strong>
\n
\nTumult of Arab Spring Prompts Worries in Washington<\/strong>
\nBy STEVEN LEE MYERS – Published: September 17, 2011 – NYT<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 While the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring created new opportunities for American diplomacy, the tumult has also presented the United States with challenges \u2014 and worst-case scenarios \u2014 that would have once been almost unimaginable.<\/p>\n

What if the Palestinians\u2019 quest for recognition of a state at the United Nations, despite American pleas otherwise, lands Israel in the International Criminal Court, fuels deeper resentment of the United States, or touches off a new convulsion of violence in the West Bank and Gaza?<\/p>\n

Or if Egypt, emerging from decades of autocratic rule under President Hosni Mubarak, responds to anti-Israeli sentiments on the street and abrogates the Camp David peace treaty, a bulwark of Arab-Israeli stability for three decades?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re facing an Arab awakening that nobody could have imagined and few predicted just a few years ago,\u201d Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a recent interview with reporters and editors of The New York Times. \u201cAnd it\u2019s sweeping aside a lot of the old preconceptions.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may also sweep aside, or at least diminish, American influence in the region. The bold vow on Friday by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to seek full membership at the United Nations amounted to a public rebuff of weeks of feverish American diplomacy. His vow came on top of a rapid and worrisome deterioration of relations between Egypt and Israel and between Israel and Turkey, the three countries that have been the strongest American allies in the region.<\/p>\n

Diplomacy has never been easy in the Middle East, but the recent events have so roiled the region that the United States fears being forced to take sides in diplomatic or, worse, military disputes among its friends. Hypothetical outcomes seem chillingly present. What would happen if Turkey, a NATO ally that the United States is bound by treaty to defend, sent warships to escort ships to Gaza in defiance of Israel\u2019s blockade, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to do?<\/p>\n

Crises like the expulsion of Israel\u2019s ambassador in Turkey, the storming of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and protests outside the one in Amman, Jordan, have compounded a sense of urgency and forced the Obama administration to reassess some of this country\u2019s fundamental assumptions, and to do so on the fly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe region has come unglued,\u201d said Robert Malley, a senior analyst in Washington for the International Crisis Group. \u201cAnd all the tools the United States has marshaled in the past are no longer as effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States, as a global power and permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, still has significant ability to shape events in the region. This was underscored by the flurry of telephone calls that President Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta made to their Egyptian and Israeli counterparts to diffuse tensions after the siege of Israeli Embassy in Cairo this month.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the toppling of leaders who preserved a stable, if strained, status quo for decades \u2014 Mr. Mubarak, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia \u2014 has unleashed powerful and still unpredictable forces that the United States has only begun to grapple with and is likely to be doing so for years.<\/p>\n

In the process, diplomats worry, the actions of the United States could even nudge the Arab Spring toward radicalism by angering newly enfranchised citizens of democratic nations.<\/p>\n

In the case of Egypt, the administration has promised millions of dollars in aid to support a democratic transition, only to see the military council ruling the country object to how and where it is spent, according to two administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic matters. The objection echoed similar ones that came from Mr. Mubarak\u2019s government. The government and the political parties vying for support before new elections there have also intensified anti-American talk. The officials privately warned of the emergence of an outwardly hostile government, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and remnants of Mr. Mubarak\u2019s party.<\/p>\n

The upheaval in Egypt has even raised the prospect that it might break its Camp David peace treaty with Israel, with Egypt\u2019s prime minister, Essam Sharaf, telling a Turkish television channel last week that the deal was \u201cnot a sacred thing and is always open to discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The administration, especially Mrs. Clinton, also spent months trying to mediate between Turkey and Israel over the response to the Israeli military operation last year that killed nine passengers aboard a ship trying to deliver aid to Gaza despite an Israeli embargo \u2014 only to see both sides harden their views after a United Nations report on the episode became public.<\/p>\n

Unflinching support for Israel has, of course, been a constant of American foreign policy for years, often at the cost of political and diplomatic support elsewhere in the region, but the Obama administration has also sought to improve ties with Turkey after the chill that followed the invasion of Iraq in 2003. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Arab demands for democratic rule; \u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity for the United States, but we are constrained by budget and to some extent constrained by political obstacles,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m determined that we\u2019re going to do as much as we can within those constraints to deal with the opportunities that I see from more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1498],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6185,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3159\/revisions\/6185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}