COMMENT
Obama already mired on Middle East road
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Senator Barack Obama has finally clinched the Democratic party's nomination for
the United States presidency, and already the intense pressures on him to tame
broad calls for "change" in the US's domestic and external policies have chewed
away a good deal of his initial sound and fury, already making him look like a
business-as-usual candidate.
Speaking before the powerful Jewish lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, in Washington on Wednesday, Obama did his best to assure his
audience that they could count on his solid support for the state of Israel as
well as his determination to
"do everything in my power" to prevent Iran from "gaining nuclear capability".
Put on the defensive by his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, who has
questioned Obama's "wisdom" on a range of foreign policy issues, including
Iran, in light of Obama's declared willingness to negotiate directly with the
Iranian leaders, Obama has now clipped his own wings with so many qualifiers
that in effect render meaningless his pretentions to a "different foreign
policy approach for America", to paraphrase one of his earlier speeches.
Increasingly, the more viable his chances for presidency and the closer to
election time towards the end of the year, Obama's political metamorphosis
accelerates by the hour and, naturally, this must be disconcerting to the
millions of Americans who have supported him and put money in his coffers with
the expectation that he will deliver on meaningful change.
Obama's tough talk on Iran deserves critical scrutiny, for it demonstrates a
noticeable narrowing of the gap with "bomb, bomb Iran" McCain, who has gone on
record opposing direct dialogue with Iran's leaders until Iran "changes its
behavior". The old feathers of US coercive diplomacy were quite apparent in
Obama's Reagansque speech. "Our willingness to pursue diplomacy will make it
easier to mobilize others to join our cause. If Iran fails to change course
when presented with this choice by the United States, it will be clear - to the
people of Iran, and to the world - that the Iranian regime is the author of its
own isolation," Obama said.
He continued that the choice offered Iran is as follows: "abandon its dangerous
nuclear program, support for terrorism and threats to Israel" in exchange for
"meaningful incentives, including the lifting of the sanctions, and political
and economic integration with the international community."
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has termed as "pointless" any direct
talks with Iran as long as Tehran refuses to suspend its controversial nuclear
activities. Obama has now put himself one tiny step below this bar,
irrespective of his earlier insistence on dialogue without preconditions.
Ironically, Iran's official position, reflected in Tehran's recent package of
proposals dealing with international tensions, endorses that position of
dialogue that, cognitively, provides a useful framework for future US-Iran
diplomatic transactions. Iran's ambassador to the United Nation, Mohammad
Khazaee, reinforced this sentiment in his recent interview with the Boston
Globe, expressing hope for a real change in US foreign policy.
But, this may be a hope against hope, an endeavor in futility, when the two US
presidential contenders are now mirror-imaging each other on Iran and a host of
other Middle East issues and problems. There is a danger that, with so many
questions about the depth of Obama's "patriotism" clouding his candidacy, he
may try to outdo McCain by appearing more pro-Israel, a litmus test of US
presidency nowadays.
Certainly, there are still residual differences between the two men, and
Obama's call for a halt to the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank must
have rattled some diehard pro-Israelis who much prefer a George W Bush-like
perfunctory, ie, empty, stance for public consumption.
No doubt, it is pointless to contemplate Obama as president pressuring Israel
and threatening to cut off US aid in response to Israel's disregard for his
call to suspend the "illegal settlements". This is not to mention Israel's
nuclear arsenal and Israel's refusal to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, given Obama's blanket endorsement of "Israel's right to defend itself"
by any means, including nuclear bombs.
But, is this a correct road map for changing US foreign policy, when the
continuation of the US's uneven pro-Israeli policy and the lack of balance in
its Middle East approach continues to cause havoc on the US's image in the
region, benefiting the plethora of anti-US, for example, terrorist, forces?
In his speech, Obama criticized the Bush administration for supporting open
elections in Gaza that brought Hamas to power, stating forcefully that the US
will not "negotiate with terrorists". He also supported Israel's recent attack
on a suspected facility in Syria, with each stroke of such nuances further
cementing Jewish confidence in him.
(While Jews account for only 3% of the population, they are concentrated in
such key swing states as Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California. And
financial contributions from Jewish donors account for as much as 20% of
Republican campaign funds and as much as 40% of Democratic funds, according to
a recent article by the Forward, the largest nationally circulated Jewish
newspaper in the US, Inter Press Service reports.)
Yet, what Obama and his foreign policy team overlook is that it is not
anti-American to seek to bring a modicum of balance to the US's Middle East
policy, hitherto distorted by what has been described as the "disproportionate
Jewish lobby".
By boxing himself into set positions on the Middle East peace process, Obama
may have enhanced his election chances. Yet he has undermined global confidence
in his ability to introduce meaningful change in the hitherto intrusive and
hegemonic predilections of US foreign policy.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of
"Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping
Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author
of
Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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