A visitor from the 80s’, merely 30 years ago, would have been amazed at the stories newspapers tell today, the U.S. is making peace with Cuba which for some reason was left as an enemy while normal relations with Russia had been restored 20 years ago. The small island nation somehow managed to maintain its social revolution way longer then the mother country and also carried its obligatory title as the enemy of the American people.
President Obama takes care of this one, and as his term as president nears a close he is moving all the pieces so relations with Cuba are restored. However one must wonder if this change will really change the day to day reality of the simple Cuban teenager who is pimped daily for what many Americans would consider lunch money, or to the Cuban young man how is harassing tourists along the beach for a couple of green dollars.
With all the above criticism of the current U.S. president Cuba is actually a normal move, it is right in reach of the American continent, it is almost Miami’s closest city. It is the moves in the Muslim world that Obama makes that should raise concerns, mainly due to the lack of any sense of those moves – apart from one – letting someone else do the dirty work.
A long time ago president Obama choose to address the Arab Muslim nations by rushing to Cairo for his first speech, many thought this signaled that the man himself was a Muslim and a member of the Muslim brotherhood, however now Obama is busy courting the “other side” of Islam – the Shia Muslims. He had given up on his Sonni Muslim, many of whom are long lasting American allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and turned to the Iranians (not Arabs but Persians) for what can only be seen as desperate cooperation.
Somehow all of this can be told as a simple story, the Americans want order, they thought that the Sonni Muslims could provide it but it failed and now they are trying with the Shia Muslims in hope that Iran carries more weight than its previous allies. The only problems here are that both sides of the Muslim world are hostile to each other – and that everyone is aware of this American “dance”, which makes this kind very awkward.
