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same core priorities. Then he said: "We must acknowledge that a strategy based solely upon the narrow pursuit of these
interests will not fill an empty stomach or allow someone to speak their mind."
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He defined a new set of "core principles" that the United States would defend in the Middle East, including "free speech,
the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the
right to choose your own leaders — whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus, Sanaa or Tehran." He said: "Our support
for these principles is not a secondary interest. Today I want to make it clear that it is a top priority that must be
translated into concrete actions, and supported by all of the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at our disposal."
In fact, as Egyptians and Syrians can testify, he never followed up. On Tuesday, Obama relinked his rhetoric to his actions
and his underlying worldview. He listed just two goals: striking an agreement with Iran that would curtail its pursuit of
nuclear weapons and brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Both are worthy but long-shot initiatives; both were
on Obama's agenda in January 2009. And neither, even if achieved, would address the larger Middle East crisis.
Obama warned the General Assembly on Tuesday that "the danger for the world is that the United States, after a
decade of war ... may disengage, creating a vacuum of leadership that no other nation can fill." Sadly, it is not just a
danger. It was the message of his speech — and the tangible result of his presidency.
Article 5.
The Economist
Al-Qaeda returns:The new face of terror
Sep 28th 2013 -- A FEW months ago Barack Obama declared that al-Qaeda was "on the path to defeat". Its surviving
members, he said, were more concerned for their own safety than with plotting attacks on the West. Terrorist attacks of
the future, he claimed, would resemble those of the 1990s—local rather than transnational and focused on "soft
targets". His overall message was that it was time to start winding down George Bush's war against global terrorism.
Mr Obama might argue that the assault on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi by al-Qaeda's Somali affiliate, the
Shabab, was just the kind of thing he was talking about: lethal, shocking, but a long way from the United States. Yet the
inconvenient truth is that, in the past 18 months, despite the relentless pummelling it has received and the defeats it has
suffered, al-Qaeda and its jihadist allies have staged an extraordinary comeback. The terrorist network now holds sway
over more territory and is recruiting more fighters than at any time in its 25-year history. Mr Obama must reconsider.
Back from the dead
It all looked different two years ago. Even before the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, al-Qaeda's central leadership,
holed up near the Afghan border in Pakistan's North Waziristan, was on the ropes, hollowed out by drone attacks and
able to communicate with the rest of the network only with difficulty and at great risk. AI-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP), its most capable franchise as far as mounting attacks on the West is concerned, was being hit hard by
drone strikes and harried by Yemeni troops. The Shabab was under similar pressure in Somalia, as Western-backed
African Union forces chased them out of the main cities. Above all, the Arab spring had derailed al-Qaeda's central claim
that corrupt regimes supported by the West could be overthrown only through violence.
All those gains are now in question. The Shabab is recruiting more foreign fighters than ever (some of whom appear to
have been involved in the attack on the Westgate). AQAP was responsible for the panic that led to the closure of 19
American embassies across the region and a global travel alert in early August. Meanwhile al-Qaeda's core, anticipating
the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan after 2014, is already moving back into the country's wild east.
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Above all, the poisoning of the Arab spring has given al-Qaeda and its allies an unprecedented opening. The coup against
a supposedly moderate Islamist elected government in Egypt has helped restore al-Qaeda's ideological power. Weapons
have flooded out of Libya and across the region, and the civil war in Syria has revived one of the network's most violent
and unruly offshoots, al-Qaeda in Iraq, now grandly renamed the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
The struggle to depose the Assad regime has acted as a magnet for thousands of would-be jihadists from all over the
Muslim world and from Muslim communities in Europe and North America. The once largely moderate and secular
Syrian Free Army has been progressively displaced by better-organised and better-funded jihadist groups that have
direct links with al-Qaeda. Western intelligence estimates reckon such groups now represent as much as 80% of the