The conventional wisdom is that a more visionary and competent Obama administration will be able to reassert America’s global leadership role – especially in the Middle East.
According to that logic, a charismatic and cosmopolitan President Barack Obama, by re-energizing the United States’ diplomatic influence and emphasizing Washington’s commitment to play the role of an honest broker, will revive the dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace process, overcome the many obstacles to a political settlement, and help bring peace to the Holy Land. (Some pundits seem to assume a similar peacemaking model can be implemented in other troubled regions as well, such as South Asia and the Caucasus.) All that is lacking, supposedly, is enlightened leadership and American willpower.
Such assumptions about US omnipotence are woefully out of touch with reality. The mess the Bush administration made in the Middle East, where US military power was overstretched to the maximum, coupled with the dramatic loss of American financial resources, has produced a long-term transformation in the balance of power in the region and worldwide. The confluence of these negative factors has significantly eroded Washington’s diplomatic and political clout. The increasing wariness of the American public regarding new US military interventions, as a consequence of the Iraq war, will reinforce this trend.
Related posts:
- Hadar: US is too weakened for Obama to bring peace to the Holy Land
- Hark, Obama: ‘For the last 30 years the most important issue of my life has been peace in the holy land’ (Jimmy Carter)
- Hadar: Israel/Palestine need not be a priority
- Obama: Israel Would Be ‘Crazy’ Not to Take ‘67 Borders for Peace
- Bil’in protester on Obama’ Peace Prize: ‘We need our land now, not tomorrow’
{ 6 comments }
I think the writer is forgetting about all of the financial and military aid that the US gives to Israel every year, plus the automatic veto that the the US always uses on Israel's behalf in the UN. Surely these carry some weight, and their absence would make it a lot more difficult for Israel to continue its patterns of behavior in the Middle East.
All the US needs to do is withhold support for Israeli policies, and the Israeli position collapses, whether the US is as powerful as it was pre-Iraq or not. The French stopped supporting Algerie Francaise and that was the end of the colonial regime, even if French power in the Middle East was not omnipotent, and French finances were weak. The US has all the leverage it needs to get the job done.
I couldn't disagree more with Hadar. The world is desperate for the US to take a leading role in curing the ills it created. As the rest of the world had to look on passively as the US invaded Afghanistan, then Iraq, it craves the US to send signals that it wishes to restore peace in the world. As an American, I am astounded that my nation somehow was abducted by the Israel-first neo-cons that sent our youth into lethal misdaventures in the Middle East, controlled by armchair warriors whose sons and daughters were not put in jeopardy. Obama may be a once-in-a-lifetime leader whose vision will not be denied. MJ Rosenberg's article is spot-on, and Mondoweiss is chronicling the rise and fall of the most powerful lobby the world has ever seen . . . AIPAC!
I think Otto is right on the I/P issues. Withdraw support and watch the realignment. However, there is not yet any reason to believe that support will be withdrawn. More importantly, though, the US has now openly embarked on adding Pakistan to the countries effectively 'under occupation', and that is certainly how the Pakistanis are seeing it and talking about it. Obama has started to compound Bush's errors. If you can't get rid of Holbrooke, you haven't changed anything.
The US is effectively bankrupt. Its masses are sliding towards just being another cheap labor force for world capitalist elites. Never again short of a mass attack on the USA itself will the American people allow a Military Draft. Our military is exhausted; the recruitment drives are too feeble. But, I do agree, drop all aid to Israel and the whole world will change.
Especially if simultaneously the USA sheathes its automatic UN SC veto everytime Israel is the subject.
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