The Issue: The White House’s record on Middle East issues, especially in Egypt and Israel.
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Ambassador John Bolton should perhaps state why the US should care about the upheaval in the Mideast, apart from the threat to our ally Israel (“Losing Ground in the Middle East,” Post-Opinion, Aug. 14).
With respect to the threat to oil supplies, apparently it is going to take a major upheaval of the sort he is implying to change our energy policies and way of life.
If not now, when?
Jim Bronsdon
West Hartford, Conn.
I am wondering why the UN doesn’t accuse Syria of “disproportionate and excessive use of force” when the government is slaughtering its own people every day, but accuses Israel of it when it is trying to defend its borders after being attacked.
S. Zuckerman
Aberdeen, Md.
Bolton asked, regarding Syrian President Bashar Assad’s potential defeat: “What kind of regime would follow — one dominated by radical Islamicists?”
Too bad Bolton didn’t ask that question as part of the Bush administration when he supported the invasion of Iraq under the false pretense of its weapons of mass destruction and connections to 9/11 — circumstances that led to utter chaos and a terrible loss of lives on both sides as a result.
Little credibility to pontificate exists when he was a vital cog in the decision-making process that led to the largest foreign-policy blunder in our nation’s history.
Pete Rose
Fredericksburg, Va.
Theodore Roosevelt fashioned a foreign policy on the idea that we should “speak softly and carry a big stick.”
President Obama’s take on the idea — that we should speak forcefully about the slaughter in Syria, the changes in Egypt, the growing instability in Iraq and Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, all while carrying a twig — is questionable.
Paul Bloustein
Cincinnati