But are they justified as far as the Middle East is concerned? In Washington, Ezzat Ibrahim analyses responses to the Mubarak visit Following the election of Barack Obama Francis Fukuyama published an article in American Interest in which he wrote the new president may well "articulate the broad ideas that will define a new age, ideas that will become the consensus points of reference in the coming years". "The Clinton administration never did this," Fukuyama continued, "accepting instead most of the core ideas of Reaganism and simply shifting policies somewhat to the left." He predicted that, "in fifty years no one will refer back to the Clinton era, but they may talk about the Obama era superseding the Reagan era if the new president can formulate a clear definition of what the United States stands for domestically and in foreign policy". Recent ideas coming out of Washington on reshaping the Middle East will be central to the grand paradigm that is setting the agenda of so many things to come. Domestically, the Obama era can be said to have started with the healthcare showdown, while the Middle East looks set to become the litmus test for America's new global architecture. Needless to say, both issues are hugely problematic. Obama's strategists are beginning from the premise that working with partners is a source of power, not a sign of weakness. Anne-Marie Slaughter, director of Policy Planning for the State Department, indicated as much in a recent article. She wrote that, "in the twenty-first century, the United States' exceptional capacity for connection, rather than splendid isolation or hegemonic domination, will renew its power and restore its global purpose". Ahead of President Mubarak's latest visit to Washington Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, delivered a speech at New York University titled A New Course in the World, a New Approach at the UN, in which she elaborated what some analysts describe as the Obama Doctrine. "In today's world, more than ever," said Rice, "America's interests and our values converge. What is good for others is often good for us. When we manifest our commitment to tackling the threats that menace so many other nations; when we invest in protecting the lives of others; and when we recognize that national security is no longer a zero-sum game, then we increase other countries' will to cooperate on the issues most vital to us." In the case of the Egyptian-American relationship, the Washington summit between President Hosni Mubarak and Barack Obama on 18 August served to reassure both governments that they are still closely linked by important mutual interests and that they can easily work in partnership. Some American analysts had described the relationship, at least until the recent rapprochement, as a utilitarian, contractual arrangement. They likened it to a long marriage that had gone stale and failed to produce any children but in which divorce was not a possibility. Of course, the best- functioning part of the relationship, especially from the US perspective, is military cooperation. The first reaction on Mubarak's visit from the inhabitants of America's think tanks came from Steven Cook, Middle East expert on the Council on Foreign Relations. He assessed the results of the White House meeting between Mubarak and Obama under three main points: first, Obama failed to secure "a commitment from Mubarak for an Arab gesture towards Israel"; second, the Egyptians briefed the US president on regional issues but fell short of addressing even their own major concerns, including piracy in the Red Sea, or specifying the measures Cairo would be willing to take though, in his third point, Cook insisted it "was a good thing that President Obama and his Secretary of State raised the issue of reform even if they are intent on treating the relationship more broadly than their predecessors". In an exchange posted on the Middle East Strategy at Harvard website, Michele Dunne, who posted a blistering article the day of the Mubarak/ Obama meeting, agreed with Cook that Obama did not receive enough support for greater normalisation between Arab States and Israel but disagreed with him on the issue of democracy. She concluded that, "when it comes to democracy in the Middle East, perhaps President Bush and his team can be accused of having had too much imagination about how things could be different, or of having expected too much to happen too quickly. But so far on the democracy issue, the Obama team has shown no imagination whatsoever". Tamara C Wittes of The Brookings Institute, moved the discussion onto another area when she claimed "not much of substance came out of the Mubarak visit, but I think Steven is too quick to conclude that Mubarak came to the White House, demonstrating he is back and bilateral relations are on track without returning the favor to his host." Wittes elaborated: "The first sentences out of Mubarak's mouth [in the press conference] explicitly returned the favor. He said that Obama's Cairo speech 'removed all doubts about the United States and the Muslim world... the Islamic world had thought that the US was against Islam, but his great, fantastic address there has removed all those doubts'." On the other hand, during the press conference with Mubarak, Obama did not mention his favourite catch phrase, "let me be clear", a single time. According to Politico the US president uses the phrase repeatedly when talking about foreign policy to "assert policy, to take and assign responsibility, and to warn against mistaking diplomacy for weakness, sometimes amassing multiple clear statements over time to achieve a complex and highly specific result". In the meeting with Mubarak it was not clear how advanced any US peace plan really is. Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl painted a grim picture in this regard: "Obama," he wrote, "will not offer a specific American blueprint for a peace settlement -- as a number of Arab governments have urged him to do -- he will probably lay out at least a partial vision of the two-state settlement that all sides now say they support, and the course that negotiations should take. More significantly, he intends to set an ambitious timetable for completing the peace deal -- something that will please Arabs but may irritate Israel." Diehl, a long-time critic of Middle East governments, expected Obama to face a hard time in the coming weeks as he battles Congress over healthcare reform, the escalating war in Afghanistan, the situation in Iraq, and a looming showdown with Iran. With such a crowded agenda, Diehl asks ironically why "in his spare time Obama wouldn't set out to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a famously intractable problem that has defeated the past 11 US administrations? It seems as though the president-who- would-do-everything will attempt just that". A partial vision of Middle East peace is what Cairo has long warned American administrations against. Yet it seems that a real blueprint still requires a coup d'état in the American foreign policy. US observers are still waiting for signs of the "broad ideas that will define the new age" predicted by Fukuyama a few hours after Obama was sworn into office. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains the core issue in the relationship between the West and both Arabs and Muslims. Arab countries will be unwilling to accept a small step in the already agonisingly long march towards the two-state solution, and they will not normalise relations with Israel before final-status negotiations. In addition, the Palestinian Authority wants a complete settlement freeze before talks. Yet the Israeli government is not ready to freeze settlements and is divided over the extent of future negotiations. Some members of Israel's government want negotiations to aim at a provisional Palestinian state with temporary borders. Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman continues to pour scorn on any possible US proposals. "Despite giving everything," he said last week, "we were unable to strike peace 16 years after the Oslo accords. I'm willing to bet there won't be peace 16 years from now either, certainly not one based on the two-state solution."
