President Obama and the assholes

Attention assholes of the world:

President Obama is not responsible for us being such assholes. We are.

Obama's Worldwide Star Power Finds Limits

"Obama began building expectations for peace in the Middle East in the first months of his presidency and raised hopes even higher with a June speech in Cairo in which he pledged that he could make things happen.

He asked Israel to ease its embargo of the Gaza Strip and freeze construction in West Bank settlements. He asked the Arab states to take steps toward 'normalization' of ties with Israel. He made restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks a top priority, announced plans to repair relations with Syria and said he would engage, rather than confront, Iran.

On Saturday, the White House announced that Obama plans to hold a three-way meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in New York on Tuesday. It will be the first meeting between the two since Netanyahu took office.

'It is another sign of the president's deep commitment to comprehensive peace that he wants to personally engage at this juncture,' special envoy George J. Mitchell said.

But progress has been slow, and the frustration has built on all sides -- among Israeli officials upset that he focused public demands on them; among Arabs, especially Palestinians, over his inability to wrest concessions from Israel; among human rights activists who say his idealism has not been borne out in action.

'I think there has been too little appreciation of realities and too much well-intentioned belief in the power of rhetoric and goodwill,' said Mark Heller, principal research associate at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Rice countered that Obama has made 'significant progress on a wide array of issues' relating to the Middle East peace process, which she noted has been a difficult problem for 'every prior administration.'

But White House officials said they do not expect an agreement on settlements to be announced at the three-way meeting next week. The Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip has said that Mitchell's inability to negotiate that agreement with Israel proves Obama's shortcomings.

It is 'proof of the failure of the Obama administration in helping the Palestinian people,' Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement, reflecting a broad skepticism among Arabs about whether Obama's overture to the Muslim world would make a difference on the ground.

Israeli officials, meanwhile, have also expressed concern that his policy of engagement toward Iran is allowing too much time to pass without any steps to slow Tehran's nuclear program. Israel and other nations say they suspect that Iran is intent on building a weapon; Iran says its program is peaceful.

The United States has agreed to hold discussions with Iran and several other countries on Oct. 1, prompting fears in Israel and among critics of the administration that delay will inevitably result.

'It is not just here that the administration is starting to be mugged by reality,' Heller said. 'They used nice words and tried to engage . . . In the meantime, the scorecard on North Korea is not much better. On [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chávez it is not much better. We don't see reforms pushed in Cuba.'

'Process of Disappointment'

Writing recently in Le Figaro, one of France's leading daily newspapers, Pierre Rousselin, one of the paper's top editors, offered an assessment that might still be considered heresy in Europe: 'Barack Obama is not the Messiah.'

Obama's political struggles at home and his performance internationally have led some observers abroad to remark that a charismatic leader who seemed to be walking on water last year is only human, subject to the same bruising political battles as everybody else.

Several have noted that his effort to cultivate better relations with Russia has not produced concrete help from Moscow in the confrontation with Iran and that -- so far -- Israel has stiff-armed his plea for an end to Jewish settlements.

Obama has made good on his promises to begin winding down the Iraq war and to take steps to close Guantanamo. But at the same time, he has ramped up U.S. fighting in Afghanistan, a sore point with many Europeans and a difficult political issue for Obama's counterparts around the world. And despite shifting U.S. policy on climate change, the president is unlikely to see a global climate-change agreement materialize at the summit in Copenhagen later this year.

U.S. officials point to their success in getting Russia and China to back stiff new sanctions on North Korea as evidence of their success on the world stage.

The real test of attitudes in European capitals is likely to emerge in coming months, experts there say, particularly if Obama fails to make headway on his main foreign policy objectives or if the war in Afghanistan causes an unacceptable casualty rate among European soldiers attached to NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

'There's definitely going to be a process of disappointment that goes on internationally because U.S. interests are much more constant than many people recognize,' said David Bosco, a professor of international politics at American University and the author of a new book about the U.N. Security Council. 'But he remains quite popular abroad, and foreign leaders know that.'

Surveys consistently show that Obama remains popular among people throughout Europe. A new poll by the German Marshall Fund put his approval rate at 77 percent across Europe and at 92 percent in Germany.

'I'm not criticizing the previous administration, because they were equally motivated, but I think the view [of other governments] was that by cooperating too closely with the Americans at that time tainted them,' said one senior Obama official. 'So I feel there is a greater receptivity now to engage the United States because of some of the decisions made by President Obama.'

In Latin America, the aftermath of the coup in Honduras in June has prompted criticism of Obama's policies. Although the administration condemned the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya and said it would not recognize the government that took power, it has been unable to restore him to power.

Obama's election was welcomed by some of South America's most influential leaders, among them Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. But as in other corners of the world, the initial warm relations have cooled as the United States has pursued a Bush-era policy that consolidates the U.S. military presence in Colombia, Washington's closest ally on the continent.

A Spotlight in New York

In his speech to the General Assembly on Wednesday, Obama will lay out 'his view of international cooperation in the 21st century and the need to move beyond old divisions,' Rice told reporters Friday.

Rice's predecessor, John Bolton, predicted that 'the greeting will be rapturous' for the new U.S. president. 'It's a triumph for Obama personally, but I have yet to see his personal popularity translate into concrete steps forward,' Bolton said.

Despite the warm greeting, the media's attention -- and as a result, the world's -- may be riveted on others.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will be speaking shortly after Obama. In a preview of his speech Friday morning, Ahmadinejad told an anti-Israel rally in Tehran that the Holocaust was 'a false pretext to create Israel' and said confronting the regime is a 'national and religious duty.'

