This blog post was published on May 31 2010. §
Arab views on Obama’s “National Security Strategy”: Nothing changed
Contrary to the U.S. PR reports saying that Arabs are happy with Obama’s NSS, abolishing ‘war on terror’, focusing on Al-Qaeda. The reality is that Arabs see no change in this strategy, and here are the evidence:
Here is a well known writer Nicola Nasser:
Obama’s “National Security Strategy” published by the White House last week, is just a legal entitlement to the U.S. Congress required by each new administration and its president, a “non-binding” document … A new chapter of a media PR campaign launched by this administration to improve the image of the United States as part of psychological warfare to cover the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to increase its military buildup in the region to support the U.S. war effort in the major combat arenas.
Hassan Al-Barari, summoned “Al Qaeda in U.S. national security strategy”:
In short, the United States’ policy even before the new strategic policy is to isolate Al-Qaeda through the engagement with the Muslim world on the basis of mutual respect and diplomacy rather than unilateral, one-way (militarism). But Washington failed to understand until now that the deprivation of extremist organizations from their ability to recruit more volunteers come if the U.S. changes its policies and contributed to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
This is Al-Khaleej Op-ed:
What is different between Obama policy in his new strategy from George Bush strategy, are two things: 1– separation between terrorism and Islam, 2– giving up of pre-emption and unilateral wars.
But in terms of content and objectives, both policies meet each others, especially in the issues of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the first, the war is expanding and getting fiercer, and in the second, the partial withdrawal does not mean that Iraq will become free, but will remain under occupation, which will hide in its military bases, although in smaller numbers, but the occupation will continue to monitor and protect the oil fields.
This is Jordanian Al-Rai “The new U.S. strategy .. nothing new”:
Changing the terms in Obama’s new strategy means that Al-Qaeda won its war against the U.S., and has succeeded in getting the U.S. into the region from Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Pakistan, and now Yemen, and the day after Somalia.
Now, another success for Al-Qaeda by forcing the Washington to declare publicly that there is no enemy in this universe other than Al-Qaeda, and the new military strategy in the region is unethical, a secret war of murders and assassinations.