President Obama has disappeared from the Middle East political scene. Like all other US presidents who did the same, he'll be pulled back in and not on his terms, writes Ezzedine Choukri Fishere* For someone who made a new approach to the Middle East such an integral part of his foreign policy platform, the outcome of a year in power is strikingly meagre. If anything, President Obama's first year has been marked by a surprising lack of leadership on the Middle East. The expectations Obama created about a "new beginning" for America in the region are fast dissipating. While the frustration of the peoples of the Middle East could be of little political significance for the American president, the policy ramifications of missing leadership are not. On the crown jewel of the region's problems, the protracted Arab- Israeli conflict, Obama's administration failed to come up with a meaningful policy. Unable or unwilling to spend political capital on a showdown with the Israeli rightist government, the administration adopted a hackneyed, stopgap policy. The sterility of its stated goal -- getting Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table -- is plain for all to see. Palestinians and Israelis have been sitting at that table for years; we are all familiar with their endless arguments, complaining and manipulations. Everyone knows that returning them to that table is not going to bring peace or security to either of them, or to the region. But it is a goal that the administration thought attainable and serving to its image at an affordable political price. To add insult to injury, a year has passed without achieving this modest, useless goal. The sense of historic mission of the Cairo speech about reconciling Arab and Jewish narratives has faded, leaving behind a real life-sized political president admitting his earlier miscalculation. Remember the Nairoz remarks and repeated references to the need for engaging Iran? Obama spent a whole year talking about the need for that dialogue, fighting real and imaginary enemies in Washington and elsewhere in order to wrest his administration's right to talk to the Ayatollahs. But other than talking about the dialogue, the administration did little in the way of engaging it. Finally, in his State of the Union address a few days ago the president abandoned all reference to that dialogue, going back to the good old language of isolation, punishment and threats of the use of force. On the thorny issue of Iraq, the Obama administration didn't deviate from the policy framework established in the last year of Bush's presidency. This policy no longer seeks the creation of a functioning Iraqi political or security system. It rather aims at thinning American involvement in Iraqi affairs to the least possible degree. In this regard, the policy has been a success, but to where will it lead? This Iraqi policy seems to be the future of the upcoming Afghani policy. After a surge in military involvement and rhetoric, the US administration has come round to the idea of engaging the Taliban. If this dialogue does take place, it could qualify as the single major change in US policy in the Middle East since Obama took office. But there is no guarantee that talking to the Taliban would be any different from "talking to Iran". And even if a genuine negotiation does ultimately take place, it would be too little and too late. Because this dialogue doesn't come as a part of a broader dialogue with Muslim radicals (including Iran) it is almost certain that the Taliban would view it as a sign of American weakness in Afghanistan (not a "new beginning"). This would confirm the radicals' claim that the use of force is the best way to get the US's (and Israel's) attention. Rather than shake it, the Taliban would be tempted to bite this half-stretched hand. Syria? Lebanon? Darfur? South Sudan? Not much. As in all other regional issues, the president is committed to good things; he has the right rhetoric, but nothing else to offer. In fact, President Obama's main achievement so far has been his election. Just by being someone other than George W Bush and by adopting a different tone of language, the charismatic American president managed to cool off tense relations with Middle Easterners. Obama can take credit for this "achievement", but frankly it would be a stretch. This is not meant as blaming the popular president. Seen from Washington, the Middle East seems quieter since his election. The change of tone, it is thought, has created a breathing space for the new administration. Other matters seem more pressing: the financial crisis and healthcare reform to name two. In addition, entrenched interests and established conventional wisdoms are hard to dispel in the nation's capital. Also, political resources don't come easy: who wants to pick a fight with an Israeli prime minister? And what would be the upside of such a fight? Who would come to Obama's rescue when the Israeli prime minister puts his foot down? Arab states? Nobody thinks so. Who can take responsibility for overriding the security czars in dealing with terrorist threats? How many in-uniform shooters and underwear bombers can the administration survive, if it does? Above all, where would the president find support in Congress for a major shift in his Middle East policy? The president wants to be a consensus builder, and this is where the Washington consensus is. Is this but another complaint by a disappointed Middle Easterner who hoped that Obama would be fair to his region? Not in the least. I don't think that the peoples of the Middle East are politically relevant in this story. They don't vote or fundraise in American elections, they don't take initiative or even help when asked, and they always complain about US policies anyway. What is politically relevant, though, is the consequence of Obama's Middle Eastern choices on the region and on the US standing in it. Inaction and lack of leadership are not a recommended policy for the indispensable superpower. It means passing the initiative to local actors who either advance their own interests regardless of regional stability as a whole, or create crises in order to draw the US back in. In either case, the US administration would be setting itself up for ad hoc reactions. Presidents who choose not to invest in the Middle Eastern quagmire were eventually sucked into it unprepared. This could take the form of another "unexpected" eruption in the Arab-Israeli saga, a "surprise" collapse of a friendly regime, or a major terrorist attack. In a nutshell, every American president who gave the Middle East low priority lived to regret it. * The writer is novelist and diplomat. He now teaches political science at the American University in Cairo.
