The Next President And the Middle East

[laststeamtrain]

The Next President And the Middle East

Some Policy Pointers: Get Out of Iraq. Work with (Some) Islamists. Create the Palestinian State. Thereby, Undercut Al-Qaeda.

By Daniel Levy, New America Foundation
The American Prospect | April 2008

Listen carefully when a new president is inaugurated next January for the sigh of relief coming from most of those Middle Easterners whom President Bush embraced as allies. Conversely, Bush’s rivals in the region are likely to tune in to the occasion in a disgruntled mood. For them the Bush years have been good for business. The menu of grievances on which they’ve fed has become a veritable feast. Opposition to American designs in the region -- deployed with different emphases and with different goals by al-Qaeda, Iran, Hamas, Syria, and Hezbollah, to name but a few -- has been an easy sell and has won countless new adherents.

To be a friend of “Bush the Younger” in Arabia has not been such a comfortable disposition. Even the Israelis have begun to recognize the limited utility of a president, despite all his words of support, who is so vilified abroad and divisive at home that coalition-building and agenda-advancement are beyond him.

A new president can expect to be greeted by an initial spike in America’s standing in public opinion polls both globally and in the Middle East. This phenomenon will likely be magnified if a Democrat is in the White House and further embellished if that Democrat is Barack Obama. There will be a honeymoon period of openness, of a willingness to suspend judgment and to look again at America and what it stands for.

But the next administration will inherit a regional mess that will require more than some presidential goodwill and an image makeover. The president’s Middle East inbox will include Iraq, Iran, al-Qaeda, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and much more. Set alongside this, even health-care reform may take on the appearance of low-hanging fruit.

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http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2008/next_president_and_middle_east_6901

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Yes, the new President needs to be pragmatic

That means not automatically agreeing to whatever Israel wants while shutting out any dialog with the Muslim states in the area. Compromise and the road to peace comes from opening dialog with everyone who is willing to talk, and not automatically choosing sides. The perception too long has been that the US has backed Israel in whatever that nation wants to the detriment of the other people in the area.