Obama’s Mideast ‘free fall’
Mounting chaos in the region puts the administration on the defensive.
By Michael Crowley
3/26/15 7:40 PM EDT
Barack Obama faces a slew of Middle East crises that some call the worst in a generation, as new chaos from Yemen to Iraq — along with deteriorating U.S.-Israeli relations — is confounding the president’s efforts to stabilize the region and strike a nuclear deal with Iran.
The meltdown has Obama officials defending their management of a region that some call impossible to control, even as critics say U.S. policies there are partly to blame for the spreading anarchy.
“If there’s one lesson this administration has learned, from President Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech through the Arab Spring, it’s that when it comes to this region, nothing happens in a linear way — and precious little is actually about us, which is a hard reality to accept,” said a senior State Department official.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/barack-obama-yemen-isil-middle-east-116440.html#ixzz3Vb3ssOFB