Posted by
ApolloSpeaks on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 1:55:01 PM
In defending his guarded praise of Obama's Moslem outreach speech in Cairo, David Horowitz writes:
"What the speech did was say, the American way of tolerance, democracy, equality of women and religious freedom is the way of the future. Embrace it and we will support you. That was the Bush line that the Democrats hated before their man entered the White House."
That was the Bush line, and it was refreshing to hear. But Barack Obama is no George W. Bush. Bush's passion, commitment, energy and idealism for spreading democracy in the Middle East and the world is terribly lacking in Obama. While Obama in his speech said that "the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam" (and that too was refreshing to hear), he nevertheless still opposes the Iraq War and apologizes for it everywhere believing it was a huge and costly mistake. As US-Moslem relations was the centerpiece of Obama's speech, and improving those relations is the core of his foreign policy, knowing what he knows today Obama would never have ordered the Iraq invasion and the toppling of Saddam. Why? Because a Shia dominated democracy in Iraq wasn't worth the damage it caused to US-Sunni relations-which for Obama has more weight, value and importance for US strategic interests than the spread of democracy in the region.
The Iraq War was a preemptive war of necessity for ridding the world of a monster; a pan-Arab imperialist who was a major training, funding and arming source for deadly, murdering jihadist thugs; who wouldn't have stopped until he became the Joseph Stalin of the Middle East armed with nuclear bombs and dominated its oil wealth.
The Iraqi people aren't the only ones who benefited from the Iraq War and Saddam's fall; thanks to George W. Bush the entire region and world, whether they acknowledge it or not, are better off for the reasons stated above. But don't waste your breath trying to convince Obama of that. If Obama had the power to turn back the clock he would not have invaded Iraq and left Saddam in power believing, as he said in 2002, "that Saddam could have been contained," a ridiculous notion given the prior collapse of the containment regime-the UN Oil for Food Program.
In short, if Obama had won the 2000 presidential race Saddam Hussein, the terror king of Baghdad, would still be ruling Iraq and possibly menacing the reagion and world with nukes, a North Korea raised to the 3rd degree of evil and danger.
As for Obama's speech it was based on the false premise that the clash between Islam, America and the West derives from misunderstanding, misperception and the misconduct of the US-mistakes and errors capable of atonement and resolution through diplomacy, negotiations, the appeasement of grievances and apologies for past wrongs (including the Iraq War). This wrongheaded approach, with the president taking the cowardly position of moral neutrality in a war of good verses evil, of democracy, progress, prosperity and hope verses tyranny, regression, destitution and despair, is a catastrophe in the making; a catastrophe from which, God willing, much good will come as it luckily did from the blunders of Jimmy Carter.