Dylith, Iraq, Kurdistan, and so forth

[umair127]

You're seeming to want to conflate uncontrollable circumstance with allowing situations to develop.

I find this a bit unfair and one sided. The situation in Sudan was "uncontrollable" but even larger and more massive protests and military intervention in Egypt was supposed to be controllable? Nimiery wasn't ousted because of the civil war, the military took over because of northern political pressure and popular unrest (once again not the unrest in South Sudan or Darfur). You seem to be under the idea that we had any real control over whether or not regime change would occur in Egypt without ever stating why you think that. We verbally encouraged democratic reform which was the same thing that Reagan did in Sudan. What would you have had us do? Deploy troops and gun down the protestors? hyperbole to be sure, but I don't understand how you see the US as having possibly prevented regime change in Egypt. The very notion seems to rather ignore what was happening internally in Egypt. Likewise, if you notice I've never given President Obama credit for the regime change in Tunisia, or Yemen, and that's because we didn't do it. Just like we didn't do it in Egypt.

[umair127]

I wasn't particularly saying that the US would do everything in it's power to keep any dictator in control, because the individual dictators are of little consequence. One of the differences in Egypt was disinterest in supporting Mubarak even a little, and not trying to push another dictator in behind.

The Muslim Brotherhood was always going to take over should the government be opened up democratically. Everyone knew this and we knew that the fall of Mubarak meant the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. There was little that could be done in that case. Not sure what dictator you expected us to try to prop up in Mubarak's place nor how you expected President Obama to accomplish such a thing. Even when the army broke electoral law to try to prevent Morsi from winning, he still won. Even when the army tried to prevent popular Muslim Brotherhood candidates from running (in clear violation of the principles of democracy) the Brotherhood still came out on top. The Muslim Brotherhood didn't win through clean elections, they won despite dirty play from the military. Not sure what else you would have expected us to do that the Army itself didn't do?

[zolace]

Unless you're indicating that Obama structured the Muslim Brotherhood to fail so that another military dictator could waltz in a year or so later in a coup with American support.

Just like everyone knew that the Muslim Brotherhood would come to power, it was always likely that their first term would be a heavily unpopular one paving the way for the military to exert more influence. It was inevitable given the dual difficulties of a shattered tourism industry over the protests and unrest, and the simultaneous rising in basic commodity prices due to the global economic recovery (to say nothing of the difficulties of forming a new constitution). Can't say that I expected an outright coup, but I doubt the administration was too surprised by it.

[umair127]

I should also point out I think it will be very chaotic if the infighting in the House of Saud starts while Obama is still in power. Perhaps it's bias, but I don't think he has a game plan to take advantage of events to edge towards an outcome most beneficial to the US. No one could guarantee one, of course.

How much influence do you think ANY US president would have in an internal struggle among the Al Sauds and the internal religious institutions? Do you honestly think that we'll really have any significant say in the end there regardless of who is in office? Our public backing of any individual candidate in Saudi Arabia is more likely to hurt them domestically than help them. In order to come out on top, any Prince in likely going to need to court the religious institutions and being a friend of the US isn't likely to help with that.

[noviapriani]

I should also point out I think it will be very chaotic if the infighting in the House of Saud starts while Obama is still in power. Perhaps it's bias, but I don't think he has a game plan to take advantage of events to edge towards an outcome most beneficial to the US. No one could guarantee one, of course.

How much influence do you think ANY US president would have in an internal struggle among the Al Sauds and the internal religious institutions? Do you honestly think that we'll really have any significant say in the end there regardless of who is in office? Our public backing of any individual candidate in Saudi Arabia is more likely to hurt them domestically than help them. In order to come out on top, any Prince in likely going to need to court the religious institutions and being a friend of the US isn't likely to help with that.

This is an interesting response, and telling in a way.

You're asking me how much "say" the US will have. The answer if Obama is president is virtually none, because I doubt he has any plans. However, like or hate him, Bush would have had plans. And they would be based on the interests of the current leaders, simply because he did have a relationship there. Is that a guarantee of anything? Of course not. But he would have had an opportunity. Which is about all you can have, non militarily.

Now I'm confident we both know that a direct endorsement of any candidate would backfire. But that is the same in any country. If Israel directly endorsed any candidate, it would probably destroy their chances. If any other country did, it would have the same result. That's elementary and pointless to even mention, so I'm surprised you mentioned it. I find it telling in the sense that the likely reason you did is that you believe Obama to be unprepared for it also.

[umair127]

I commented on it thusly because I found the notion that we will have any sort of significant sway in Saudi Arabia's internal political struggle (regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office) a bit surprising.

What sort of plan do you see a president as having? Can you give me a general concept? Clandestine activity of some sort?

It also isn't necessarily the duty of the President to come up with a fine detail plan for something like that anyway. So I'm not sure what you mean by "he doesn't have a plan". I'm sure that the DoD has several 'plans' on file or in the works and has for years. That's actually one of the things that made Bush so horrible with foreign policy is that he often "shot from the hip." Working with and trusting your bureaucrats and specialists is pretty important for things like this.

[Dylith]

I didn't realize that my work was so inspiring that it was worthy of mimicry on such scale.

[ivonna]

I should also point out I think it will be very chaotic if the infighting in the House of Saud starts while Obama is still in power. Perhaps it's bias, but I don't think he has a game plan to take advantage of events to edge towards an outcome most beneficial to the US. No one could guarantee one, of course.

How much influence do you think ANY US president would have in an internal struggle among the Al Sauds and the internal religious institutions? Do you honestly think that we'll really have any significant say in the end there regardless of who is in office? Our public backing of any individual candidate in Saudi Arabia is more likely to hurt them domestically than help them. In order to come out on top, any Prince in likely going to need to court the religious institutions and being a friend of the US isn't likely to help with that.

I think the us would have say in any international conflict if the us were to not be afraid to carry its "big stick" instead of leading from behind.

[Dylith]

I think the us would have say in any international conflict if the us were to not be afraid to carry its "big stick" instead of leading from behind.

Sorry to disappoint, but none of the posters in this thread are human, they are computer bots.