A crumbling power: The US under Obama

After being the most ineffective and weakest US President since William Henry Harrison and Millard Fillmore, Obama has turned to global warming as a new cause celebre to get back some of that love that continues to elude him and which so overflowed from both within and outside the US when he first got elected.

You only need to look at his choice for foreign secretary, John 'snooze and lose' Kerry, to know what Obama thinks about foreign policy. Bush may have been a monumental asshole, but you knew where you stood with him and he did project US power effectively if clumsily. Obama's trampled red lines and his dithering and indecision with regards to Syria is pathetic and only encourages countries like Russia and Iran to ignore the US completely. He will likely be the President to preside over America's demotion from its long held position of dominant global power and if you ask me it's about time too!

It’s quite obvious that global power brokers China and Russia have very little respect for US power. The Snowden affair, China's de facto complicity in spiriting the whistle blower away to Moscow and Putin's rebuff of an American request to extradite Snowden back to the US, is proof enough of America's new role as second rate power. The country's orator-president may have the gift of gab, but he certainly lacks the diplomatic prowess that previous administrations had in spades and he has proved either unable or unwilling to back up threats with decisive actions.

He is no Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, he isn't even up to par with Bill Clinton. It would seem this great office he holds has proven to be too stressful and taxing for him, so much so that without knowing it he has abdicated America's position in the world. Or maybe I am being too harsh, may be circumstances are different now, maybe America has fewer options than in the past, maybe the French with their advanced aircraft carriers and Rafale fighter jets should take over policing our troublesome corner of the world, supported with a line of unlimited credit from both Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adultery and the western media's attitude towards Dubai

Here we go again... another British woman charged with adultery in Dubai and the whole of the British and UAE press jump all over it as if its the scoop of the season. I wonder what readers think and in particular British readers? Do they feel ashamed that a compatriot is behind bars because she could not control her animal urges? Well they should be, because this is far from a crime she committed against her husband, with whom she exchanged marital vows, it is a crime against the laws of the UAE. It shows a total lack of regard and respect for the traditions of this conservative Muslim country and it is a slap in the face of every Emirati. Why does the press seem compelled to give such people extensive coverage? One hopes to enlighten the British public as to the pitfalls of sleeping around and its legal repercussions, but in truth its all about money, headlines and a public hungry to devour such shameful scandal. The press are complicit with the mob in elevating such individuals, who
Read more

Orosdi-Back: A lost Beyrouth department store from an elegant age

Image
My mother told me it was located on ‘ Banks Street ’ in Down Town Beirut , the road that leads up to Riad el Solh Square . On most maps the street is also named after Riad el Solh. The store was located opposite Bank Intra, or so I was told. Presumably the location of the store was indicative of the high end goodies on sale inside. The closest comparison to Orosdi Back is the old Allied’s department store in Dubai , for those who remember Dubai in the 1980s. But Orosdi Back was a store from a different age, an age of elegance as opposed to the vulgar modern excesses of the nouveau-riche, something Beirut ’s Down Town is synonymous with! A wonderful blog dubbed ‘language hat’ published some information about the founders of this chain of department stores. According to the blog the chain of stores came about as a result of a partnership between Adolf Orosdi, a Hungarian army officer and his sons who opened a clothing store in Galata in 1855, and the Back family, who were Austro-H
Read more

Lebanon searching for deliverance from the wolves of war, chaos and collapse

Image
There is little to do in Lebanon, little paid work to be done, and what work there is, is pointless and poorly paid. Here we live in the hope that we shall eventually be delivered from the monsters, the wolves of our Lebanese government, Cabinet and Parliament and all the power-brokers that manipulate our lives. I once asked a political science professor “why do politicians always wear suits and ties?” He answered jokingly: “so you don’t see their snake’s skin”, I guess if they wore hats it would be so we don’t see their devil’s horns, or is that meant only for men of the cloth…?   Regardless of which political side you ask about our country’s future, the answer would likely be the same, that things are looking bleak and the blame is always laid at the door of the “other side”, because your interlocutor will never make the mistake of accepting that his/her side shares any of the blame for catastrophe. Lebanese society remains highly polarized politically and ideologically. Archaic reli
Read more