The election of Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency opens a rare window of opportunity for the United States to undo the considerable damage it has suffered in the Middle East during the presidency of George W. Bush. The president-elect brings extraordinary symbolic credibility to the office, and he appears to possess the intelligence and strength of character to enhance America’s ability to conduct its relations in the region more effectively than before.
This paper attempts to assess the new president’s power, speculate about his likely approach to five of the main Middle East issues, analyze the domestic political environment’s impact on his Middle East policymaking, identify some of the key figures that may influence his understanding of the region, and urge that President Obama seize the opportunity to redirect American power in support of regional stability, justice, and development.
On the symbolic level, Obama has displayed a degree of charisma not seen in the White House since the days of John F. Kennedy. Facing now an unprecedented financial and economic crisis, the American people are looking for a leader in the mold of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who through his charismatic optimism was able to banish “fear itself” and restore confidence in the nation’s institutions. Obama cannot be unaware of the standard that people will hold him to, for he himself has studied yet another of America’s greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, who came to office facing the gravest crisis in American history.
Symbolism matters in foreign policy; it can enhance a nation’s influence and credibility overseas. Such “soft power” is as important as military might. Because of blunders in Iraq, the abuses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the perceived hostility to Islam and to Muslims, not to mention the glaring failure to play a balanced and active role in the Palestine conflict, the United States has lost respect in the Middle East. Obama has an opportunity to deal with this problem, and he comes into office enjoying remarkable good will in Arab and Muslim public opinion. Opinion-makers in the Arab and Muslim worlds draw attention to his unusual upbringing in “the global south”—Kenya, Indonesia, even Hawaii—and dare to hope that he will have formed an appreciation for cultural and religious pluralism and the aspirations of the developing world. At the same time some of them worry that he will try to be hyper-patriotic in order to allay suspicions in some quarters of American opinion about his color and his Islamic heritage. But if they are right, Obama might succeed in resonating with this region and thus strengthen U.S. credibility and “soft power”.
On the operational level, Obama’s intelligence and energy reminds one of Bill Clinton, and one is inclined to think that this will be a president who can deal with several complex issues simultaneously. Thus, while he must focus on the financial crisis, this does not mean that he will neglect foreign policy issues, of which the Middle East is perhaps the most important. But even more than Clinton, Obama has demonstrated impressive leadership and managerial capabilities, as witnessed in his extraordinary election campaign. Unlike the present occupant of the White House, he has the capacity to take command of the major Middle East issues—Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, “Islamist” extremism—and to approach them with realism and nuance rather than through a simplistic ideological lens.
Clearly though he has his work cut out for him in the Middle East. The Palestine problem, which has so eroded American credibility throughout the region, will require the President’s personal involvement; if he delegates the U.S. role to bureaucrats or partisans, as has happened in the past, his chances of success will be slim. Iraq, a main focus of his campaign, is not as stable as recent Western media reports often suggest. Iran’s growing influence will inevitably engage much of his attention as he grapples with the alternatives of engagement or the use of force. With the steady deterioration of conditions in Afghanistan, and the vexatious involvement from Pakistan, Obama will face daunting challenges from the ongoing threat of violent extremist networks seeking to legitimize themselves by appropriating Islamic discourse. The fact that Israel, Pakistan and India have a demonstrated military nuclear capability, and that Iran (and possibly other countries) may be actively seeking it makes the stakes all the higher. Capable as he may be as an individual leader, Obama inevitably will need to rely on the advice of others. Will they have the larger values and vision that Obama appears to possess? Or will they be hobbled by outdated mind-sets, political pressures and simplistic (if not biased) views of the region?
As the Obama administration takes shape, observers will be trying to ascertain whether it is developing a certain weltanschauung toward the Middle East and Islamic world. Is this a place whose culture, religion, and society is inherently alien to American values and interests, and therefore can at best only be “managed” or “contained”; or is it a region with numerous discrete, distinct, but in some ways interrelated issues that Washington can deal with using rational methods, traditional diplomacy and persuasive “soft power”? Most academics who study the Middle East, I daresay, hope that its worldview will tend toward the latter; but there are enough representatives of older entrenched ideological positions said to be in line for important positions in the administration to make one wonder which direction it will take. Let us briefly sketch what we know so far about the Obama approach to several of the leading regional issues.
