Israel Matzav: The Middle East at Halftime in Washington

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Middle East at Halftime in Washington

Today is January 20 and it's exactly two years since Barack Hussein Obama became President of the United States. I was going to preface this post by saying that two years later there is little hope and too much change, but at least when it comes to the Middle East, Elliott Abrams correctly points out that what's needed is more change - away from the disastrous policies of the last two years.

What led to the adoption of the policies that produced these results, and what might lead to new ones in the second half of Mr. Obama’s term?

Alas, there is no evidence of a fundamental rethinking by the president; his Middle East policy is the product of his view of America and the world. In this take, America has (worst of all under George W. Bush) been too aggressive, insisting on its culture and interests rather than reaching out to “engage” and bending to accommodate the interests of others. And those “others” turn out to be regimes, for in the Obama perspective individuals too often tend to fade away. We seek “engagement” with the Asad regime in Syria and the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and with the ayatollahs in Iran, not with the people who live under their thumbs.

Inherent in this policy is a deep contradiction. The president places great store in multilateralism (as opposed to the allegedly excessive nationalism, the “go it alone” approach, the disrespect for international organizations, inaccurately said to have marked the Bush Administration); he believes in the UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council, in treaties like the NPT and START, in the IAEA, in multilateral cooperation. But the regimes with which he wishes to engage do not, so that Asad tries to ruin the UN’s Special Tribunal for Lebanon and Iran’s nuclear program threatens to destroy the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the IAEA. The president is in this sense in the position of those who for decades sought “world peace” primarily by engaging with the Soviet Union, which did not share that goal.

So the question for the next two years is whether the president will remain wedded to policies that cannot achieve his stated goals. Unless shaken out of the current rut by events—terrible ones like Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, or even worse a terrorist attack in the United States, or positive ones like more revolts against Arab dictatorships—the best bet is that there will be no significant change in policy despite the lack of achievements. None of the personnel changes thus far announced involves anyone with a new and different perspective on the Middle East. No doubt there is some rethinking going on at the White House, but there is no sign that the President believes things have gone wrong. As William Quandt (who served in the NSC in the Nixon and Carter years) wrote in his book Peace Process, “Wishful thinking is a particularly potent way to resolve uncertainty.”

There's one thing that's not changed: Obama is still the anti-Bush when it comes to the Middle East.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Barack Obama, Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush, Middle East peace process, Scholars for Middle East Peace, settlement freeze