You're So Vain--This Speech Wasn't About You

Pivoting off the death of Bin Laden, President Obama tried to re-set the foreign policy debate on the Middle East and embrace the Arab Spring in his speech Thursday at the State Department. The speech came shortly after former Senator Mitchell had resigned as the Administration's Middle East envoy for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. With the United States at war in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama revisited the themes of his Cairo speech but with an emphasis on America's policy of supporting reform and democratic change throughout the Arab world.

While I didn't find anything unusual about the speech, President Obama did elaborate on his views of supporting reform within Iran and called out the Syrian regime for its vicious crackdowns on human rights and democracy activists. In her introduction to the President, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton re-emphasized the critical role our soft power assets are playing on the ground in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. She rightly underscored that the Arab Spring was moment of the people in the region and not some made-in-America product. As a result, the State Department and USAID are scrambling around to identify the grass-roots movements and organizations that are pushing for change in the region.

President Obama led off his speech by summarizing the end of bin Ladenism and its appeal within the region and the emergence of democratic movements manned by the younger generation. He did note that sometimes our short-term interests may seem to conflict with the longer goals of the region toward democracy but he asserted that the United States shared their goals and would be assisting these transitions. He did note the problem with Bahrain where the United States has naval bases while the regime has crushed the Shi'ite minority and democratic activists. He made a point of noting Iran's interference both in Bahrain and as an accomplice in assisting Syria to crackdown on its people. Picking up the threads of earlier speeches, he went into detail about the situation in Iran and how hopeful the world had been when the Green revolution broke out. He doubled down on his views that the Iranian people, particularly the younger generation would transform that regime.

President Obama put an optimistic spin on the situation in Iraq, which actually has deteriorated over the last few months, and noted we will be gone by December. And in Afghanistan, American drawdown of troops will begin this summer and continue later in the year. He challenged the Syrian regime to make the right decision about reform. But the next day, Assad cracked down even more violently as if to rebute the call for opening the system.

I thought the speech basically summarized various statements President Obama has uttered over the last several months as events began to unfold forst in Tunisia and then in Egypt. What he and Secretary of State Clinton were pitching was a renewal of the United States using its diplomatic and economic power as primary instruments of foreign policy. The commitment of $1 billion and another $2 billion in credits to the private sector appeared to be minimal offerings to this end. Personally, I believe this modest initiative will be constantly thwarted by the Republican-controlled Congress.

What I liked about the speech was President Obama emphasis on greater pluralism in the field of religion and with minorities in the region. Instead of a large Muslim monolith, The President gave the region a larger context that took into account a more complex social and economic reality. He strengthened the case for freedom of religion in the region and took special note that woman can no longer be excluded from the region's political life. As always, Mr. Moderate cautioned that progress in the region will be halting and face reversals.

The speech on democracy in the Middle East was hailed by neo-cons and some Republicans as embracing the Bush Doctrine. A basic difference, in my view, was that Obama saw democratic reform coming from the ground up and not being imposed by the United States through military might. Another slight change was President Obama's insistance that Middle Eastern Christians should have the right to worship just as much as the local Muslims. For all their born-again-ness, the Bush Administration turned a blind eye on the slaughter of Iraqi Christians, Mandeans and Palestinians Christians and were tone deaf to the plight of the Coptic Christians in Egypt. To their credit, the Bush Administration did emphasize women's rights in the Middle East.

But the firestorm broke over President Obama's statements on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. President Obama seeing that the region is experiencing historic change thought it appropriate to address the nightmare of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. At almost every step the Administration has been thwarted by Israeli policies to enlarge settlements and by American interlocutors encouraging Israel's hard-line against the Palestianian Authority. After the Palestinian Authority held unity talks with Hamas,Israel cut off the Authority's revenues. These were then made up through contributions from the European Union. While Hamas' most radical statements are heard in the West, their local discussions on accepting Israel's 1967 borders have gone on deaf ears. Violence again has broken out in the Palestinian territories, in part as a spillover from the Syrian situation. And now the United Nations will consider a resolution in the fall General Assembly unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state that would include all the West Bank, Gaza and part of Jersusalem.

President Obama said nothing that Israeli politicians have not heard from Bush I, Bill Clinton, and Bush II. President Obama also set markers down for the Palestinians that their state will have to be de-militarized and terrorism must cease and Israel's security guaranteed. President Obama said that the 1967 borders of Israel have to be the starting point for negotiations. What everyone involved in these talks knows is that there will have to be land swaps to adjudicate the sitution created by the Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

The American Jewish Congress and the ADL issued statements supportive of President Obama , reminding everyone that the President evoked the deepest ideals of the United States in considering the transformations of the Middle East. CAIR hailed the tone of the speech. Al Jezeera was more skeptical about how with such a heavy military footprint in the region the United States could be a honest supporter for real democratic change.