On Iraq, we may expect a drawdown of U.S. forces somewhat faster than what the Bush Administration has lately stipulated but probably somewhat slower than Obama proposed during the campaign. He will try to constrain Shiite domination of the Iraqi government, and attendant Iranian hegemony, by encouraging the Arab-oriented Shiite clerics in Najaf who contest Qom’s claims to theological superiority; and he will also heed the concerns of friendly Arab governments who object to the disenfranchisement of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs. But he will have his hands full because Iraq may well lapse into more unrest (Shiites vs. Shiites, Shiites vs. Sunnis, Kurds vs. Arabs) as the U.S. forces are drawn down. It is unclear as to whether Obama will stake out a dominant and independent position from his key military and security advisors, such as General David Petreaus and Secretary Gates. Will a substantial U.S. military presence until the end of 2011 regenerate nationalist resistance, whether from radical Shiite groups (Muqtada al-Sadr) or nationalist Sunni and even reconstituted Al-Qa’ida elements? What will Obama do if American forces come under substantial renewed attack?
On Iran, Mr. Obama has indicated that he is not afraid to engage Teheran in dialogue, but at the same time he will continue to insist that “all options are on the table” if Iran continues to impede international inspection of its (potential) military nuclear program. Some Obama advisors are suggesting that Obama should take up the idea of a “grand bargain” that Teheran had earlier proposed. Obama will need to reassure the Arab states of the Gulf of a continuing American security “umbrella” for them.
He has a choice to make. Going for a “grand bargain” will mean confronting the more hawkish voices from among the Republicans, the neoconservatives, the Israel lobby, and even elements in the U.S. military and security establishment and in the Democratic Party itself who view Iran as an existential threat to U.S. dominance in the rest of the Middle East. There are still those who believe that Iran is successfully pursuing a nuclear military strategy that must be countered, if necessary, by a U.S. military strike against their known nuclear and military infrastructure, regardless of the consequences. For those who see an Iran-driven alliance with Syria, Hizballah, Hamas, and perhaps dissident Shi’ite populations on the Arab side of the Gulf, not to mention an Iranian project to make the Shiite dominated government of Iraq an Iranian sphere of influence, dialogue with this enemy is a show of weakness on our part. So far Obana has straddled the fence. Which way will he jump?
We may expect Obama to discard the George W. Bush and the neoconservative conceptualization of the “global war on terrorism” in favor of a more precise and nuanced understanding of extremist networks. Obama is likely to place more emphasis on law enforcement techniques to deal with these threats and to encourage a multilateral approach. In the campaign he called for a more intense effort to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and criticized the invasion of Iraq as a serious distraction from that effort. But his argument that an Iraq drawdown is important in order to shift more U.S. forces to Afghanistan suggested that he may not appreciate the insufficiency of a mainly military response to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. Again, will he take a position independent of his influential military advisors or will he cede decisionmaking authority to them?
During the George W. Bush administration, neoconservatives “hijacked” a time-honored liberal position calling for active American pressure to promote democracy and eliminate the prevailing authoritarianism in the regimes of the Arab Middle East. If persuasion through such (feeble) instruments as Al-Hurra (U.S. sponsored Arabic satellite TV) or programs for training Arabs to become more democratic, then “regime change” using military means was considered an acceptable last resort. Regime change in Iraq (toward American-style democracy) was expected to induce a benign “domino effect” that would lead to democracies being established in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.
The Obama camp is most probably a bit schizophrenic on democracy promotion. The neoconservative project obviously was a failure. But the center-to-left elements in the Democratic Party are reluctant to abandon their missionary principles of promoting democracy and human rights in a part of the world which has been singularly resistant to these developments. On the other hand, the more pragmatic elements in the Party and the administration very likely appreciate the manifest costs and difficulties in pursuing this pathway even though they believe that Arab authoritarianism encourages the kind of extremism that ultimately threatens American interests as well as those of America’s authoritarian allies in the region. There is, as the Jordanian diplomat Marwan Muasher has written, an “Arab center” that needs nurturing. But these moderates seem to be a minority in their own societies, and their liberal cause has not been helped by the “kiss of death” support from an America that is otherwise widely despised.
