I Thought President Obama Did Something Right...... I Was Wrong! Look deeper into his speech, and you know what you'll find?......

That would be useless rhetoric, and a big helping of BULLSHIT.

Some excerpts for this story are taken from an article on Alternet, by John Mearsheimer

As the President expounded on the future of peace in the middle east, his rhetoric didn't ring true to either Israel or Palestine.
For example, Israel's hard-line supporters were outraged that he said, "Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps."
Israel's views are that the 1967 borders are "Auschwitz borders" and thus can never serve as a basis for negotiations.

Many Palestinians, on the other hand, did not like Obama's assertion that it made little sense for them to go to the UN General Assembly this September and win recognition for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. If in fact Palestine was to win that recognition from the UN General Assembly, it would put the United States in the position of voting against the decree, in order to remain firmly joined at the hip with Israel.
Surely Palestinians also noticed that shortly after saying that "every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself," the president then said that the Palestinians would have to be content with "a sovereign non-militarized state."
That means, in reality,... they won't be able to defend themselves against Israel, or any other state for that matter.

(Are we recognizing the hypocrisy and element of Bullshit, yet?)
The United States has little influence over events in the broader Middle East, as well. The Arab Spring, which Obama fully embraced in his speech, happened in spite of American foreign policy,... not because of it. After all, Washington has played a key role for decades in keeping friendly dictators like Hosni Mubarak in power. And not surprisingly, the Obama administration has remained quiet while Saudi and Bahrani security forces have been crushing the protestors in Bahrain. Why? Because the US Navy's 5th Fleet is stationed in Bahrain and we have excellent relations with its authoritarian leaders.

On top of all this, the US military is pinned down in messy wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya. The administration's hard-nosed policy for dealing with Iran's nuclear enrichment program is not working, but the president seems unwilling (or unable because of pressure from Israel and the lobby) to countenance a new approach for dealing with Tehran.

The bottom line is that the US is in deep trouble in the Middle East and needs new policies for that region. The possibilities of that occurring soon, are pretty much non-existent. President Obama's speech was destined to disappoint almost everyone. While we cannot be seen as opposing democracy, we surely don't want to see it flourish. That would change the scope of our influence drastically.

[John Mearsheimer is professor Political Science at the University of Chicago and co-author of the best-seller, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.]