Obama to the Middle East: Extremism is your fight, too
Colum Lynch,
in Foreign Policy: “Expectations for President Obama’s U.N. speech . . . could not have been lower. Entering the last leg of his presidential re-election campaign, pundits predicted a speech aimed directly at the American electorate: He would denounce Iran, denounce Syria, uphold American commitments to Israel’s security and head straight for the door. The president did indeed high-tail it after the speech. But he left behind one of his most affecting speeches on America’s relations with the Arab world since Cairo, and it was targeted directly at the world leaders sitting in the U.N. General Assembly audience. . . . The broader point of Obama’s speech was to drive home the message that the region’s new Islamic leaders, including Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, must move more assertively to stem the tide of extremism or see it swallow up their achievements.”
Robert Dreyfuss,
in The Nation: “Aside from stirring but hollow rhetoric about democracy and people’s ‘ freedom to determine their destiny,’ Obama’s speech to the United Nations fell flat. It failed to outline a single significant initiative. He presented no vision of what he intends in foreign affairs. He didn’t mention China (or) Russia at all, even to seek its explicit cooperation in resolving the wars and crises in Syria, Iran and Afghanistan.”
Elliott Abrams,
on Pressure Points: “I cannot recall an occasion when a president went to speak at the General Assembly and simply refused to meet anyone. Perhaps this is the product of Obama’s fight with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, for having refused a meeting with him. Obama must now pretend (for obvious political reasons) that it isn’t personal and he simply has no time for these unimportant personal meetings. So dozens of foreign leaders . . . are in New York, have serious things to say to us, want to hear about our policies and will not be able to see the president.”
William Kristol,
in The Weekly Standard: “Obama’s address at the United Nations was at times eloquently aspirational, and for the most part conventionally unobjectionable. But there was one sentence that gave away the fundamental lack of serious- ness of the Obama worldview: ‘We have begun a transition in Afghanistan, and America and our allies will end our war on schedule in 2014.’ Really? Isn’t this statement almost a parody of wishful liberalism? Do we get to end our wars on schedule? It would of course be nice if the world allowed us to fight and end wars on schedule. But wishing doesn’t make it so. Reality doesn’t operate on our preferred schedule.”
Andrew Rosenthal,
in The New York Times: “Today was foreign policy day on the campaign trail, as President Obama addressed both the United Nations General Assembly and the Clinton Global Initiative, and Mitt Romney addressed the latter group. . . . The Romney campaign likes to say that Obama projects weakness to hostile foreign powers, a claim it’s emphasized since the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens (in Benghazi, Libya). . . . So I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, at the United Nations, Obama vigorously defended free speech rights. He denounced the stupid anti-Muslim video that sparked riots in some Muslim countries, and then denounced the violence that grew out of the video in strong terms. ‘There is no speech that justifies mindless violence,’ he said. ‘There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There’s no video that justifies an attack on an embassy.’ ”