This presidential election couldn't have come at a worse time for America and the Arab World. Since candidates are more focused on politics than on sound policy, critical issues will not receive the thoughtfulness they require. And so instead of addressing and working creatively to resolve a number of crises that are coming to a head across the Arab region, Washington will spend the election season pandering and politicking, making things worse, while rendering America increasingly isolated and powerless to have a positive impact in a rapidly changing Arab World.
This behavior is, of course, not limited to U.S. policy in the Middle East. This same nasty and unproductive bickering has harmed our ability to address and resolve serious domestic challenges, as well: evidence Washington's near paralysis in attempting to come to a budget/deficit reduction compromise. But as harmful as nasty partisan politics can be in making it more difficult to solve problems at home, it has had an even more damaging impact on our ability to handle complicated matters of foreign policy. And there is nowhere in the world where the challenges are as great, the stakes are as high, and the costs of failure so dear, as they are across the Arab World today.
The realities that confront America in the Arab World at this time, include, but are not limited to: dramatic transformations in leadership in many countries, with still unsettled situations in many more; a newly empowered Arab public opinion, that now limits the ability of the U.S. to project American leadership, especially on matters not supported by Arab opinion; a fast approaching "point of no return" in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, where, owing largely to Israeli intransigence and voracious settlement expansion, has made achieving a peace settlement a near impossibility; an emboldened Iran, which now has a foothold in Iraq and a leadership that is exploiting anti-American sentiment to its advantage; and a deepening partisan divide at home, which has effectively tied the Administration's hands in the conduct of regional diplomacy, all the while infusing a damaging and dangerous anti-Muslim sentiment into the mainstream of U.S. political discourse.
With the date by which American forces are to be withdrawn from Iraq rapidly approaching, it stands as one of the great ironies of this new century, that the war that was designed and executed to project America's hegemony, instead left the U.S. weaker and less respected, and left the Middle East more volatile and less secure. It is this reality that the Obama Administration must confront as it faces real challenges with limited options. While the White House appears to recognize this state of affairs, it is clear that Republicans do not.
This weekend, the GOP's White House aspirants will debate foreign policy, and they will, no doubt, be in an attack mode, challenging the President's policies at every turn. From statements already issued by the leading Republican candidates it is clear that they will admit to no common ground with this White House in the conduct of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Instead they routinely taunt the White House for: its "weakness" in not confronting Iran; its lack of support for Israel; its failure to act more vigorously in Libya and Syria; and its decision to honor agreements reached during the last Administration to withdraw from Iraq.
Recent developments will only add fuel to this raging partisan fire. The revealing, but still inconclusive, IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program and Israel's renewed threats to launch a unilateral attack on Iran, has Republican's demanding that the Administration be more supportive of Israel and more directly confrontational with Iran.
The recent leaked conversation between Presidents Sarkozy and Obama, in which both men make clear their disdain for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, has Republicans not only demanding that Obama apologize to the Israeli leader, but that he also demand that his French counterpart apologize, as well.
Despite Arab concern that U.S. performance in the search for Israeli-Palestinian peace has been unbalanced and a massive disappointment (especially after President Obama's patently pro-Israel political speech before the United Nations General Assembly), Republicans, playing to their "born again" base, have repeatedly chided the President for "betraying our only ally" or "throwing Israel under the bus".
The growing tragedy in Syria has prompted Republicans to upbraid Obama for failing to demonstrate leadership. Much like their calls for the Administration to be more aggressive in Libya, they are now demanding action against the Assad regime -- despite the fact that no responsible player in Syria or the broader region has called for or would welcome such a U.S. role.
The GOP criticisms of the president are not reality-based, and if the policies they advocate were to be pursued, the results would have devastating long-term consequences for America and the Arab World.
What is so distressing in all of this is the degree to which the Republicans have failed to learn the lessons of Bush's failures. Not understanding how deep is the hole dug by the Bush Administration's recklessness, Republicans keep pushing Obama to pursue policies that would dig that hole deeper still.
Dr. James J. Zogby is the author of Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why it Matters (Palgrave Macmillan, October 2010) and the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American-community.
