JERUSALEM: President-elect Barack Obama’s plans for the Middle East, the region where his predecessor’s policies shattered America’s standing around the world as a benign superpower, represent a welcome departure from President Bush’s grand design to redress the region’s ills through “constructive chaos. Unfortunately, Obama’s all-encompassing promises might prove to be just as unrealistic.
Obama’s agenda is breathtaking. It includes extrication from the Iraqi morass and lifting its burden from America’s foreign policy, resolving the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict while confronting the “hawkish Israel lobby, using dialogue to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and wean Syria from its radical agenda – thereby dissolving the region’s “axis of evil (Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas) – freeing Lebanon from Syria’s grip, and pushing for an Israel-Syria peace. And you can add to this a reorientation of America’s military effort to the war in Afghanistan.
The magnitude of this agenda must be seen against the region’s depressing legacy. The entire region is going through a dangerous process of “Somaliazation, with an expanding chain of non-state agents, mostly radical Islamist groups, challenging the idea of the state almost everywhere.
This is the case in Lebanon with Hezbollah, in Palestine with Hamas, in Iraq with Moqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and scores of other groups, with the Taliban and tribal warlords in Afghanistan, and with breakaway movements in Pakistan that have been emboldened by Pervez Musharaf’s resignation.
The looming end of President Hosni Mubarak’s long rule in Egypt might lead to the emergence of a formidable bid by the Muslim Brotherhood for power in Cairo, possibly forcing Mubarak’s successor either to reach a modus vivendi or to wage a fight to the death.
Obama may soon learn that his timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is unrealistic. A rapid American disengagement might ultimately cause the country’s disintegration into fragmented political entities, one of which would likely be an Iran-controlled Islamic republic.
The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan requires a more robust military response, but with the American army bogged down in Iraq and the Western allies reluctant to send additional troops, the country’s dismemberment by local warlords is not a far-fetched scenario. And, with the allies’ military operations eroding President Hamid Karzai’s domestic legitimacy, Obama might consider the advice of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who warns that the answer in Afghanistan will have to be more political than military.
As for Iran, Obama might have to fall back on a strategy of military pressure sooner than he would like. As the protracted dialogue conducted by the European Union’s special representative, Javier Solana, on behalf of the Security Council’s permanent members and Germany has proved, Iran has no intention of deviating from its drive to nuclear status. Unless Obama reaches an uneasy understanding with Russia – which would require revising post-Cold War strategic agreements – the chances of imposing a tight sanctions regime on Iran are slim. The specter of a Middle East nuclear arms race, with Iran’s Sunni rivals in the region – Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others – redoubling their efforts to attain nuclear status, cannot be ruled out.
In the Middle East, Obama faces an almost impossible task of redressing historical and political ills. Meanwhile, he inherits an America that is no longer an undisputed hegemony, and that, together with its allies, is immersed in the most severe economic crisis since 1929. Struggling with a crisis that is shaking the foundations of capitalism and the American way of life, and laden with a $10 trillion national debt and a $1 trillion budget deficit, the United States is bound to opt for a realistic foreign policy, one that departs from the haughty disregard for history, tradition, and religion that characterized the Bush administration.
Obama’s ascension to the US presidency represents a revolutionary landmark in America’s history that should not be allowed to fall victim to inflated expectations. His idealism needs to be tempered by the limits of American power. The challenge of his foreign policy is not to change the Middle East – this is the long-term task of the region’s peoples – but to redress America’s damaged reputation in the Muslim world.
To achieve this objective requires resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly the Palestinian question. This is the real wound that infects America’s entire foreign policy, particularly its standing in the Arab and Muslim world. During his visit to the region last July, Obama vowed to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “starting from the minute I’m sworn into office. He cannot lose any time in fulfilling that pledge.
Unlike the insoluble mess that he inherits in the broader Middle East, the road to a comprehensive solution of the Arab-Israeli dispute has already been paved, and no wheels would have to be reinvented. Leadership and commitment are what is required, and Obama’s “Yes, we can campaign has already shown that he has both.
Shlomo Ben Ami is a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as the vice-president of the Toledo International Centre for Peace. He is the author of “Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).
