Quote:

---

With talks between Israel and the Palestinians in limbo, those in the region are wondering whether the U.S. has lost the necessary muscle to have influence on players across the Middle East.

For the past month, Mideast followers have painfully watched as the U.S. tried to secure an extension of the settlement freeze from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which would keep Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the table and save the recently jump-started peace talks from completely breaking down.

While disappointed, nobody was surprised that Netanyahu didn't extend the freeze, even after President Obama expended serious political capital by calling for the freeze in his speech last month to the United Nations General Assembly.

We've seen this happen several times over the past year. The Obama administration demands a settlement freeze. Netanyahu says no. And the U.S. is forced to plead with Abbas to negotiate anyway, giving in on the position the U.S. laid out in the first place.

Now the U.S. is willing to give all kinds of goodies to Israel for a two-month moratorium on settlements in the hopes that will give the parties time to negotiate a deal on borders before they are back in the same exact place asking for another freeze, including security guarantees, military hardware and support at the United Nations.

It almost reminds you of the Charlie Brown cartoon in which Lucy always pulls away the football when Charlie Brown goes to kick it. Yet he keeps stepping up, hoping this time will be different.

although it came into office hoping to seduce the region rather than fight it, the Obama administration has not delivered on the tantalizing promises it made since taking office, not only to show progress on solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but to encourage democratic reform. These dashed expectations Obama has created in the region are not just disappointing, they are damaging U.S. credibility in the region and have diplomats and Middle East experts scratching their heads about just what Obama's vision for the region is.

"This administration came with good intentions, it came with renewed willingness to deal with the region, and not from a big brother sort of perspective, but through partnership," said Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister now at the Carnegie Endowment. "But President Obama has not translated his Cairo speech and all these good intentions into a coherent program and that is why his credibility among the Arab public has declined."

Part of the problem, diplomats say, is that Obama has yet to form close bonds with any Arab leader. Many diplomats in Washington and abroad lament that between the administration's plethora of special envoys and the various camps within both the White House and the State Department, it's hard to know exactly who is making policy or what the policy is.

"Everything the U.S. has established depends on the formation of a workable government," Iraqi foreign Minister Hoshar Zebari tells me. "The Iraqis have not succeeded and we need help from our friends. And this help is in short supply."

America's inability to play a meaningful role in shaping these troubling events has many diplomats in the Mideast questioning whether the indispensable power in the region is really so indispensable anymore. As one senior Arab diplomat put it, "it's pretty demoralizing."

---

Quote:

---

The right will, of course, fully agree with this, since all the aid we give to Israel is really nothing more than welfare spending, and is contributing to our deficits and debts.

Right?

---