Obama’s misguided Middle East policy

President Barack Obama addressed the nation about Syria in a nationally televised prime-time address Sept. 10.

By Walid Jawad

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Tuesday, President Barack Obama addressed the nation to justify his resolve to punish the Assad regime, save any diplomatic miracle. Yet his resolve should not be mistaken for a steadfast interest in the Middle East; rather it is a blip on the radar that is driven by other considerations. At every major juncture, where President Barack Obama was forced to make a decision regarding the region, he chose a policy position that gave the appearance of U.S. engagement but in reality was inept and ineffectual at its core.

Obama’s intentionally equivocal foreign policy strategy of keeping minimal U.S. engagement in the Arab world is not advancing U.S. interests in the region. This risk nothing, lose nothing approach skillfully serves the Obama administration by preventing the image of failure.

Obama’s major policy decisions began with naming George Mitchell as a special envoy to the Middle East. The stated goal was to help bring Israel and Palestinians back to the negotiating table in an effort to push them toward a final resolution to this age-old conflict. During Mitchell’s tenure and beyond Obama did not show any active leadership in pressuring the two sides to come to the table and move towards a resolution.

His first visit as President to Israel and the West Bank was not until March this year. Once there, the personal dynamic with Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, amid worries over Iran’s nuclear program left no room for the issue of peace talks. Obama has been offered a second chance to take a more proactive role now that Secretary John Kerry is steering the parties closer together.

While Obama addressed “Muslim communities” around the world in his Cairo speech on June 4, 2009, that speech was more a public relations stunt than a policy address. He aimed to reset the conspicuously skewed scoreboard with the Muslim world after two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Generally speaking, the Arab and Muslim worlds welcomed the opportunity to turn the page, but their hopes and dreams for a U.S. president who would understand their regions was quickly crushed by apathetic and misguided American foreign policy and continued military operations and drone attacks in different parts of the region.

When the Arab world looked to the United States for support as Egyptians took to the streets to oust the autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak on January 25, 2011, the administration’s initial response was to support the status quo. Only when momentum tipped the scales to the side of the protesters did the United States declare its support for freedom and democracy. The list of disappointing American policies toward the Middle East goes on to include events in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Bahrain. Yet this is not a final list of unsettled Arab states.

The enigma of Saudi Arabia must be considered in future optics for the Middle East. Saudis might increase their push for reforms leading to an Arab Spring-type revolution. In such a case, the United States will not have the capacity to juggle concurrent unrest in three Arab heavyweight states: Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

The United States should steer Egypt’s democracy and extinguish the fires of civil war in Syria before Saudis take to the streets. Assuming Twitter campaigns are a window into Saudi thinking, the United States should consider broad dissatisfaction in the Kingdom.

A recent CNN report on Saudi tweets stated that the Arabic hashtag “the salary does not meet my needs” reached 17 million tweets in the first two weeks, making it “not only the most popular hashtag in Arabic, but the most popular in any language.”

King Abdullah is managing his people quite skillfully, but Saudis are demanding more than what the royal family can offer: freedom, reform, equality, opportunities and some form of a constitution. The peoples’ love for Abdullah the man does not necessarily extend to the House of Saud. Furthermore, competing groups within the country could easily bring an era of instability to the oil-rich country.

It is unclear how Saudi Arabia’s disenfranchised Shi’a population, accounting for some 20 percent of the total population, and the powerful Salafi-supported religious establishments will react when unemployed Saudi youth team with reformist-leaning middle class to demand their rights. Civil strife similar to Egypt’s is not a far-fetched scenario in Saudi Arabia.

The situation in Egypt is intensifying. The attempted assassination of the Egyptian Minister of Interior on Thursday is foretelling of a brewing civil war under General Abdel Fattah Said al-Sisi’s watch.

It would be a global catastrophe for the three most influential Arab states – Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia – to be a state of disarray. The United States has allies in the region to nurture, a nuclear Iranian to contain and oil prices to keep at bay.

It was not until a global outrage exploded at Assad’s use of chemical weapons on August 21 that Washington decided to take a stand. The United States did not do enough to help the people of Syria throughout the two and a half years since their own uprising. The magnitude of destruction, the number of dead exceeding 100,000 and the seven million refugees spilling over to neighboring countries and internally displaced were not enough cause for a serious U.S. stance against the Assad regime. There were only hollow statements such as the unfulfilled declaration to arm the rebels.

The administration apparently believes that a strategy of limited engagement in Middle East politics will ultimately serve American interests, since the Arab Spring gave the promise of inching those countries closer toward democracy and the rule of law. Uncertainty is settling in now that the Arab Spring is frozen in time. The bleak outlook for civil strife in Syria and Egypt is creating a sense of urgency, prompting Obama to belatedly take a more active role.

Nevertheless, freedom-loving, democracy-seeking Middle Easterners must realize that ultimately this is their fight and their fight alone, and they should smarten up on how they go about effecting the change they require. Learning from the mistakes committed by established democracies, old and new, will prevent them from committing potentially devastating blunders.

This is a time when doing nothing is much worse than doing something. The Unites States as the leader of the free world should not resort to doing something for the sake of appearance. Washington should put together a comprehensive action plan and strategy to move Syria to a positive conclusion that delivers its people from the evils they face.

Once the first shots are fired on Syrian targets, the United States would have committed itself to this conflict. It must finish what it will start with careful forethought and planning, rather than leave the inexperienced and vulnerable Syrian people to their own devices and open the door for other sinister groups to exploit the power vacuum.

Ongoing bombing and continued unrest in Iraq is a testament to America’s halfhearted effort and failed outcome. Stability in the Middle East is the ultimate goal and needs to be built on freedoms and democracy. America must get it right this time.

Walid Jawad is an Atlantic Post contributor based in Washington, D.C.

Posted on September 11, 2013

Published on The Atlantic Post on Sep 11, 2013
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