That kind of rhetoric will put the spotlight squarely on Obama's policy of engagement and the upcoming talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Istanbul.

'I don't think there's much likelihood that there will be an interaction' between the two leaders, Rice said. 'There's no obvious venue in which that would occur, and certainly we have no meetings or anything of the sort planned.'

A day later, Obama will chair a meeting of the 15-member Security Council, where Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi , who gave a hero's welcome to the Lockerbie bomber, will be in attendance. An interaction between the two in the small council chambers could be awkward.

Gelb, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, predicted that Obama's visit to the United Nations will be welcomed by most of the world's leaders.

'Most of them want him to succeed,' Gelb said. 'Now they are looking for him to put up the goods.'"

If President Obama invites assholes who kill each other's civilian populations for better land deals to a peace conference and they decide to walk away so they can go kill more civilians to quench their bitterness and their lust for land and power, he is not responsible for those assholes warring on each others' populations. He can lead a horse to water, but he can't make them drink if they are intent on staring at their own ding-a-lings or more interested in making each other eat shit.

You know who is responsible for a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians? Israelis and Palestinians. And they want to keep dying and killing one another out of their bitterness and endless and hopeless quest for revenge, so fucking be it. Die motherfuckers. Until you can get straight that a peace deal with two independent states that do not shoot at one another and that can learn to share access to places of worship, water, and every other shared resource in the region that will need active coooperation for a peace deal to work.

You can't find it in your teeny-tiny little hearts to move forward and put that ugly, brutal past behind you and sign a reasonable and fair peace deal between future neighbors rather than hostile enemies.

Then keep dying. And America and Barack Obama are not responsible for your murderous and self-centered ways. You are. And the bodies will keep piling up until you face that fact.

Who is responsible for the coup in Honduras? The people who authorized that coup - the Honduran Supreme Court, namely - and the Honduran military who carried it out. And who is responsible for more honest democratic commitments there? The people of Honduras. We'll do what we can do to help. But if you want to be a banana republic and pretend like it's all good and "within the rule of law," so be it. And live with the consequences. But don't pretend it's really democratic or that Barack Obama is at fault for your backwards ways. You are responsible for your country. Or so everyone keeps telling Americans they want to be the case. When they don't want us around, that is.

Who is responsible for Cuba maintaining as a Communist backwater in a hemisphere where free market economies are taking off like hotcakes? Fidel Castro. And the Cubans and leftists everywhere who support this cocksucking, thuggish regime. President Obama might decide, with his limited time, energies, and priorities, to try to end what I, and I would imagine he might agree, is a foolish and counterproductive embargo that clearly undermines our efforts to help free the Cuban people. But if he doesn't, because he's kinda busy, if you didn't notice, Cubans are responsible for their own fate. We'll do what we can to help.

Who is responsible for the situation in Afghanistan, fundamentally? The Afghanis. We might help if they want it (if Americans don't give up on the effort, altogether). But, if they don't, we'll pack up and let them deal with their own mess, gladly. Less Americans dying is alright by me. Unless it will do some good. And that can only happen if Afghanis know that they, when it comes down to it, are responsible for their democracy and their fate.

Who is responsible for climate change? All of us. Which is why those of us who are skeptical of catastrophic scenarios need a more thorough debate and discussion about what efforts might look like, how urgent it might or might not be, and what can be done to get everyone genuinely on board, assuming the need for behavior change, rather than this dance of trying to compel their will and people fighting those efforts every step along the way. Especially when there might be good reason for them to be skeptical. Which I think there is, at least for the impacts of what looks like fairly modest warming.

I do not want hostile, swaggering, irrational states to have nuclear weapons. But that describes just about every state that has one (though clearly America and European countries are more trustworthy with them; especially as it concerns my own personal interests). Iran and North Korea, the former being a democracy, of sorts, are tricky because they do have a right to a reasonable self-defense. And the more we threaten and coerce them, the more ambitious they have become in their nuclear pursuit. Engagement would be a better route to a more honest discussion and some reassurance that we are not intending military force on their regimes, even as we are disgusted by their governments and their lust for power and its consequences for their people. If we are intent on using military force, it is perfectly rational on their part to pursue weapons to defend themselves. Hence, the need to stop threatening such. If we don't want more of the same, that is. And that policy, of threats and sanctions, if you notice, has resulted in a big doughnut hole in terms of a lesser likelihood of them chasing and developing nuclear weapons.

When we're being honest, that is.

And that really is the problem.

In all this flurry of power and its pursuit, what all the assholes in the world have in common is that the more they want the power, the less honest they become. About their failures. And about the failure of being an asshole making things better, in general. Anywhere. At all. Ever. Strength has its place. But abusing power is the most common and reliable impulse when people romaticize its use.

That's what Lord Acton meant. And he was right. No matter how soft you might think that makes him. Because he did not magically make you stop being an asshole. Which only makes sense since the only person who can make you stop being an an asshole is you. The best everyone else can do is contain you, and even that has its limits, for a short time until you get that figured out.

But it is people getting that figured out for themselves and people and peoples getting figured out that they are responsible for their own destiny that is the only real way forward.

Barack Obama never claimed to be the messiah. And he's not here to be crucified while we drop the ball in our own responsibility in our own messes.

If we want the world to be less violent, have less conflict, be more peaceful, decent, prosperous, free and the like, we've got to learn to stop being such assholes.

And there is precious little that Barack Obama or anyone can do about that.

Except ourselves.