Follow James Zogby on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AAIUSA
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I REALLY fail to understand why is it that resolving "crises that are coming to a head across the Arab region" is an American, rather than Arab responsibility. Why is it that the blogger addresses his elegiac criticism to USA, rather than to the Arabs themselves?
Arabs lived for years under the yoke of corrupt & incompetent Arab dictators. And as recent events proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, that was not because of "US support" to these dictators, but because the Arab peoples did not rise to get rid of them. Recently, some did that. But it is entirely unclear whether this will result in something better than the past, or perhaps something worse: Islamist, rather than secular dictatorships. If that happens, this is again the responsibility of the Arabs, not of US, EU, Israel, the West, etc.
We are tired of the perpetual blame game. The blogger would do better to use his eloquence to exhort the Arabs themselves to take responsibility for their own future and choose the path of freedom & democracy.
You support your allies and friends. Although the US has some allies in Arab governments that is not the case with many people in the Arab and Muslim world. There are also no Arab or Muslim governments who have even a slightly balanced approach towards Israel. In fact at a governmental and religious level they teach hatred towards the Jews and Israel.
This is not to say Israel is always doing the right thing, which it is not. Maybe if these one sided ME countries put real pressure on the Palestinians and stopped preaching hate and stated their refusal to ship weapons and support on condition the US bore pressure on Israel maybe something could be achieved. To put the whole problem in the ME of the US being biased is ridiculous.
On March 22, 1979, the Security Council adopted Resolution No. 446. Israel’s violation of Resolution 446 (sections quoted below) represents the most flagrant violation of Israel, not only of the UN but also the stated policy of our government under successive administrations:
(The Council) Determines that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East; Calls once more upon Israel, as the occupying power, to abide scrupulously by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, to rescind it’s previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, and in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories.
It's like absolutely no political leader of our time is capable of struggling with complexity or with issues that have taken decades (not a year) to develop.
The idea that maybe Israel and the Arab World both contributed to this situation seems to occur to nobody. No, you apparently must be either for Israel or you're for a Muslim-only nation.
The idea that you might not want to take sides with either does not occur to any conservative except for the Catholic Knight, who runs the blog of the same name, or libertarians like Laurence Vance.
God, we've become a nation of binary-thinking adolescents who are largely incapable of taking a step back and objectively resolving ANYTHING.
The next step is the mass arrest and deportation of Palestinians from the OT under a new military law discovered in April.
There is only one: Acceptance of the RIGHT - not only the FACT, for now - of Israel to be, to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
To date, no Muslim-Arab leader, local or regional, has accepted Israel's right to exist as the national home of the Jewish people on ANY parcel of land either east or west of the Jordan River.
And, while rejecting its right to do so, the Muslim-Arab world has attempted numerous times to wipe Israel off the face of earth, and continues to do so.
Thus, does the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), headed by Mr. Mahmoud Abbas accept Israel's right?
A proper answer will resolve the only truly core issue in this conflict.
.
I say that for at least some people, for Israel to evacuate the West Bank is taken as a first step-- a "start", as you call it, to dismantling Israel itself. Of course, even an illegitimate child, if that's what Israel is, will try to preserve its life. Therefore voices such as yours only contribute to Israeli stubborness, refusals, and paranoia.
In any case, I take your comment as evidence that at least some of the people who call for this withdrawl (not all--not including myself, for example), do so because they hope it will make it easier to destroy the illegitimate state. I'm sure you "frankly" admit that, at least.
With this kind of formal conviction by the Democratic President, and with the constant call by his Secretary of State to Jews to refrain from residing in parts of their historic homeland, only because they are Jewish, which is clear act of applied racism, it is difficult to take the President and the Democratic Party seriously when it comes to being loyal to one of America's oldest, closest and most loyal ally, Israel.
It is not entirely clear what the Republicans have to offer, but as of this point, it is even more difficult to see Obama receiving the support of Israel's friends in the US.
It is high time the United States of America came to a mature view of where are real interests are and not be hostage to a certain foreign power's view of what we could do.
The time has come today..