| Ander Nieuws week 48 / nieuwe oorlog 2008 |
Financial Times
November 13, 2008
Philip Stephens
The challenge for a US president rests in separating the urgent from the important. I once heard an official in George W. Bush's National Security Council describe the dilemma. Such is the pressure of events, he observed, that for the White House the long term usually means "later this afternoon". Most presidents wind up imprisoned by the immediate.
When he is not taking telephone calls from foreign leaders, we can assume president-elect Barack Obama is already being deluged with both the important and the urgent. Thick intelligence briefings will warn him of this emerging threat here, that rising peril there. His foreign policy advisers will be jostling to fix his focus on every part of the globe.
He is also getting plenty of advice from America's allies. This week Britain's Gordon Brown, invoking the tired mantra of the special relationship, issued his own set of priorities for Mr Obama. Among them: a world trade deal, a new architecture for global finance, a climate change agreement, a nuclear arms reduction agenda, a fresh approach in Afghanistan, political stability in Iraq and a Middle East peace agreement.
Countering Iran's nuclear ambitions should be added to the list, as might America's most important bilateral relationship – with China. Then there is North Korea. Russia demands attention. Europeans want to be loved. India is offended because it was not among the first to get a call after Mr Obama's victory.
You can make a case that all of the above are important and many are urgent. There is also the small matter of a hefty domestic agenda, including pulling the US economy from recession, repairing the nation's dilapidated infrastructure and overhauling healthcare. At home as much as abroad, Mr Obama has choices to make.
The region he cannot ignore is the Middle East – the place where the dangerous meets the most intractable of America's strategic challenges. Even if pragmatism blurs the precision of his campaign promise, Mr Obama is committed to a speedy drawdown of US troops in Iraq; likewise to bolstering the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan and to rooting out al-Qaeda from the tribal areas of Pakistan. Iran promises to test both the new president's strategic diplomacy and America's relations with its allies; likewise Afghanistan.
All these problems, of course, are connected. Progress in Afghanistan is contingent on the co-operation of its neighbours – Iran as well as Pakistan. It may be too late to stop Tehran from acquiring the capability to build a nuclear bomb, but a serious effort to persuade it not to start a nuclear arms race will demand recognition of its security interests. On the other hand, the stability of a Shia-led and Iranian-backed government in Iraq will depend on the comfort levels of its Sunni Arab neighbours.
The largest, and most important, piece in this multi-dimensional jigsaw is the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It is the issue that more than any other shapes attitudes in the region towards the US. On almost everything else, probably the best the incoming president can hope for is to damp the fires. A deal between Israel and the Palestinians would change the game.
Yet here Mr Obama has promised least. True, he has made the right noises about throwing his authority behind a two-state solution. There is talk of the appointment of a special US envoy to take a permanent seat at the negotiating table. As yet, however, Mr Obama has given little sign that he is ready to invest the energy and political capital to broker a deal.
You can see why. The Annapolis process, the belated effort by the Bush administration to secure an accord, has gone nowhere slowly. This week the outgoing administration all but abandoned hopes of progress before Mr Bush leaves the White House.
Tony Blair, the United Nations' special envoy to the region, displayed all his trademark optimism by insisting that a "platform" was in place for a final settlement. We have heard that one before.
The polls suggest that the Israeli elections are unlikely to deliver a coalition with the authority to strike a land-for-peace bargain with the Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish Likud leader, may emerge as prime minister. During his last spell in office Mr Netanyahu sought to derail the Oslo accords. I have heard it said that the one meeting that went badly during Mr Obama's tour of the Middle East and Europe this year was his encounter with Mr Netanyahu.
For their part, the Palestinians remain divided in spite of the best efforts of Egyptian mediation. Hamas has so far refused to offer the recognition of Israel demanded by the international community. In the absence of a committed interlocutor on the Israeli side, it is hard to see what would prompt Fatah and Hamas to settle their differences.
So why should Mr Obama risk his reputation in such a cause? The answer comes in several parts.
The early years of his presidency will be his best, and quite possibly the last, chance to broker a two-state solution. Facts on the ground – demography, the West Bank barrier, Israeli settlements across swaths of the West Bank, Palestinian radicalism in Gaza – are steadily undermining the bargain that would give Israel security and the Palestinians a state.
For all the formidable obstacles to an agreement, Mr Obama's heritage and the nature of his victory has bestowed as much authority among Israelis, Palestinians and in the wider Arab world as any US president can ever expect. This precious political capital will diminish over time.
A serious and even-handed effort to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians would disarm the most serious charge against US policy in the region: that everything it does is rooted in double standards.
A deal would not settle all the problems and conflicts. Nor, of itself, would it repair the relationship between the west and much of the Islamic world. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates would find plenty of other reasons to attack America. Yet the creation of a Palestinian state would change profoundly the dynamics of the Middle East. It would make possible much that now seems beyond all reasonable reach.
Brokering such an accord would be tough and thankless. Mr Obama might well fail in the attempt. But there lies the existential choice for Mr Bush's successor. Does he want to patch things up? Or does he want to redraw the strategic map of the Middle East and thereby set a new direction for America's role in the world? That, in the final analysis, is what will mark out the difference between a competent and a transformational presidency.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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