@jerv
I take some exception to the idea that the anti American sentiment is not state sponsored. As I have said before, Libya is not a problem in my mind since they are a struggling infant government that is trying to get thier feet under them. They haven’t gone down the Muslim Brother hood route and it would appear that Stevens was doing a good diplomatic job there. They seem to be trying to purge the terrorists even though they have little capacity to do so.
Egypt is another matter altogether. There have been a number of events that have aggravated the whole problem. Most of the resentment in the middle east stems from two sources. Our support of Israel and our involvement in the politics of middle east countries. Neither of which is easily resolved. The Arab Spring has seen revolution in Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Libya. Two of these countries Egypt and Libya, were friendly to us and two were not, Iran and Syria. We took an active role in the two that were friendly to us in helping to oust those governments. We stayed stayed out of the two that hate us. That just seems like a horrible message to send to other countries that may want to be friendly to us.
Now more specifically in Egypt it should have been apparent to anyone that the Muslim Brotherhood would be the likely successor to Mubarak. They had an organization where no one else did. The Military was the primary opposition to the Brotherhood and they were popular especially after their role in revolution. When the Brotherhood took over we actively pressured the military to turn over the reins of government to the Brotherhood. If our involvement in thier politics was a source of irritation to Muslims, this would have been an excellent time to stay out of it. Let Egypt sort out thier own reins of power but we didn’t. Now we have this uprising over the stupid film trailer. We seem to think this was just a popular uprising to that. I don’t think so. The trailer had been around for a few months. A few days before 9/11 it was translated into Arabic. Then on 9/11 our own embassy drew even more attention to this trailer with their stupid statement about how insulting it was. I suppose all that could have been a coincidence that all this came up on 9/11 but the coincidence is just too much for me to buy. The Muslim Brotherhood Continued the agitation by calling for more anti American protests and we helped to keep this issue alive by bringing up how insulting this trailer was, in very public statement we made. I believe the timing for all this was manufactured by radical Muslims and that the Brotherhood was complicit.
At this point anti American sentiment is as bad as it has ever been. We have sent a message to our friends in the middle east that we can not be counted on and a message to our enemies that we won’t interfere regardless what they do. Israel is feeling very isolated and we won’t even talk with them. With Egypt going the Brotherhood route and and talking about nullifying the Camp David Accord, Israel is in even more danger. If we want them to withhold attacking Iran, we need to give them some assurances that we won’t throw them under the bus. Saudi Arabia has got to be feeling the pinch as well.
Since we can’t seem to drill for our own oil, our economy and our future is tied to the middle east and no one knows where we stand. I see this as the worst of all possible scenarios.