What citizens of other countries are reading about the Middle East.
By COMPILEDTHE MEDIA LINEUS vice president Joe Biden talks with US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power.(photo credit: REUTERS)Biden is yelling what Obama is whisperingAl-Nahar, Lebanon, October 10The Islamic State’s battle over Kobani, criticism of US Vice President Joe Biden against America’s allies in the Gulf and in Turkey, and harsh words by former secretary of defense Leon Panetta regarding US President Barack Obama’s performance – all have one thing in common: they highlight his problematic leadership, which shows excessive caution and hesitation in decision- making. Obama is suspicious of his own allies, afraid to follow clear strategies and quick to place blame on others. The battle for Kobani clearly shows how the president’s “minimum intervention” policy is only designed to stop the spread of Islamic State, and not defeat it. Biden’s remarks, despite being legitimate and valid, represent what Obama is not saying out loud: The White House is skeptical of its allies, and does not really care about the crimes committed by President Bashar Assad in Syria or the current battle in Kobani. It only cares about being cautious and careful.What Biden did not reveal about Obama, Panetta did: The president’s reluctance to help the Syrian opposition at an earlier point in time, alongside his unsteady stance on the Syrian crisis, sent the wrong message to the world. Obama is afraid and indecisive.Washington needs to decide: Iran or us!Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, October 9Three years ago, Islamic State was a small band of a few dozen wolves. Today, it is a herd of about 30,000 fighters – becoming ever more popular and appealing to Muslims around the world. If Americans understand this simple reality, they will realize how to address the grave situation in Iraq and in Syria; but if they continue dealing with this issue with ignorance, it will be impossible to win the war against extremism– no matter what military efforts are undertaken. Currently, Washington rejects the idea of a protected area for Syrian refugees, where they can be housed after fleeing from their brutal regime. Consequently, millions of desperate Syrians are forced to stay in the country, fed as prey to Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusrah, who promise the helpless people a better future. It is easy for Islamic State to recruit the thousands of fleeing refugees, when the latter are convinced that the Western alliance is not there to protect them. In their eyes, Islamic State has “only” killed a few thousand people, while Assad’s regime has murdered nearly a quarter of a million innocents by now. If the American government fails to realize that Islamic State is a direct product of the chaos, emptiness and weakness of the central authority in Damascus, things will only get worse and terror groups will continue to exploit the situation. The White House, instead, discusses the possibility of cooperating with Iran in this fight – a country whose Revolutionary Guards directly contributed to the turmoil in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. It is time to tell the American government to choose between them and us. They can walk hand in hand with the Iranians, but we will remain standing on the side, knowing the miserable and destructive results. Washington needs to decide: Is it Iran, or is it us?A dangerous article in ‘The New York Times’Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt, October 6Last Sunday, The New York Times – perhaps the most important newspaper in the world, with the strongest influence on American decision-makers – published a column written by no other than its editorial board, regarding America’s foreign aid to Egypt. The piece accuses Obama of his inability to reduce military aid to Egypt, following his declaration of the July 2013 uprising as “a coup d’état” carried out by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The paper failed to mention anything about the Muslim Brotherhood, and its terrorizing of citizens on the streets or its electoral fraud, but rather chooses to accuse the Egyptian army of using American tanks to kill innocent civilians. It calls for the secretary of state to end the delivery of arms to Egypt, and to end the existing approach, which prioritizes aid to Egypt and Israel. We must say this clearly: Egypt has to defend itself from terror attacks, it must protect its sovereign borders and it will not tolerate any undermining of its democratic process. This Times article is very worrying, and we must carefully monitor what happens in Washington – but we should also remind ourselves that we are not here to appease America. We are here to be respected citizens of a respectful state.Nobel Peace Prize and the rights of children – a Forgotten TragedyAl-Quds Al-Arabi, London, October 10 The announcement designating Pakistani social activist Malala Yousafzai and Indian human rights activist Kailash Satyarthi as recipients of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize gained wide international coverage this week. Despite competing with a large pool of nominees such as the pope, Edward Snowden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the two activists were selected to share the celebrated prize and $1 million gift. More important than their actual trophy, their win sheds light on an issue almost completely forgotten and overlooked: children being deprived of education, forcibly recruited into militaries and exposed to violence. This victory confirms the reports of human rights organizations that warned for years of hundreds of children forced to engage in armed conflicts around the globe, many of which take place in the Arab world: in Islamic State territory, South Sudan, Yemen and Somalia. These children are sent to fight, spy, lay mines and work as servants; girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse. In Gaza, schoolchildren have still not recovered from the recent Israeli aggression, which deprived them of their innocence. In Egypt, more than 2 million children are homeless. In a world as developed as ours, with technology at its forefront, it is important to force ourselves to stop and think of the things we take for granted. Child abuse should be eliminated from our world, and we should not remain silent.
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