On Tuesday, Barack Obama celebrated his 100-day mark as the president of the US. Analysts from around the world have since tried to reflect on whether he has done enough to tackle the enormous challenges facing America and the world. For Middle Easterners, progress towards achieving just and comprehensive peace is the yardstick to measure Obama's success.
Many have, however, expressed genuine doubts about whether the new US leader would invest sufficient political capital to consummate a balanced and equitable final settlement that meets the national aspirations of the Palestinians - chiefly statehood and refugees. The decade-old US approach in handling the peace process was instrumental in creating a pessimistic mood.
Historically, the US has shown interest in the Middle East peace process only when it seemed vital to protect more significant interests, that is. Israel and oil supplies. In March 6, 1991, the same day Iraq and the US agreed to a cease-fire signalling the end of hostilities in the Gulf War, former US president George Bush Sr addressed a joint session of Congress and outlined his administration foreign policy objectives for a post-Cold War Middle East.
He said: "First we must work together to create shared security arrangements in the region& Let it be clear - our vital national interests depend on a stable and secure Gulf. Second, we must act to control the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles used to deliver them& And third, we must work to create new opportunities for peace and stability in the Middle East". Since that very day, peace in the Middle East has become the post-Cold War US formula to mean securing oil supplies and protecting Israel. Bush Sr made this latter point clear when he renewed his "solid commitment to Israel's security and its qualitative military edge".
This policy, he stated, would continue after the end of the Cold War because Israel "has been [a] loyal and staunch" friend, and "it is in the security interest of the US to retain the kind of relationship we have militarily and otherwise with Israel."
The peace process was set in motion, therefore, to secure oil supplies and integrate Israel into an envisaged pro-US Middle Eastern regime.
Leon T. Hadar, a prominent scholar, said US State Department officials believed that: "Israel's long-term existence could only be assured through the maintenance of American hegemony in the Middle East.
"However, without a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the US role could be challenged in the long run by the rise of radical forces, especially fundamentalists, as well as by growing isolationist voices in America who might question the need to pay the costs of intervention in that far-away region.
"In that case, Israel would be left alone and isolated in the region facing growing threats from governments who perhaps even have nuclear weapons at their disposal."
The Clinton administration inherited this policy, retained some of its key architects and proceeded towards implementing it. Warren Christopher, Secretary of State in the first Clinton administration, stated: "From the outset, advancing the Arab-Israeli peace process and maintaining security in the Gulf have been among the highest foreign-policy priorities of our administration."
In fact, Washington believed that establishing peace in the Middle East would not only provide security to Israel and secure oil supplies but would also produce far-reaching effects. As Thomas Pickering, former under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, pointed out in 1994: "Progress in the peace process strengthens friendly governments in the region, removes a rallying point for fanaticism, helps secure our access to Gulf oil, and enhances prospects for political and economic development."
By contrast, as Robert Pelletreau, former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, said: "Instability in the Middle East carries unique dangers. It can threaten the security of close friends such as, Israel, Egypt, and other states in the region. It can threaten our Nato partners in Europe.
"It can threaten our ability to protect vital oil supplies from the Gulf. It can bring new outbreaks of terrorism to our shores. And it can ignite a race to acquire weapons of mass destruction."
Yet, because peace was seen as a means rather than an end, US efforts failed to produce any tangible results. The US had in fact resorted to a crisis-management approach instead of conflict resolution. If the Obama administration takes the same path, failure will be guaranteed.
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