Israel Matzav: Time for Obama to drop the focus on the 'Palestinians'

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Time for Obama to drop the focus on the 'Palestinians'

Michael Doran, a former senior director for the Middle East at the U.S. National Security Council, and the Roger Hertog senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, has the 'Left' credentials that may stand a chance of convincing Barack Hussein Obama to listen. Doran urges the Obama administration to drop the focus on the Israeli-'Palestinian' dispute and take care of what's really important: dealing with all the Muslim v. Muslim disputes in the region.

At the heart of Obama's grand strategy was a mistaken definition of the strategic challenge. Now that the Arab uprisings have dragged the United States through a crash course on Middle Eastern realities, U.S. policymakers can more easily recognize the deepest drivers of politics in the region -- namely, the vast number of severe conflicts that set Muslims against Muslims. From a practical strategic point of view, there is no such thing as "the Muslim world." Any effort to write a narrative of cooperation with a thing that does not actually exist is bound to encounter severe difficulties.

The United States must therefore dispense entirely with grand strategies that seek to foster a conciliatory image of the United States and to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, it should focus on the key challenge posed by the Arab uprisings: managing intra-Muslim conflict.

This requires returning to the question that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah first posed to Obama: What is the strategy of the United States toward Iran? At stake in Syria today is nothing less than the future of the Iranian regional security system. It should not escape notice that the Saudis, though hostile to the populist wave in general, have now aligned themselves against Assad. As much as they fear revolution, the Saudis fear the Islamic Republic of Iran even more, and they see the Syrian crisis as an opportunity to deal a severe blow to it. The United States should adopt a similar view.

The contest on the ground in Syria, obviously, has profoundly local causes. Nevertheless, the regional struggle between Iran and its rivals will play a significant role in shaping it. After Assad falls, a proxy war will erupt, with outside powers seeking to cultivate Syrian clients. Iran and Hezbollah will use the covert and brutal methods that they have honed in Lebanon and Iraq. They will preserve what they can from the remnants of Assad's security services, while simultaneously arming and training new proxies. They will kill off and intimidate those Syrians who get in their way.

The United States has a vital interest in thwarting Iran. To do so effectively, however, it must develop a serious and sustained regional containment strategy. The process of writing the new strategy begins, like before, in Riyadh and Ankara. This time, however, Obama should reverse his attitude toward the preferences of King Abdullah and Prime Minister Erdogan. The Syrian crisis offers a new opportunity to reach a strategic accommodation with the Saudis. At the same time, it should also force Washington to re-evaluate the Turks' no-problems policy. To date, this policy has worked to the net benefit of Iran and Syria and to the detriment of the United States. There is no reason to believe that it will produce a different result in the future.

Writing a new grand strategy is important, but not urgent. It can always be put off until tomorrow, "when things calm down." In the meantime, the phone is ringing. The world was treated to images of cheering Libyans retaking their capital on Aug. 21; the United States will surely be called upon to play a role in the messy political transition that will follow. The Aug. 18 terrorist attack in Israel has raised the specter of another Gaza war, while also escalating tensions with Egypt. And next month, the question of Palestinian statehood may well be taken up by the United Nations.

These and many other matters will soon fill up the calendar of U.S. officials. But if Washington is not careful, all these urgent issues will push aside consideration of grand strategy, precisely when it is needed most.

I look at this as Obama's last chance to prove that he can get beyond the radical politics of his pre-White House period to put America's interests ahead of the parochial interests of the small circle of people who put him where he is today: The Rashid Khalidi's, Jeremiah Wright's, Billy Ayers's and Ali Abunimah's of the world. I don't hold out much hope. Obama is who he is. Hopefully, Americans will realize that before they decide to elect him (God forbid) to a second term. He's not capable of thinking beyond the strategies of a Chicago community organizer.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Iran, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Muslim v. Muslim disputes, our friends the Saudis, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi King Abdullah