Signs of Hope in the Greater Middle East?
President Barack Obama has staked much of his foreign policy agenda on the success of a principled new approach to U.S. policy toward the Arab states, Iran, and Israel. The Arab states, says the president, must work to end violence and recognize Israel, and Israel must stop undermining the creation of a viable Palestinian state.
Past U.S. policies based on "tough" posturing, unilateralism, threats of regime change, and a one-sided engagement with Israel have not produced results; in fact, they have made things worse. These decades of suspicion and violence will not be overcome overnight and the road to a new relationship will undoubtedly include many false starts and setbacks.
The president is willing to risk failure in order to work for peace. The question now is will Congress and the American public rally in support of the president's goals, or erect barriers to obstruct them?
In a landmark speech in Egypt in early June, President Obama acknowledged that establishing the basis for peaceful relations between Israelis and Palestinians could lay the foundation for efforts to reduce violence in the entire region.
With this goal in mind, the new administration has launched a major push for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a series of meetings and public statements, the administration has explicitly called on Israel to stop building new settlements in the Palestinian territories and insisted that Israel address the humanitarian crisis caused by the blockade of Gaza.
The president also made a specific call to Palestinians to abandon violence. "Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed," he said. "Violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That's not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered."
In his speech in Cairo, the president made clear that even as the United States works to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, he will be looking for help from other countries in the region to reduce violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
The biggest benefits may come in U.S. relations with Iran. As the article that begins on page 3 of this newsletter makes clear, President Obama has sought to make a clean break with past U.S. policies toward the Iranian Republic.
In his Cairo speech, the president recognized that decades of mistrust will not be easy to overcome, and he explicitly singled out U.S. support for the overthrow of Iran's elected leader in the 1950s and the Iranian seizure of U.S. hostages in 1979.
Yet the president stated directly that the United States is determined to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and will work to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
At the same time, the president affirmed that "any nation -- including Iran -- should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."
The challenge here in Washington will be persuading Congress to support the president’s fair, balanced, and reasonable goals, rather than obstruct them.
Also in This Issue
Resistance to Change in Congress
President Obama's New Iran Policy Faces Challenges in Coming Months
The Obama Charm Offensive
Threat of a Nuclear Iran
Banning Cluster Bombs: A Glass 2/3 Full
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