Lead Us Barack!

Barack Obama has been in office a little over three years now and conventional wisdom says his reelection hinges on the economy. With jobs numbers creeping up, consumer confidence rising ever so slightly and an inept corps of Republican candidates one might think the president’s prospects are looking good. However, the president is vulnerable on an issue just as important as the economy, in fact an issue very much tied into the economy, the Middle East.

When the Green Revolution started in Iran, Obama opted to stay out of it and let the scenario play itself out. When the Arab Spring began, the president called for the end of rule of an ally, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and took a secondary role to Europe in ousting Muhamar Khaddafi in Libya. Tunisia, of marginal importance to this president got verbal encouragement at first and financial backing only after the president there was ousted. The Muslim Brotherhood has taken over in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Egypt is now holding employees of American NGO’s hostage on trumped up charges with echoes of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Teheran after their Islamic revolution.

Now Syria is burning and civilians are dying by the thousands. The humanitarian conditions are as bad as the worst offered by Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and other infamous despots, except these are being played out live on television, radio and the internet. A fully wired world with cell phone cameras and the worldwide web cannot keep the secrets of a dictator’s atrocities camouflaged anymore. We live in a transparent world. If ever there was a reason for intervention on a purely humanitarian level, Syria is it.

More importantly, the enlightened West is sitting by, as Christians, once a vibrant community in Arab countries, are being slaughtered and exiled from their homes. Despite seeming moderate, the Brotherhood in all the Arab Spring countries has very little tolerance for other religions and the Iranians execute minorities based on bogus charges every day. Yet President Obama is going out of his way to apologize to Muslims for the inadvertent burning of a few Korans. However distasteful such actions are they are nothing compared to the outright hostility to Christians in Muslim-Arab countries. We need to show our outrage, every single one of us who believes in decency and basic rights. If we are not going to help as Muslim slaughters Muslim then let us at least protect our Christian cousins whose only crime is not being Muslim in a country where the majority is.

It may be politically incorrect to say, but if Muslims worldwide want respect from us then show us respect and to other religions. I am still waiting for Muslim religious leaders, not political ones, religious ones, to get up and say what must be said; that killing ANYONE in the name of religion is Haram – forbidden. I will have to wait a long time. This is where President Obama needs to show leadership and he needs to do it fast.

Syria provides a perfect trifecta of motives for intervention; it will stop brutal atrocities that we witness the regime commit against its people daily, it will break the axis of Iranian influence in the region and it will weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon. Instead the president is dithering while thousands die. It is time for him to lead; the world cannot wait any longer. Lead us Barack, lead.