There's a lot of talk, most of it from Republicans, about President Barack Obama reneging on one or another of his impassioned campaign promises, most of them having to do with our ever-worsening economic disaster.
But the promise that is most serious, at least in foreign policy, is the Middle East—and one can't quite tell yet whether the "forgetfulness" over his earlier pledges of "change" toward the region are coming obliquely from his secretary of state or directly from Obama himself.
Look at the stories emerging from Hillary Clinton's just-completed trip to meet with Israeli and Arab leaders:
•In Egypt, at a conference devoted to the reconstruction of Gaza, the secretary told Arab ministers that she did not expect Iran to respond positively to any American offers. It was then announced that Iran would be invited to an American-led conference on Afghanistan later in the year.
•In Israel, the talk was without serious intention toward peace. Asked about the Jewish settlements in the West Bank that virtually every analyst of the Middle East says are the major roadblock to a peace process, she said only that the U.S. would raise "the issue" with the next Israeli government. While in Brussels, she called the settlements "unhelpful."
•This was followed up by American Middle East policy's eternal fall-back position: If nothing else works, try Syria! Why? The answer seems to be a repetition of the great line about Himalayan exploring: "Because it's there."
•Meanwhile, the core of the problem —the Palestinian "question"—is only barely touched. Yes indeedy, the U.S. did pledge $300 million in humanitarian relief for people trapped in the human hellhole that is Gaza, but at the same time we maintained restrictions on the funding to prevent it from reaching the terrorist Hamas, which also unfortunately happens to be Gaza's elected government.
To sum up, looking over this first month of "new" Obama Middle East policy, one is struck repeatedly with how much it looks like the "old" George W. one. There is the same refusal to deal realistically with the Palestinian dilemma, the same unwillingness to challenge Israel's Far Right in the slightest measure, even on its cruel refusal to open the Gaza crossings to people trapped in that tiny enclave, and the same reflexive, in-your-face treatment of Iran.
One must note here that President Obama himself has made gestures to the Arab world that might presage some changes. He personally telephoned the moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and gave his first White House television interview to the Saudi-funded al-Arabiya television network. But what will stick in the minds of people around the world are Secretary Clinton's words on her visit to the region, which are already reverberating across the globe. What those words are already telling people is that, insofar as the Middle East is concerned, "change" is over before it even began.
It's back to things as they have been since the mid-1970s, when the U.S. began to throw its power totally in defense of Israel, no matter what she did, giving up any vestige of being the "fair interlocutor" that the region so desperately needs.
Iran? I would bet the hope for change in that sector has already been poisoned by Hillary's words.
As James Dobbins, Bush's first special envoy for Afghanistan and a man who worked closely with Iranian officials in late 2001 when they were cooperating with us in the region, wrote in The Washington Post: "Perhaps the simplest—and certainly the quickest—way to launch a dialogue with Iran ... would be to simply stop not talking to Tehran."
He is right. Things truly change in foreign affairs when small, intimate, respectful changes like this begin to occur, almost always beneath the surface of world publicity.
During the campaign, Obama and Clinton split dramatically on precisely these issues. The president came out repeatedly for talking to Iran, while the secretary repeatedly ripped him to pieces over it. Now they are splitting publicly over much the same issues. All of this is curious, indeed. One has to wonder who is really in charge?
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