Obama- Kerry take a week to destroy US Middle East policy

Obama- Kerry take a week to destroy US Middle East policy

World Jewish Digest

The United States spent nearly seven decades building a Mideast foreign policy that attempted to limit Russia's influence in the region. President Obama and John Kerry have destroyed all that in a week.

Writing for the National Interest, academics Tom Nichols and John R. Schindler agree the recent decision to allow Syria to avoid attack by acceding to a plan that will supposedly see them give up their chemical weapons is one of the worst foreign policy decisions of the past few decades.

In less than a week, an unguarded utterance by a U.S. Secretary of State has undone those efforts. Not only is Moscow now Washington’s peer in the Middle East, but the United States has effectively outsourced any further management of security problems in the region to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

It will be nearly impossible to move chemical weapons anywhere in the midst of a pitched civil war; moreover, the idea that the Putin regime cares anything for international norms or global citizenship beyond its own crudely defined interests is laughable on its face. By gaining American certification of the most important role Moscow has ever played in the Middle East, Putin has achieved in a week what no Soviet or Russian leader managed to do in a century. There should be little wonder that Putin pressed his advantage with a shameless lecture to America in the pages of The New York Times in one of the most appalling and hypocritical public relations stunts by a Kremlin boss since the Soviet era.