Obama and the Arabs

by Patrick Seale

Released: 28 Nov 2008

In the Arab world, some of the excitement generated by Barack Obama’s election victory has now worn off. The appointment of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff and the likely appointment of Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State -- both known for their pro-Israeli leanings -- has served to dampen expectations of a radical change of policy.

Nevertheless, there is a sense that some change is unavoidable and must come. In Washington, the neo-conservatives, who had shaped President George W. Bush’s Middle East policies, are out of power and on the defensive. The new team will have much to do clearing up the wreckage caused by these ideologues, and restoring America’s battered authority and reputation.

No one imagines that Barack Obama will adopt Bush’s policy of backing aggressive right-wing forces in Israel on such highly contentious issues as West Bank settlement expansion, wars in Lebanon such as that of 2006, and the on-going siege of Gaza. Nor is Obama expected to follow Bush in refusing to talk to Iran and Syria, and in demonizing resistance movements such as Hizbullah and Hamas as ‘terrorist’ organisations.

The expectation in the region is that Obama’s team will be more open to dialogue, and more even-handed than its predecessor. But the real concern is that it will attempt to bring piecemeal solutions to Middle East’s conflicts, rather than grasping that they are all inter-linked and will need a global settlement.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq, however, is one problem which is already on the way to a solution. The principle has been agreed with the Iraq government of a withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraqi towns and villages by June 2009, and of a full withdrawal of all troops from Iraq by end-2011. The only question is whether Obama will bring forward the full withdrawal date to mid-2009, as he has pledged to do. This is of no great importance. One way or another, how Iraq is governed will soon no longer be an American responsibility.

Four other problems loom even larger than Iraq: the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict; the ongoing war in Afghanistan, which is spilling over the border into Pakistan; the puzzle of what to do about Iran’s nuclear ambitions; and how to handle the threat from terrorist movements such as Al-Qaeda.

These problems are inter-connected in several important ways. There can be no end to the threat from terrorism so long as America wages war against Muslims, and so long as the Arab-Israeli conflict continues to fester. In fact, these unresolved conflicts serve only to mobilize recruits for resistance, including terrorist action, against America and its allies.

Equally, there can be no end to the fighting in Afghanistan, and no stability in that benighted country, without the support of regional powers, such as Iran, Pakistan, India and even China. Isolating and sanctioning Iran because of its nuclear programme will not induce it to help Western efforts in Afghanistan. Similarly, U.S. cross-border strikes into Pakistan against so-called ‘militants’ only serve to weaken the Pakistan government, and to arouse fierce anti-American sentiment and thirst for revenge among the Pashtun tribes, living on either side of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

And nothing will persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions so long as it remains under direct military threat from the United States and Israel, and so long as Iran’s Lebanese protégé, Hizbullah -- and the vulnerable Shi’a population of south Lebanon which it protects -- face the possibility of renewed Israeli attacks, such as they have endured so many times in the past.

The Arab-Israeli problem is the oldest of the region’s conflicts but the one which will require the earliest treatment by Obama. How he approaches it will give an indication of whether or not he can effect real change in the region. It is the key to how the United States will be viewed, to whether it can restore its authority, and to whether it can dispel the threat from terrorism.

Obama needs to make clear where he stands on this issue before the Israeli elections of 10 February. If he is serious about wanting peace in the Middle East he must lend his support to the Israeli peace camp by declaring that he will give urgent attention to the creation of a Palestinian state -- and therefore to a two-state solution of the conflict -- even if this draws on him the fire of Israel’s right-wing U.S. lobbyists. For the Arab and Muslim world, this will be the ultimate test of his leadership.

On Afghanistan, Obama needs to retreat from his rash campaign pledge in which he vowed to take the war to Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda inside Pakistan’s tribal agencies -- with or without the authorization of the Pakistan government in Islamabad. This is a certain recipe for a disaster to match Bush’s disaster in Iraq.

Afghanistan is not the ‘main front’ against terror and the Taliban are not al-Qaeda, even if -- in accordance with their tribal code of providing hospitality and protection to strangers -- they have given Osama bin Laden sanctuary in their mountains. Rather than pour in more troops and escalate the war, Obama should encourage President Hamid Karzai in his attempts to reach a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, in order to draw them away from al-Qaeda, even at the price of offering them a share in government. Obama should also encourage Pakistan’s latest overtures to India.

In some ways, the American/Israeli confrontation with Iran is perhaps the most dangerously explosive problem of all -- and the one which most urgently needs defusing. Part of the problem is Israel’s apparent determination to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear capability, even if this means triggering a regional war in the process. Obama himself has said that he would do everything -- he repeated the word “everything” -- to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

What is so far lacking is a strategy which might persuade Iran to accept the proposal of Mohammad ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency to set up an international store of enriched uranium for countries which had agreed to give up uranium enrichment, but which wanted to develop civilian nuclear power.

Iran must be made an offer it cannot refuse, because the danger of nuclear annihilation is still the greatest latent danger facing the world – as it was during the Cold War. The latest historical research has shown that the danger was only narrowly avoided during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis -- and then, as much by luck as good judgment.

It is probable that Iran might be persuaded to give up its uranium enrichment programme only if there were real progress towards an Arab-Israeli peace settlement and towards the withdrawal of U.S. troops from its immediate vicinity in Iraq and the Gulf. A final inducement would be U.S. support for a nuclear-free Middle East.

If Obama is to win over the Arab and Muslim world -- as he is well-placed to do -- he needs a global vision. The time has come for America to stop inflaming regional conflicts, but instead to work actively for peace for the benefit of Arabs, Israelis and Iranians, not to mention Turks, Kurds, Armenians and the many other nationalities of this deeply troubled region.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

Copyright © 2008 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 28 November 2008
Word Count: 1,198
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