Israel Matzav

Giving Obama another "F"

Despite Barack Hussein Obama's professed love for Muslims, Beirut Daily Star columnist Michael Young gives him an "F" for his handling of the Middle East.

What we have is a president with undeniable intelligence, but without particularly strong convictions, whose preference for standing away from the fray often allows his political rivals to outmaneuver him, and who will raise expectations then come up short in carrying through on them. Obama is an opportunist ill adept at creating opportunities.

For instance, the president made many promises on the Palestinian-Israeli track during his election campaign and afterward, but never worked hard to finalize a solution. Maybe one was impossible, but it is remarkable how little Obama immersed himself personally in an undertaking that he accused his predecessor, President George W. Bush, of ignoring at his own peril. One person who promptly got the president’s measure was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He recently forced Obama onto his hind legs by mobilizing Congress against the president’s conditions for a final settlement between Israelis and Palestinians – conditions that merely reflected United Nations resolutions and the outcome of negotiations past.

Obama has been even worse at developing a broader strategy for the region. Some blame can be placed at the door of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but it is up to the White House to provide strategic guidance. There has been none, only management, usually inconsistent and tardy, of proliferating crises. What are the American priorities in the Middle East? No one knows. If it is containing Iran, then Obama’s accelerated drawdown in Iraq makes little sense; if it is protecting America’s access to oil, then the president has done a terrible job of managing the relationship with Saudi Arabia; if it is fighting terrorism, then why did Obama pursue a nation-building project in Afghanistan, which he then abandoned a year later after Osama bin Laden was assassinated? And if it is realizing Arab-Israeli peace, Obama has done far less than Bush, who could have done far more.

There is disarray in Washington on the Middle East because the president has repeatedly shown that, deep down, he just doesn’t want the region to draw his energies away from addressing America’s domestic priorities. That may be defensible in a narrow, parochial way, but it also has been catastrophic at a moment of far-reaching transformations in the Arab world and beyond.

Young has done a fairly decent job of describing Obama's current term (although I take issue with his claim that Obama's State Department speech in May "merely reflected United Nations resolutions and the outcome of negotiations past"). But a second-term Obama - God forbid - would be even worse.

What Obama has shown is that (a) he hates Israel, (b) he wants to establish a 'Palestinian state' at all costs, and (c) he will find time for that despite his greater interest in his domestic agenda (which would destroy the American economy for the next 50-100 years). So yes, Obama's current term is a failure on the Middle East, as it is on so many other issues. But a second term would be even worse.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Michael Young, Obama's obsession with Palestinians

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:59 PM