(1) On assuming office,
President Obama signaled three main objectives regarding the Middle
East:**
(a) Repositioning
American policies and attitudes vis-à-vis the Arab and Muslim world;
(b) Vigorously restarting
the Israeli-Palestinian peace process;
(c) Reorienting US policy
vis-à-vis Iran from confrontation to engagement.
(2) In his
Cairo
speech Obama launched an extraordinary attempt to reach out to the
Arab and Muslim world. Regardless of what one thinks about Bush’s
policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as about his
approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the prevailing perception
of US attitudes among Arabs and Muslims has been that they are
generally anti-Arab and anti-Muslim. In his
Cairo
speech Obama magisterially announced a totally different approach,
based – in his words – on respect and not demonization. Even those –
in Israel, and probably also in Cyprus - who viewed some of his
statements as somewhat unnecessarily fawning, the fact of the matter
is that they did help in turning around some of the anti-American
feelings among Arabs and Muslims. This is by itself important and
welcome – though until now there is very little to show that the
speech has had a real impact on practical attitudes and policies in
the Arab and Muslim world.
(3) This is immediately
obvious in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, Obama’s policy appears to be a continuation
of the one adopted during the last year of Bush’s presidency (guided
by Gates) of slowly withdrawing from Iraq, without really being able to
stabilize the country – certainly not to democratize it. In
Afghanistan, Obama insisted during the campaign and the first months
of his presidency that the US needs to send 50.000 more troops to
Afghanistan (i.e. to escalate). He failed to get NATO countries
endorse this approach or promise more troops (even not the
UK). In the last weeks, Obama seems
to retract and is now in the midst of a reassessment. But he is on
the horns of a dilemma. One the one hand, he appears to realize that
Afghanistan has never been a coherent polity and any attempt to
force on this country of tribal/ethnic loyalties a central
government has failed in the last century – and the problematic
elections and delegitimization of the Karzai government have not
helped; on the other hand, Obama is under pressure from his own
handpicked commander (McChrystal) to send more troops. Whatever he
decides, he will be criticized and may, in any case, fail. The Nobel
Peace Prize has only complicated matters and somewhat narrowed his
options. Whether Afghanistan
will be Obama’s
Vietnam
looms ominously over his presidency.
(4) In the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the outcome till now – beyond
rhetorics and some photo-ops at the UN – has been meager. Obama's
Mideast special representative,
George Mitchell, who was supposed to inaugurate an overall
peace structure, has been drawn into not very successful
negotiations about details (e.g., building for natural growth in the
Jewish settlements in the West Bank), and has until now failed even
in bringing the two sides to the negotiating table. His task has
been made even more difficult by the election of a right-wing
government in Israel under Netanyahu – as well as by the fact
that the official Palestinian Authority has lost control of Gaza, where a
de facto Hamas government seems to have stabilized its hold.
Nor has the US
succeeded in moving Saudi Arabia
to take a more pro-active and conciliatory approach vis-à-vis Israel.
(5) It should be added,
however, that even the more moderate former Israeli government under
Olmert and Livni, which has negotiated with the Palestinian
Authority for two years, has failed to overcome the deep gaps
between even the most moderate Israeli and the most moderate
Palestinian positions. The outlook at the moment is not promising.
Perhaps moving from an illusory aim of conflict resolution to a more
realistic approach of conflict management may be more helpful.
(6) Beyond these
immediate impediments, it seems that the Obama administration has
overlooked the limits of American power – in the Middle East, as
well as in other conflicts (Cyprus,
Kosovo, Bosnia). The US is extremely powerful when there is local
political will: in such a case, a robust and sophisticated US
administration can help clinch an agreement: this happened in 1978-9
(Israel-Egypt), in 1993 (Israel-PLO) and in 1994 (Israel-Jordan).
When both sides are willing, the
US
can help bring negotiations to a positive outcome. But when there is
no local political will, or if one side is unwilling, the
US
is more or less impotent in bringing recalcitrant horses to the
water (the 2000 Camp David meeting between Clinton, Barak and
Arafat; or the Bush Road Map or Annapolis process). The
failure of the Annan Plan in
Cyprus, or the unresolved situation
in Kosovo, show that there are clear limits to US power when at
least one side feels that a proposed plan runs against its own
interests.
7) Obama’s rhetoric
has been lofty and inspiring: but the harsh realities on the ground
– in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as
Israel-Palestine – suggest that good intentions are not enough, and
more realistic approaches may in each case be needed, beyond
preaching. If the Obama Administration will be able to formulate
such policies, it may be too early to judge. But until now the jury
is still out.
[**
This is a summary of a paper submitted for the conference
Current Trends in
International Relations organized by the Cyprus Center
for European and International Affairs
on October 12, 2009.
**
The focus of this paper is on the two first aspects.
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