Obama: Reversing Course and Going Nowhere Fast

By Alan Caruba

It is standard procedure in Washington, D.C. for a new administration to reverse course on many of the initiatives of the previous administration, particularly if it represents the other political party. After eight years of the Bush administration, one might reasonably expect the Obama administration to change direction.

The great irony for President Obama is, after two years of proclaiming he was going to pull troops out of Iraq, declaring it a bad war, he inherited an Iraq that peacefully conducted its second national election for someone other than the dictator, Saddam Hussein. Thank you, George W. Bush.

At a recent press conference, the general in charge over there rather bluntly said that he expected U.S. troops to remain for at least two, maybe three, or more years. If history is any indication, after we invade a nation, we tend to stay around for a couple of decades.

So, poor Obama has to do something and that something is to transfer troops from Iraq to the world’s worst place to fight a war, Afghanistan. Ask the Russians. They had 100,000 troops there at one point, suffered 14,000 casualties, and watched their government collapse after they pulled out.

The Obama administration has reversed course in another way that can do nothing but tarnish America’s reputation. It intends to send a U.S. delegation to the upcoming United Nations Durban Review Conference in April. The last Durban Conference on Racism resulted in the U.S. delegation leaving rather than be a party to the appalling attacks on Israel in particular and Jews in general.

The first Durban conference managed to ignore problems in Sudan’s Darfur section or any of the many other incidences of racial and religious bigotry in the world. It was an Islamic wet dream.

The obscenity called the United Nations is working toward a second such conference. Recently a meeting was held in London attended by more than 35 countries to discuss what to do about the platform for Islamic hatred of everything and everyone who is not Islamic, but mostly about hating Jews.

The London meeting issued a declaration saying that the nations in attendance “must not be witness or party to another gathering like Durban in 2001.” The U.K. Foreign Office sponsored the meeting because there is the very real possibility that Durban II will try to impose restrictions on freedom of speech involving any criticism of Islam.

The Bush administration deliberately did not participate in the preparations for Durban II.
To date, only Canada and Israel have formally announced that they will not participate. The United States should, if it had a shred of dignity and respect for its most fundamental creeds, join these two nations, but no, it is sending a delegation.

The conference preparations have been going on since 2006. There is nothing the U.S. delegation can accomplish at the last moment except to lend legitimacy to the process and weaken the resolve of some Western nations to avoid attending.

Gregg Rickman, formerly with the Bush administration as its special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, denounced the Obama decision. “How can the United States possibly be a part of this insanity?” he asked. “If we join this charade, we extend this dishonor through our presence, sullying ourselves in the process.”

How, indeed? Given that this President has made a series of moves to demonstrate his solidarity with Palestinians—at least the farcical Fatah Party—and chose Al-Arabia as the first news organization to grant an interview, a pattern has emerged that suggests a strong tilt toward Islamic interests.

I am sure this must have pleased Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya that chairs Durban II and even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran that serves as vice chair. Not pillars of tolerance, you say?

So far Barack Hussein Obama’s administration is reversing course and going nowhere fast; at least nowhere some 35 other nations want to go.