Obama brings cohesiveness to US foreign policy

My column published May 25, 2011
On May 19, President Obama addressed the world to outline a semblance of cohesiveness on U.S. foreign policy in the turmoil of the Arab Spring, the spontaneous uprising against rulers' corruption and oppression. It was about time. Swift moving events are closing doors on opportunities. 

The U.S. foreign policy apple cart of carefully maintained treaties and accommodation with long-lived dictators had been upset. Outcomes were uncertain and the US needed to shape them toward our interests. We may have gotten Bin Laden, though it is unknown yet is how much of a power al-Qaida will be without their iconic leader. 

U.S. policy toward the changes in the Middle East and North Africa has seemed to react to the grass roots revolts on an ad hoc basis. 

Obama pronounced an overarching policy that would underlie any U.S. aid and sympathy to the popular movements that supported universal rights, regardless if existing governments were friends or foes. He urged dictators and potentates to get out of the way and embrace reform. He announced billions in aid for both Egypt and Tunisia, no doubt to encourage their restructuring as more liberal, secular democracies. While he voiced moral support to the revolutionaries, he remained Sphinx-like about the extent he was willing to help depose heads of state or to force them to reform.

We have a way to go to establish our credibility and influence outcomes. 

Fareed Zakaria on CNN Sunday interviewed young Egyptian leaders of the reform movement who dismissed Obama's May 19 speech as just words, no action, and they looked with suspicion and resentment at the U.S. for our past support of the Mubarak regime. . 

The young Egyptians also blamed the U.S. for the failure to reach a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Though the issue was not a factor in the uprisings, Israel will be impacted by the results .We in the west do not always grasp the extent that hostility toward the U.S. is due to U.S. support of Israel, complicating our ability to influence the region. 

Israel itself is facing a new reality. Time to adjust is passing away. Carefully constructed alliances with Arab neighbors that protected borders or buried the hatchet are in jeopardy. The Palestinians threw a monkey wrench into any negotiations for a two state solution. U.S. negotiator, George Mitchell, had quit in disgust when Hamas joined Fatah in Palestine so that now one member of the negotiating power, Hamas, did not even recognize Israel's right to exist. Many countries had lost patience with the failed negotiations and were threatening.to bring a resolution before the UN to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state without a negotiated settlement. The timing of Obama's speech was aimed to head off that attempt

As the President noted in his speech before the pro Israel lobbying group, AIPAC, May 22, increasing numbers of Palestinians being born and living within current Israeli borders would make Jews in their own country the minority and threaten the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

The President had created a furor by explicitly stating a formerly implied policy that Israel's return to pre 1967 boundaries with land swaps. Israel had wished to discuss that matter later in the negotiation process, but Obama put it first on the agenda, perhaps hoping this concession would cause Hamas to soften its position. He hinted that land swaps could improve Israel's security and demographic situation, concluding that a two state solution was the only way to preserve Israel as a Jewish state and he made it clear the decision would be up to the Israelis. 

It appears nothing will happen until Israelis and their U.S. supporters see that is in their own enlightened self-interest to restart negotiations regarding pre-1967 boundaries. The time for Israel to decide is short since when the dust of their neighbors' turmoil settles, Israel will find neighbors more hostile and emboldened.to drive even harder bargains.

Obama's Leadership style

The neo con right is leading the charge to criticize Pres. Obama for his style of leadership. Their newest complaint is that he just has taken too long to make a decision on Libya.  These are words coming from  the same folks who brought us the folly in Iraq.  We are supposed to take advice from them?  Had much more careful thought been given before the Iraq blunder, we would have had a better chance  to have finished off the Taliban and Bin Laden in Afghanistan...instead of getting our manpower and assets stuck in the tar pits of the unexpected, diversionary  quagmire of Iraq.

The neo cons and their fellow travellers did infinite harm to the ability of the US to win the hearts and minds of the middle eastern street.  Our US popularity ratings sank from some admiration to condemnation for advocating democracy and on the other hand hypocritically  supporting some of the most cruelly oppressive governments in the world, while launching the preemptive invasion of  a country that did not attack us. 

Hypocricy was and is not confined to our exercise of our foreign policy.  The world does take note of those who would violate democracy in order to save it.   US talk show personalities, some politicians, and other writers find a lucrative audience for their anti Muslim hate and fear mongering. Even some who acknowledge that 90% of world Muslims are not jihadists are ready to chuck tolerance of law abiding Muslims in the US  guaranteed by the flowery language of our constitution. Ginning up hatred and irrational fear is no way to win the war for hearts and minds anywhere .

Obama, with his address in Egypt  to his support of  the rebeling youth in North Africa, sees the bigger picture. Many of top leadership and proponents of the ideological rationale driving Al Qaeda came from Egypt and other North African countries. Winning the war against the terrorists  will  depend heavily on our yanking out from under the jihadists  their fertile grounds of hatred of the West on which they rely.

Obama's carefulness in convincing the Arabs to support any military action in Libya is not a matter of dithering; it is a careful structuring in our shift from imperialism to supporting the aspirations of the young, who will be calling the shots in their countries' foreign relations for generations to come.  Obama is playing for the long term and the bigger picture, while the failed approach of the past has been abandoned.

This is finesse....not bulling around in the china closet as his predecessors have done.  Being thoughtful, weighing the options, constructing a wise strategy and looking at the bigger picture is an asset and not a liability.. It is this message Obama's supporters ought to be shouting out from the platform of modern communications, web and cable talk.

We do not know yet if the intervention in Libya will succeed. It has just begun. But Obama has made his point: there is a shift in US policy toward greater support of the aspirations of the people of the middle east.

Pres. Obama has also wisely put the onus on France and the UK.  They do have strategic interests there. We may provide coordinating support, but for once our allies have stepped up to the plate and the Arab League applauds.   

If anything, Obama has appears to have learned from his predecessors .  By putting most of the burden for military actions on others, we have not taken our eye off the Afghanistan conflict or overextended ourselves as we did in Iraq....or get our ground troops stuck in an interminable mess.  Taking the neo cons' advice would have have us repeat an unfortunate history of acting rashly first and being surprised by  unanticipated consequences.

While our support of Saudi Arabia and the still oppressive regimes in Yemen and  Bahrain are contradictions of our shift in policy, at least our support of democratic movements in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya represent the direction the Obama administration prefers and is willing to support when our strategic oil interests are not at such a risk. Even then, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a stern lecture today to Bahrain to  become more answerable to its people and  to stop the violence against them.  The implication is that even strategic friends must stop being despots. Whether these words will be backed up by actions is yet to be seen, but the warning has been issued and the tone has been set.