re: "You're Still a Superpower"

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Does that take away from the merits of the opinion or something?

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Absolutely.

The Middle East is a land made up of artificial borders governed by tyrants who stay in power thanks to the patronage of superpowers who desire a stable tap for the natural resources therein. The US is their last major patron. The Arab Spring scared the crap out of them because it showed that, at a minimum, the US was willing to stand aside and let a tyrant be overthrown (Egypt) and at a maximum, tip the scales against them (Libya), even when such a roll of the dice might come up snake eyes (aka Islamists). They can also see the future, where as NA shale oil makes more and more economic sense, and their reserves are increasingly either tapped or less economical, the US starts becoming disinclined to give a shite about that part of the world.

Therefore they have a vested interest in keeping the US engaged and propping up their horses. They want us convinced that the Islamists hate us for our freedom, not for our interference, and convinced that if we disengage, it will be catastrophe for us, and not for them. Similarly, they have a vested interest in pitting the Islamists against the Great Satan (you should hear what they say about us in Arabic), and not against their own crappy regimes. This is a strategy Saudi Arabia has worked to perfection for decades, as demonstrated by a cursory look at the passports of the 9/11 hijackers, their conspicuous absence from the list of countries we have intervened in afterwards, and the part of the commission report which states [REDACTED].

When I hear Middle Eastern diplomats kvetching about how America is blowing it, all I hear is tinpots asking for national security bailouts. When I hear bureaucrats whose chief complaint about Obama's policy is "he's not doing enough stuff," I only wish the rest of his Presidency featured the same complaints. (The stuff about centralization is a procedural red herring: the underlying, substantive complaint is that Obama isn't Obombing enough.)