On the all-important question of Palestine, observers may have the most reason to fear that Obama may not take advantage of his window of opportunity. The current prospects for fruitful diplomacy between the Palestinians and Israel are bleak. Furthermore, in his campaign, Obama succumbed to electoral pressures from the “Israel lobby” and promised unconditional support for core Israeli positions without showing the kind of balance that will ultimately be needed to make progress on this issue. The question then remains whether as president Mr. Obama will liberate himself from domestic political pressures and use the “bully pulpit” of the presidency to press energetically for a solution that takes into account legitimate Palestinian concerns. It will not be easy for President Obama to pressure the Israelis to roll back settlements and accept some form of Palestinian-Israeli power sharing in Jerusalem. But it is not impossible. Whether he rises to the challenge may determine whether or not he is remembered in history as the leader who helped solve the longest-running regional conflict in the world.
America’s Middle East policies have, at least since the creation of Israel in 1948, been embedded in domestic politics. The only other foreign policy areas to have been so affected were China around the time of the Communist revolution and Fidel Castro’s Cuba since the 1960s. As a general rule, Democratic Party administrations were more influenced by domestic factors—above all, the powerful Israel lobby—than Republican administrations owing to the relatively greater influence of Jewish American voters in the Democrats’ core constituencies. The administrations of President Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson stand out in this respect, as perhaps did the Bill Clinton administration. But the increasing conservatism of Jewish voters along with the growing influence of fundamentalist Christian voters in the Republican Party has tilted the Republicans as well toward warm support for Israel. The personal predilections of American presidents has also played a role: Truman and Johnson were viscerally pro-Israel, while Jimmy Carter (although a “born again Christian”) displayed an empathy for the Palestinians unusual among American presidents. Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were regarded by Israelis among others as relatively cool toward Israel, while Ronald Reagan and to a lesser extent George W. Bush (and defeated candidate John McCain in the recent election) appeared to have an emotional connection with the Zionist project, as well as a “realist” appreciation of Israel’s presumed strategic importance.
Writers on U.S. Middle East policy have differed as to whether that policy is primarily shaped by domestic considerations or by rational calculations of American national interests. Steven Spiegel and Kenneth Organski wrote serious books arguing the latter position (in contrast to the polemics of a pro-Israel publicist named Alan Dershowitz). Arguing the former case were the late Alfred Lilienthal and, more recently, the respected “realist” foreign policy experts Stephen Walt and John Mearscheimer whose book on the Israel lobby broke a certain taboo over the frank discussion of an issue, on which some academic writers have suffered accusations of anti-Semitism for speaking out on it (see the well-known book, They Dared to Speak Out by former Illinois congressman Paul Findley). Walt and Mearscheimer’s central thesis is that U.S. national interests have suffered from Washington’s uncritical support of Israeli expansionism and oppression of the Palestinians; they explain this deviation by citing the powerful influence of the Israel lobby on Congress and the White House.
President-elect Obama will confront the same tension between domestic pro-Israel political pressures and the analyses of foreign policy and Middle East specialists both inside the government (notably the State Department, the Defense Department and the intelligence community). Much of the public discourse on Middle East issues is framed by lobbying organizations such as AIPAC (the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) and Washington think-tanks with ideological affinities to Israel (especially the right wing in Israeli politics) and/or to neoconservatives who view Israel as a bulwark against Islamist and Arab extremism directed toward the United States. Examples would include the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an offshoot of AIPAC, the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation. To be sure there are other think tanks and academic centers whose analyses of Middle East issues are more nuanced. And it is also arguable that the pro-Israel bias in the American news media (especially television) is less extreme than it was, say, in the 1970s. Nevertheless, American public opinion, especially since the attacks of September 2001, seems to view Islam as a threatening religion and the Arabs as aggressors against Israel and, by extension, the United States. The incoming President, who has courted the support of Israel’s followers, may well feel constrained on opening dialogue and taking an evenhanded position toward Middle Eastern actors so widely viewed as hostile.
