MOSCOW, August 27 (RIA Novosti) - Despite the US administration calling for a policy of building regional alliances to improve security in the Middle East, they lack a strategy and principled foreign policy, Salameh Nemmet, a longtime Jordanian journalist told RIA Novosti.
“It’s so naive to say ‘regional alliance.’ You do have to have a strategy. And to have a strategy you have to have an administration with a strategy to implement,” Nemmet said answering a question from RIA Novosti about what the US intends when it discusses regional alliances to fight the Islamic State and stabilize the Middle East.
The journalist added that the US does not espouse that type of approach “because of the paradigm in foreign policy that you do what’s in your national interest, not what is necessarily the right thing to do.”
The takeover of approximately one-third of the territory of Iraq by the Islamic State terrorist organization has brought about emphatic calls from the Barack Obama administration to work with Iraq, as well as regional partners to form regional alliances to subdue the threat of IS. The administration has focused on the creation of a successor government to Nuri al Maliki that effectively form partnerships. However, outside of appeals to “friends and allies around the world” by Obama, it remains unclear how the US intends to execute its strategy in the region.
Noting the inconsistent standards the US holds its allies to, Nemmat stated “you cannot say, ‘I will support democracy in Iran, but not say a word about Saudi Arabia. You have to have credibility. You cannot say to your buddies, it’s ok if they oppress their own people, but these on the other side, they have to do reform and step down and allow new people to be elected.”
“The US should have a principled position; Europe should have a principled position, and it should apply across the board,” a Jordanian journalist concluded.
