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![]() Obama’s Middle East challenge
At the start of his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama told the audience at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, DC: "We are not at war with Islam ... [and] we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future."
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Thursday, January 29,2009 23:55 | |||||||
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At the start of his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama told the audience at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, DC: "We are not at war with Islam ... [and] we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future." The challenge before Obama now is whether he is prepared to act on those far-sighted words. He used his first morning as president to halt prosecutions at Guantanamo Bay, has indicated his willingness to speak at a "major Islamic forum" within his first 100 days in office, and repeated his desire to "redefine our struggle" against Islamic extremism. However, symbols can be dangerous, especially when it comes to the Middle East not because the people of the region are too easily taken in by them, as Western Orientalists and viceroys have for two centuries claimed about the "Arab mind". It is assumed that because Western leaders claim to stand for democracy, peace and development, the policies supporting these goals are naturally derived of these ideals. Obama will now have to navigate a tightrope of competing agendas and hypocrisies, which have long been the stock and trade of foreign policy-making for great powers. Bill Clinton, Obama"s Democratic predecessor, was also a "man from hope," promising to refocus US policy towards our highest ideals. He also allowed the Middle East"s autocratic leaders to maintain their grip on power, many of them helped by continued US aid. George Bush, the former US president, pushed his "freedom agenda" until his final days in office. Most people stopped listening years ago precisely because his policies so clearly vitiated his noble rhetoric. Herein lies Obama"s problem: His view that "America must show - through deeds as well as words - that we stand with those who seek a better life" is contradicted by half a century of US policy towards the Middle East. Americans might be, as Obama eloquently declared, "a compassionate nation that wants a better future for all people". However, like most wealthy countries, the US has rarely helped the world"s poor and oppressed obtain a better future if doing so would have cost its corporations profit or interfered with its strategic interests. Similarly, Obama"s desire to focus US support on "helping nations build independent judicial systems and honest police forces" will quickly come up against the harsh reality that most of our allies in the Middle East and North Africa remain in power precisely through shackled judiciaries and corrupt and repressive police forces. Obama"s dilemma There is some evidence which suggests that the new president understands this dilemma. He is likely aware of America"s failure to understand that the US, which makes up six per cent of the world"s population, consumes 24 per cent of its resources, and that this is inevitably going to breed hatred among the remaining 94 per cent. If Obama wants to work, alongside the world"s poor "to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow"- he must be prepared to take on major global companies who, aided by US-run institutions like the World Bank and USAID, are gobbling up the world"s supplies of fresh water and agricultural land for their own profit. The US president has made the Middle East and larger Muslim world the primary foreign policy issue for his first 100 days - the newly updated Whitehouse.gov website lists only Middle Eastern countries, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Israel-Palestine, as his main objectives. In his inaugural address, he said: "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." The words are eloquent, but the reality will not be easily changed. A Middle East policy based on the principles Obama outlined at his inauguration will find few partners in the region and if Obama"s pre-inauguration silence about Israel"s conduct of the Gaza war was troubling, his refusal since to offer any criticism of Israel"s actions, is deafening. If this silence continues, it will drown out the administration"s calls for reform, democratisation, or moderation in the Muslim world. More positively, Obama"s executive orders to shut down Guantanamo Bay and other CIA-run prisons are extremely important measures. However, their closure will affect only a few hundred prisoners at most. Despite its current economic problems, Iran is not a particularly poor country. Indeed, with its massive oil and gas reserves it will not be bought off by offers of US aid or foreign investment, no matter how generous. Iran will not foreswear its nuclear ambitions unless the White House commits to a de-nuclearisation of the region that would include Israel. Signature policy commitment Obama"s pledge to withdraw all US forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office was a centrepiece of his presidential campaign. Yet almost since the moment the agreement was announced, there have been strong indications that American military leaders would do their best to ensure the timeline is not met. Obama seems to have gotten the message, because the administration"s plan as described on the White House website states that the US will remove all "combat brigades," admitting that a "residual force" would remain for an indeterminate period of time. In fact, in 2003 Pentagon officials described the money being spent to build long-term bases as "staggering," and by 2005, at least four "super bases," housing upwards of 20,000 soldiers each, were in operation. If the Obama administration blinks on carrying out its signature foreign policy commitment, who will trust that the US will keep its word to do so? Obama"s challenge in Iraq points to the reality that a transformation in the very structure of political and economic power in the US will inevitably bring Obama into conflict with some of the most powerful forces in the country. Israel and Egypt receive well over $5 billion in US aid per year, much of it in the form of direct military transfers. Such massive arms transfers make no sense in a region filled with democratic countries at peace with one another. Rather, they have always required a combination of autocratic or repressive governments, manageable levels of conflict with occasional spikes that help ensure sufficiently high oil prices to enable the cycling of petrodollars back and forth between the US and the region. Israeli economists Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler have described this loose grouping as the "Arma-Core Petro-Core coalition". For half a century this coalition has ensured that the financial and strategic interests of the arms and petroleum industries have profoundly shaped US foreign and security policy - culminating with a Bush-Cheney administration that was cut whole cloth from these trades. As the last eight years have shown, peace, democracy and sustainable growth cannot come to the Middle East in such a political-economic environment. In her final weeks as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice predicted that the incoming administration"s policies would continue many of Bush"s policies. To assert his leadership across the board, Obama will have to put aside diplomatic pleasantries in future conversations with the region"s leaders and lay out a clear and unambiguous set of guidelines for US policy. More broadly, leaders from Morocco to Pakistan, will have to be told that the US is adopting a new standard for judging its relations with the countries of the region. Those that do not, will not. Whether it is allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, or adversaries such as Iran or Syria, the message and policy must be unambiguous and equal. It will also mark the beginning of the long term process of transforming a global economic system that forces roughly half the world"s population to live on $2 per day or less, into one that more equitably and sustainably distributes the world"s natural and economic bounties. The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera. |
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Posted in Activites , Human Rights , Palestine , Obama |
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