Ever since World War II, when the U.S. emerged as a major—probably the major—outside power in the Middle East, American presidents have called upon trusted advisors for guidance. President Harry Truman, it is said, was deeply influenced by an old business partner of his from Missouri who was a dedicated Zionist, and also by Chaim Weizmann, one of the founding fathers of Israel. Thus was America launched on its “historic relationship” and almost unconditional support of Israel. President Dwight Eisenhower was influenced by a powerful secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, who saw the world, including the Middle East, as a domain of competition with Soviet Communism. John F. Kennedy, surrounded by Harvard trained advisors, was also liberal enough to understand the emerging post-colonial world and reached out to the Algerian nationalists, the Palestinian refugees, and Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Had his assassination not cut short his presidency one wonders whether America’s Middle East policies might have taken a different direction. But his successor Lyndon Johnson was far more susceptible to domestic political pressures and pushed the U.S. deeper into supporting Israel. Richard Nixon’s foreign policy guru, Henry Kissinger, continued in this “realist” mode, and while emotionally supportive of Israel was still “realist” enough to engage “moderate” Arab states. President Jimmy Carter, who is responsible for the most successful (although far from completely so) American effort to deal with the Palestine issue, was fortunate to have advisors such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and William Quandt. Ronald Reagan and his advisors had an amateurish understanding of the region. George H.W. Bush was more fortunate in having an exceptionally shrewd secretary of state, James Baker, and a team of intelligent and pragmatic national security advisors who helped his administration achieve partial successes over the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the “Madrid process” for dealing with Israel and Palestine. President Bill Clinton, extraordinarily intelligent but undisciplined, left the “Oslo process” to lower-level functionaries with a reputation for pro-Israel partisanship and in the end left the Palestine-Israel situation in worse shape than he found it. The “neoconservatives” who seized control of U.S. foreign policy under an exceptionally weak President, George W. Bush, were probably the most ideologically biased of any of their predecessors. Under the “intellectual” cover of two well-known professors, and aligned with the Israeli right wing, these advisors steered America into its current parlous position in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
Thus, it matters who President Obama will come to rely upon to help him cope with multiple Middle East crises. As the list below suggests (and it is by no means definitive), Obama has been exposed to some highly regarded Middle East specialists, but he also is likely to be associating with individuals with less objective and more ideological orientations. He appears prepared to draw on serious and pragmatic military and national security experts, but one of his closest domestic advisors is likely to accentuate the access of the Israel lobby, and a major Democratic Party fund-raiser makes no secret of his pro-Israel bias.
Hillary Clinton Tipped as Obama’s secretary of state, she is known for having flip-flopped on the Palestine-Israel issue, at first showing public sympathy for Palestinian aspirations but later, after deciding to run for the U.S. Senate from New York, taking pro-Zionist positions with great enthusiasm. In the presidential election campaign, she took a harder line on Iraq and Iran than did Obama. Now a powerful political figure in her own right, will she basically shape U.S. Middle East policies, or will he?
Gen. James Jones In Washington he is rumored to be in line for the important post of National Security Advisor to the President. Highly regarded, General Jones has also had on-the-ground experience as liaison between Israeli and Palestinian security forces. Jones could turn out to be the best of the circle of Middle East advisors.
Dennis Ross Long affiliated with the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and custodian of the Clinton Administration’s failed Arab-Israeli “peace process”, he is widely distrusted in the Arab world. But rumor has it that he is destined for a major foreign policy post, perhaps chief Middle East advisor or perhaps something even broader.
Martin Indyk Mr. Indyk, formerly with AIPAC, became a key Clinton Administration Middle East policymaker, involved with the “peace process” and as ambassador to Israel. As a result of that experience, according to observers, he became somewhat disillusioned with Israeli policies and more understanding of the larger region.
Robert Malley A junior member of the Clinton “peace process” team and former mid-level official, he was identified as an Obama advisor early in the campaign but later, attacked as too pro-Arab, he disassociated himself from Obama in order not to weaken Obama’s support among Jewish voters. After Obama’s victory, would Malley be restored to grace?
Haim Saban According to a largely admiring portrayal in Condé Nast Portfolio magazine, this self-made Israeli-American businessman made his large fortune in Hollywood promoting the “Power Rangers”. He is an unabashed cheerleader for Israel. He donated $13 million to the Brookings Institution, a leading Washington think tank with Democratic leanings, to establish what appears to be a semi-autonomous “Saban Center for Middle East Studies” within it. It is headed by Martin Indyk. Both were supporters of Hillary Clinton in her presidential nomination campaign, and Saban switched to Obama once he became the Democratic nominee.
Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American professor, befriended Obama in Chicago when Obama was a community organizer and later state senator, and Khalidi was teaching Middle East history at the University of Chicago. Attacked viciously by neo-conservative and right-wing Zionist operatives (notably on the Fox News channel) for having been in the pay of “Palestinian terrorists” Khalidi publicly distanced himself from Obama. One might surmise that Obama was exposed to Khalidi’s analysis of Middle East issues, which would have given him some insight into the complexities of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But will Khalidi be consulted by Obama or by Hillary Clinton?
