Obama abandons Mideast

Op-ed: President’s plan of rapprochement with Islam collapsed and he has no alternative

Guy Bechor|Published: 08.12.10 , 12:19

After dozens of years of intensive American activity in our region – pressures, schemes, deals, mediation, diplomacy, threats, concessions, doctrines – a disturbing silence suddenly prevailed. The current US President, Barack Obama, disappeared from the Middle Eastern landscape while creating a power vacuum.

Arab regimes hated George W. Bush, but they also feared him and were cautious. Obama simply doesn’t exist. Syria allows itself to disregard the US; the same is true for Iran, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Erdogan, and others. The Turkish flotilla affair is an example of this. Obama should have immediately sent his secretary of state to Ankara and to Jerusalem in order to end the matter quickly, yet nobody arrived from the US, and the region suffered great damages.

Once upon a time, moderate Egyptians, Saudis, Moroccans, Jordanians, and Palestinians would rush to Washington to coordinate positions, receive instructions, and engage in consultations. Today they no longer bother to do it, because it’s a waste of time. They have a feeling that the young president fails to understand what they’re facing, so what’s the point?

Everyone has a feeling that Obama is talking but not acting. Benjamin Disraeli once said: “Never argue…only give results,” yet Obama does not have even one Middle Eastern result to show. He excels at speeches, fancy words, and hollow slogans, yet in our region Arab regimes disparage speeches, intellectuals, and words and this is exactly the way he’s perceived over there: As an intellectual, in the negative sense of the word.

We saw a signal, using Mideastern codes, when Egyptian President Mubarak did not welcome Obama in Cairo last June at the president’s speech to Muslims, where he sought to turn a new leaf in US-Muslim relations. Mubarak knew it would end badly and even refrained from appearing in the same hall when Obama delivered his speech.

The Israel miscalculation

As he approaches the halfway mark of his presidency, Obama’s plan of rapprochement with Islam has collapsed and he has no other plan, no agenda, and no direction. He is helpless vis-à-vis Iran, and the tough sanctions imposed on Tehran by Congress last month were approved against his will.

Iran too knows that this president cannot order a military move. Had it been President Bush, Tehran would be much more concerned now. Meanwhile, as Obama announced his desire to pull the American army out of Iraq, Sunni terrorism is running wild there yet again, more brutal and violent than ever.

Obama thought that if he distances from Israel a little, he would win the sympathy of the moderate Arab camp. The result was bitter: He dismantled the moderate Arab camp while losing Israel. Right now there is no longer a moderate Arab camp, after Qatar and Jordan drew away, and after elements such as Lebanon or the Palestinian leadership chose to sit on the fence.

The American president’s lost direction played a role in the weakening of this camp, as a weak and confused US gives way to a strong, threatening Iran, with no certainty that there’s someone out there who would safeguard Gulf states. Yet it’s not only about Iran: Turkey too is taking a radical turn and attempting to form a radical alliance of its own in the region, while correctly interpreting the American vacuum.

Of all people, it is a member of the Democratic Party who prompted such unprecedented rise in the brutality of the Arab regimes around us. Bush eroded them when he demanded democracy, and that was a mistake, yet Obama just left them alone, and that was a mistake in the opposite direction; now, they are exploiting the opportunity.

And so, a wave of repression is currently sweeping through the Middle East. Arrests, torture, disappearance of opposition activists, threatened media, and crowded jails – all of this is happening because of the absence of American supervision, monitoring, and possibility interest as well. This vacuum draws negative forces, and these grow stronger and more provocative.

Yet here comes a warning: Those who run away from the Middle East are destined to have the Middle East haunt them.