Between Obama’s Lines: How We Almost Lost the Middle East, the Cold War, and the Atlantic Alliance

We all focus on recent events while losing track of how they developed. In mid-2013, something was decidedly wrong with our policy in the Middle East. And Russia. The Administration was lying about Benghazi. It was condoning the Muslim Brotherhood, befriending Iran’s new President, letting the Iraqi Kurds down, snubbing Israel and Saudi Arabia, chastising the new Egyptian leader, and ineptly watching the Syrian genocide. All while allowing for a power vacuum, knowing full well it would be filled by al-Qaeda, or worse, by Russia. To anyone who thinks the Cold War ended in the Eighties, and that Russia’s buck stops in the barren lands of the Middle East, think twice. Trashing decades of history, President Obama had apparently decided to revisit the Truman Doctrine, and it came down to simple questions. Who was he, who were his advisors, and what was the motivation? We were in mid-2014 and the stage was set for Russia’s next move. Why was a difficult question. How we got there is what you are about to read.