American Weakness: The Cause of Middle East Violence?
Marc A. Thiessen | The Myth of Barack the Liberator
September 19, 2012

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In case you missed it, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Fellow Marc Thiessen confronts "The myth of Barack the liberator" in a just-published piece, explaining that the anti-American violence in the Middle East is not the result of the overthrow of friendly dictators, but is a result of a growing perception of American weakness.

"The failure of Obama's policies in the Middle East is not the fall of dictators in Cairo and Tripoli; it is the failure of leadership in Washington. On taking office, Obama promised to usher in a new era of popularity in the region. Well, ask yourself this: Are we more popular now than we were four years ago?"

Click here to read the full piece

Marc Thiessen is a Fellow at AEI and a former member of the White House senior staff, speechwriter for the Secretary of Defense, and senior policy adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman.  He is available for interview and can be reached through jesse@aei.org (202.862.470).

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About the Author

 

Marc A.
Thiessen

  • A member of the White House senior staff under President George W. Bush, Marc A. Thiessen served as chief speechwriter to the president and to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Prior to joining the Bush administration, Thiessen spent more than six years as spokesman and senior policy adviser to Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). He is a weekly columnist for the Washington Post, and his articles can be found in many major publications. His book on the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation program, Courting Disaster (Regnery Press, 2010), is a New York Times bestseller. At AEI, Thiessen writes about U.S. foreign and defense policy issues for The American and the Enterprise Blog. He appears every Sunday on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" and makes frequent appearances on other TV and talk radio programs.


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