Over Dosing on the Obama Doctrine

By William L. Garvin

In the Hall of Fame pantheon of “Gotcha Journalism” hangs a picture of Charlie Gibson. In this picture, Perfessor Charlie looks down his recently affected half-glasses across his perfectly creased pants. Then in a tone-perfect voice dripping with professional condescension, he tauntingly asks for an opinion on the meaning and interpretation of the “Bush Doctrine.”This term was virtually never used during the Bush administration and has several different meanings depending on who happens to be the pontificating political pundit. Recent events would make one wonder how the oh-so-learned pseudo-prof would define the “Obama Doctrine.”

Last Saturday, the newspaper’s huge headlines declared “Egypt is free.” In the story’s opening statement, the Tribune’s Washington Bureau declared “The Obama administration got what it wanted when Hosni Mubarak surrendered power.” Curiously, only a week before, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hit all five morning news shows to indicate the administration was not encouraging Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to resign. “Clearly, what we don’t want is this chaos,” Mrs. Clinton said. Then she added that Mubarak had been an “important partner.” Quickly the administration sent the Secretary into exile and trotted out Senator John Kerry for damage control. Apparently the President felt that the State Department “made it look as if the administration were protecting a dictator and ignoring the pleas of the youths of Cairo.”

Of course, that is exactly what the Obama administration did in 2009 when the youth of Tehran took to the streets to protest the tainted election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the tyranny of the Iranian mullahs. "As the President has said, we're not going to be used as political foils and political footballs in a debate that's happening by Iranians in Iran," intoned White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. So the Administration clucked its collective tongue, tsk tsk’d into the teleprompter, and imposed another round of useless sanctions.

Today’s Iranian youth, inspired by Egypt and Tunisia, have called for another day of protest but of course, their permit request was denied. “The conspirators are nothing but corpses,” said Hossein Hamadani, a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. “Any incitement will be dealt with severely.” We will probably have more cluck clucking, tsk tsking, furrowed brows and the President will once again declare himself “deeply troubled.”

Furthermore, where does the Obama Doctrine stand on the protesters in Yemen being clubbed by police for demanding that President Saleh relinquish power? Where does the OD stand on the Tunisian revolution and their upcoming elections? Will they opt for supporting democratic reforms or political stability? What is the OD protocol for the riot police arresting and quashing thousands of protestors in Algeria? What about the continuing issues in Turkey and Pakistan? What about the Bahraini police firing canisters of tear gas into the student crowds?

The OD is not restricted to the Middle East. Let’s not forget that the Obama Doctrine has released information about Great Britain’s nuclear capabilities to the Russians. The President had asked Great Britain to release this information in 2009 and they declined. President Obama then unilaterally disclosed it in order to gain Russian support for his START treaty. The OD not only gave away the store but simultaneously betrayed our staunchest ally. This came as no surprise to the Czech Republic and Poland as they had already experienced the OD first hand. When President Obama said he “wanted to press the reset button on relations between the United States and Russia," no one knew he would throw the missile defense systems of both eastern Europe and the United States under the bus.

History records that in the Palestinian elections, Hamas was selected as the ruling party…an anti-American, anti-Israel offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. It has a military as well as a political wing and is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and of course Israel. By all accounts, the Muslim Brotherhood is the most well organized of the opposition groups in Egypt. If elected, they could well repudiate the Camp David Accord with Israel.
Since the Obama Doctrine has no problem abrogating treaties agreed to by prior administrations, he will have a kindred soul if the new Egypt chooses to follow his example. It increasingly looks as if the Obama Doctrine boils down to rank amateurs naively playing a game of checkers in a dangerous world of chess.