Gregory Craig is a long-time legal advisor to Obama and is slated to have a position as White House counsel. He has consulted with Arab diplomats and is not believed to have strong ideological positions on Middle East issues.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, has spoken and written in a highly critical manner of the George W. Bush presidency. He is fully aware of the Palestinian-Israeli situation and is familiar with the complexities of the contemporary Arab and Muslim societies. Because he has favored a less pro-Israel U.S. policy, his name is anathema to many American Zionists. Hence, when asked if he were an Obama advisor, he smiled and said definitely not. But his collaboration with Brent Scowcroft, his National Security counterpart in the George H.W. Bush administration cannot have gone unnoticed by the Obama camp.
Rahm Emmanuel, a key domestic political confidant and friend of Obama from their Illinois days, will become White House Chief of Staff. Known as an abrasive and ruthless politician, he comes from a family with Israeli roots and a father associated with the Irgun, a Zionist terrorist organization in the 1940s. A pro-Arab commentator in Washington observed that Emmanuel would have the guts to put down Benjamin Netanyahu, if he were so inclined.
Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense in George W. Bush’s second term, won bipartisan praise for being far more effective and moderate than his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld. His stance on Iraq was more flexible and less ideological, so much so that Obama has asked him to remain in that position. He is widely regarded as knowledgeable about the larger Middle East and is said to prefer political approaches to the region’s problems rather than primarily military ones.
Susan Rice, an assistant secretary for African affairs in the Clinton State Department, she is regarded by at least one Arab diplomatic observer in Washington to be ideologically pro-Israel; others regard her as more moderate.
Edward Djrejian, now the director of the James Baker Institute at Rice University, is one of the leading Middle East experts from the State Department, who served in high positions in both Republican and Democratic administrations, was deeply involved in the bipartisan Iraq study group. He has also served as ambassador to Israel and Syria. In a recent book and speech at Georgetown University, he lamented the sad state of America’s position in the Middle East and called for more vigorous and balanced leadership in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State in Clinton’s second term, is a long-time Democratic Party foreign policy expert. Although she supported Hillary Clinton, she has also been tapped by the Obama transition team. She has taught at Georgetown University when not in government service and has quite a good familiarity with the Middle East. But she knows and accepts the fact that Israel is an important domestic political issue in the U.S.
The Middle East had troubles enough before American foreign policy, hijacked by the neoconservative cult, made things there even worse. Driven by ill-informed ideologues, Washington dreamed of transforming the Middle East into a region of American-style liberal democracies, integrated into a globalized, unregulated, market-driven capitalist system, fully accepting of Israel (despite its ongoing oppression of the Palestinians), and agreeable to a Pax Americana. Displaying an imperialist hubris reminiscent of classical European colonialism, the George W. Bush administration, especially in its first term, believed that America not only could but should transform the Middle East: happily, national security interests and high moral purposes seemed to coincide. It is interesting to conjecture whether all this could have happened had the terrible events of September 11th not occurred; lacking the fuel of anger and fright generated by that calamity, perhaps the neoconservative project would have failed to gain the traction that it did. Be that as it may, whatever Washington tried in its quest for Middle East transformation largely failed. Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy was neglected until it was too late. The “global war on terror” failed to catch Bin Laden or liquidate Al-Qa’ida. The grand projects of regime change in Afghanistan (where the initial response was justified) and Iraq (where it wasn’t) had fallen fall short of success by the end of Bush’s second term. Naïve and clumsy efforts at democracy promotion were thrown by the wayside when “extremist” parties did well in Palestine and Lebanon. Autocratic regimes friendly to the United States were doubly blind-sided by Washington: first, with democracy promotion agendas which, because of their unpopular American sponsor, actually discredited liberal and democratic centrists throughout the region; and second, by Washington’s predilection to prefer the use of intrusive force and often brutality in its “war on terrorism”—witness Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. And for an administration which prided itself for its hard-headed pursuit of national security interests it is astonishing that nobody in power noticed that Iran (a member of Bush’s famous “axis of evil”) would be the big strategic winner in the oil-rich Gulf region thanks to Washington’s mishandling of post-Saddam Iraq. The sad upshot of this unhappy era was that America’s friends in the region as well as its enemies were dismayed by Washington’s performance.
