Has Obama missed a freedom agenda in the Middle East?
Peter Robinson's interview with Charles Hill and Fouad Ajami on the latest edition of Uncommon Knowledge is worth your viewing for a number of reasons, but particularly for a line of argument on the Arab Spring interesting, particularly around the 5 minute mark:
Robinson: But what happens next?Hill: It's going to hell. Because primarily, frankly, the United States has stepped back from its support of freedom and democracy... The speech of the president on the Arab Spring, that climaxed with the question of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, it turned the whole narrative back to 1975 when there's a new narrative that didn't say "Death to America" or "All that matters is the Palestinians", it was an entirely new freedom agenda that we have just stepped away from.
Hill's focus leads to a comment by Robinson on a missed opportunity for a genuine reset of relations with the Arab world. This is intriguing, and it will almost certainly be included in any general election campaign from the right as a criticism of Obama's response to the Arab Spring and the campaign in Libya. Whether it has any sticking power will likely depend on the continuation of world events in Egypt and the political success of the Muslim Brotherhood there.
