By William Pfaff
Next week President Barack Obama travels to Cairo to
deliver what is expected to be a major statement on
relations between the United States and the Islamic world.
The speech is expected to offer a redefinition of
American foreign policy in the region; it’s meant to replace
the Bush administration’s “war against terrorism” and to
repudiate Samuel F. Huntington’s famous formulation of a war
between Islamic civilization and the West, which many in the
Middle East believe motivates American policy.
Certainly, Barack Obama will deny that the United States
government thinks that Islam itself, or Muslims, are
America’s enemies. He will note, as he has done in the past,
that his own father was a Muslim, that his middle name is
Hussein, and that he attended a Muslim school as a child and
has lived in Muslim society.
That says relatively little about the foreign policy
choices of a nation, although it offers some insurance
against the gross ignorance that has made itself felt in
some aspects of U.S. policy.
The president is expected to deplore the atrocities
committed by American forces during the Iraqi and Afghan
wars, and promise to reduce the incidence of civilian
casualties in American military operations. None of this
will be a surprise. He will stress the need for cooperative
action against terrorists and pirates.
But will anything seriously change? Informed Israeli
circles say that Obama’s supposedly new policy will be one
that American observers will recognize as the continuation
of a policy inaugurated in the late months of the Bush
administration.
Israel’s wish to instigate an American attack on Iran
will be rejected, and Israel will be warned not to try this
alone—at least not in the foreseeable future.
Overtures to Iran to negotiate the issues that stand
between the U.S. and renewed good relations will continue,
but are not expected to be rewarded.
Israel will be expected to halt the expansion of its
colonies in the Palestinian territories—at least for the
present. It will be offered the reward of recognition by all
the Muslim countries in exchange for a two-states settlement
with Palestine.
There will be much resistance to this in Israel, and much
pressure put on Obama by the Israeli lobby in the United
States. Whether he resists will be important to the
credibility of his policy.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad will continue to be backed by the United States
to dominate the Palestinian situation on the West Bank and
to hold the line against growth in the influence of Hamas.
To judge from what already has been said in
administration circles, the effort initiated under
Condoleezza Rice and President George Bush to rally an
alliance of supposedly stable Sunni nations will continue.
These are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and possibly Syria.
They will be relied upon to check the radical Islamic
movements supported by Iran: Hezbollah and Hamas.
A discussion of this by the commentator Aluf Benn in the
Israeli daily Haaretz calls the plan “a classic of power
diplomacy,” and attributes it to the influence of Henry
Kissinger.
This may not be much of a compliment to Kissinger,
although he would approve of abandoning the Bush claim that
the U.S. is expanding democracy and abolishing tyranny in
the Middle East.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria are not part of any
democracy movement in the region, any more than the military
regime of Lon Nol in Cambodia or the Chile of Pinochet and
the Argentina of the generals were when Kissinger was in the
White House and the State Department. The alliance of
authoritarian rulers with the United States, against radical
and populist forces, is consistent with past U.S. policy.
It usually is described as “realistic” to make alliances
with governments thought to be in firm control of their
countries, and to discount the value or political merits of
pushing such issues as human rights practice in places where
they are unwelcome.
One also must ask how realistic this really is. The
precedents of Cambodia’s, Chile’s and Argentina’s defense of
what Washington conceived to be American interests in those
regions are unreassuring.
The possibility that scarcely seems worth mentioning is
that Obama declares in Cairo that he wishes to withdraw all
American forces from Muslim countries, and seeks the support
of all Muslim governments to make this possible. That while
he will honor guarantees given to governments in the region,
the objective of his government is a creative disengagement,
leaving the people and political forces of the region to
settle their own affairs, with—should they wish—generous
financial help from the U.S., and no doubt from Europe.
Now that would make headlines, and history.
Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at
www.williampfaff.com.
© 2009 Tribune Media Services Inc.
