Secret Report Ordered by Obama Identified Potential Uprisings -- New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama ordered his advisers last August to produce a secret report on unrest in the Arab world, which concluded that without sweeping political changes, countries from Bahrain to Yemen were ripe for popular revolt, administration officials said Wednesday.
Mr. Obama’s order, known as a Presidential Study Directive, identified likely flashpoints, most notably Egypt, and solicited proposals for how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States, these officials said.
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My Comment: I love how the New York Times reports this story ....
.... President Obama ordered his advisers last August to produce a secret report on unrest in the Arab world ....
Yup, he knew this was coming down and he became active in doing something ASAP .... OK .... then why was he so quiet and when the report was issued. Bottom line .... reports of this kind are produced continuously within the bureaucracies of the intelligence community .... and having a report outlining instability in the Arab world is nothing new. Hell ... this blog has been outlining these concerns for years, and I do not have the budget that the intelligence community has.
The ugly truth .... and the New York Times is not going to admit it .... is that this administration was caught by surprise when the revolution started in Tunisia, which was further amplified by their confused and meek message when the revolution spread to Egypt. With unrest now spreading to the Arabian peninsula .... this impotence and lack of leadership from the White House in outlining what are the U.S. strategic goals in the region is causing concern among allies, and emboldening our enemies.
I know that there is very little that President Obama can do as the mobs start to take over the streets in the Middle East, but he and his advisers better catch to speed to articulate a policy because they are giving an impression that many in Israel (and elsewhere) are now starting to believe ..... that this U.S. administration is clueless to what is happening in the Middle East.