The euphoria that has accompanied Obama’s victory, therefore, is easy to understand. But it is more difficult to ascertain whether his administration will have the intelligence and political courage to begin to turn matters around. There is substantial agreement among academic specialists as to what needs to be done, but the public discourse (especially in the election campaign) has remained largely mired in old ideological positions.
*On Palestine and Israel, Obama needs to apply “tough love” to Israel. It is interesting and ironic that even Ehud Olmert, the now-discredited old right-winger, seems to agree with the Israeli peace camp and liberal American supporters of Israel that settlements have to be rolled back, that the Palestinian state have some share of Jerusalem, and that the suffocating pressures that Israel continues to apply to the Palestinians (especially in Gaza) need to be lifted. Obama needs to help centrist elements in Hamas be reintegrated into a Palestinian national unity government.
*On Syria, Obama needs to open a respectful dialogue and reverse Bush’s ostrich-like policy of refusing to engage Damascus. He needs to nurture the nascent Israeli-Syrian dialogue by encouraging the Israelis to reach a deal over the Golan Heights—something that almost happened in the mid-1990s.
*On Lebanon, Obama must show a better grasp of internal Lebanese politics than his predecessor. Unfortunately, his advisors have recently been quoted assuring the pro-American “March 14” leaders that Washington still holds Iran and Syria responsible for the country’s divisions. The divide between “March 14” and the Hizballah-led “March 8” opposition is very much a product of internal Lebanese issues, and America should avoid being identified as a partisan in these matters.
*On Iraq, he needs to make it clear that the U.S. military withdrawal will actually occur expeditiously and that an ongoing surreptitious military “support” presence should be abjured; otherwise nationalist resistance from several quarters will continue. Kurdish ambitions for independence and territorial expansion should be resisted. Washington needs to establish itself as an honest broker committed to the continued unity of the country (despite Biden’s early advocacy of near-partition) and the secure participation of Sunnis as well as Shi’a. Washington will have to cope with Teheran’s likely continuing role in Iran.
*On Iran, the U.S. should be prepared to accept its nuclear development (including enriched uranium) for non-military purposes. Iran should be held to its international commitments to inspections. At the same time, Obama needs to recognize America’s all-too elastic acceptance of nuclear weapons programs in Israel, Pakistan and India. Iranians have a legitimate complaint about American double standards. The U.S. and Iran actually have some common interests: both benefit from stability in Iraq and Afghanistan; both are threatened by (Sunni) Salafi extremist networks; both benefit from tranquility on the Arab side of the Gulf. Each should expect that the other will continue to have a sort of sphere of influence and should learn not only to cooperate where possible but also to compete within tolerable limits.
*On “Islamist extremism,” the recent attacks in Mumbai underline the importance of international cooperation in intelligence, law enforcement, and rapid-response capabilities to deal with groups and networks only tangentially or symbolically linked to one another and which lack an exclusive territorial base. Obama would be wise to exploit his Islamic roots in order to mitigate the widespread impression that America is “against Islam” (despite what its leaders, including President Bush, have insisted). Let us hope that he does not feel domestic pressure to “get tough” on Islam, just to show that he is not a Muslim himself.
*Finally, on “democracy promotion,” perhaps it is time to give this project a rest. Obama’s predecessor has done too much damage to indigenous liberals and democrats to the point that his democracy promotion (even to the point of forcible regime change) has served as a kind of “kiss of death” to the democratic trend in the region. Until the U.S. can recapture some of the broad respect that it once enjoyed, it is not in a very good position to advocate democratic reforms, which to most people in the region seem like meddling in their internal affairs. This does not mean that non-governmental American organizations, including academics and the intellectual community more broadly, should not speak out against authoritarian practices and human and civil rights violations that, in truth, are all too common in the region. Private non-governmental organizations can offer modest material support if done collaboratively with local groups. The one thing that the U.S. government does and should continue to do is insist on a certain conditionality in its aid programs (especially military assistance) to countries in the region.
Will the Obama administration take on these tough issues along the lines I am suggesting? The obvious answer is that at this point nobody knows. As indicated at the beginning of this paper, there are some reasons to be optimistic as we look at Obama’s persona and his insistence on “change”. But we have also tried to show that even the President is constrained by his domestic environment—in both its intellectual and political dimensions. On several of the issues we have discussed I am inclined to be hopeful, but on Palestine-Israel—arguably the most important one—it is difficult to see President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turning a new page.
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