The entire Republican presidential line-up set the tone and the press coverage by saying President Obama pushed Israel under the bus. Michelle Bachmann worried that the United States might bring down a divine curse on itself if we abandoned Israel, suggesting Obama wanted to do just that. Stories ran that Jewish donors were threatening to cut off support for President Obama. AIPAC sent out an e-mail to their members not to boo the President when he speaks to their convention. We were quickly back to the old refrain from the 2008 campaign that President Obama was weak on Israel.

Bibi Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, was quick to attack President Obama's speech and wanted him to retract his statements on Israel. He even ranted in a late night phone call to Secretary of State Clinton about the speech. Frankly, he suggested that the United States was jeopardizing the security of Israel. Since Israel is heavily dependent on the United States, many observers in Washington were frankly offended by Bibi's tone and attitude to the President of the United States.

Now mind you, this public tantrum by the Israeli Prime Minister is occurring while American diplomats are shuttling to the U.K. and France to try and kill the United Nations resolution. The Obama administration does not want to end up as the sole country to use its veto to kill the recognition of the Palestinian state. Netanyahu knew this and knew that President Obama assured him that the United States would veto the resolution, something that has infuriated America's other allies in the Middle East.

What maddened American diplomats was Israel's open hostility to a shift toward an American position on the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. An American official told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Netanyahu's reaction to President Obama's Mideast speech may lead to a situation where 187 countries vote for recognizing the Palestianian state and only two vote against. the American official told the Israelis that they can make peace now or make peace later.

Observers felt that Netanyahu overplayed his hand many times already and especially now when he accepted the Republicans' offer to speak before the House without consulting the White House. Other Israeli opinion from Kadima and opposition parties was not so negative since internally there is a great deal of sentiment that the Likud and other conservative parties actually put Israel at mortal risk by pursuing a Greater Israel policy. Netanyahu's critics maintain that the demographics work against such a strategy and that Israel only risks being even more isolated in the world, let alone the region. They point to recent changes in Egypt, for example, as evidence that Israel must keep abreast of the changes in the region.

What is so interesting is that three former heads of Mossad and IDF generals have gone on the record in Israel over the past month saying that the country could be defended if it accepted the 1967 borders. This is partly because of the modernization of the armed forces and also because of changing strategic assumptions. These statements printed in the Israeli media never gained any attention in our media. They basically undercut everything Netanyahu has been saying.

We now have several American Presidents and several Israeli administrations accepting the reality of a Palestinian state but the current Likud government appears hostage to their more radical right coalition partners.

In his meeting with President Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu ruled out negotiating with the Palestinian Authority, because it includes Hamas, ruled out any talks about the return of the Palestinians and nixed any suggestions that Israel would return to its 1967. He studiously ignored any discussion about land swaps, pretending the idea didn't exist.

I'm reminded of the speech the chief of Mossad gave in the first year of the Obama Administration where he told the cabinet that the problem is not Obama but that Israel has become a strategic liability to the United States. He told the Israeli cabinet that he had been told this by the people in the George W. Bush administration and he admonished his colleagues to think long and hard about this new reality.

I believe some of the problem lies in the Israeli right misreading American public opinion. There is a basic reason for this. Since the rise of the religious right in the United States, the Israeli right , first under Manichem Begin, began cementing an alliance with this constituency as a counterweight to the Republican tendency to side with the Saudis in the region. As this segment of the conservative movement took over the Republican party, their theological view about Israel as the setting for the end times began to dominate the GOP. While official policy of the United States has been for a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, the Christian Right in the United States openly advocates and financially funds the idea of a Greater Israel, including new Jewish settlements. The Jewish diaspora needs more space for their return for the end times.

The obvious problem with this worldview is that this actually jeopardizes the security of the state of Israel--which is the major point the national security elite in Israel has been trying to convey to the current right-wing government. Rev. Hagee, David Barton, Mike Huckabee are not doing Israelis any favors by advocating their extreme positions. It might be pleasing for Netanyahu to hear Republicans leaders dismiss the idea of a Palestinian state but he is foolhardy to believe they will come to Israel's defense if it gets in a jam.

Eric Cantor blabbed about the " special relationship" between the United States and Israel as if it has the same strategic relevance as our ties to the United Kingdom. I can't think of a more foolhardy point of view. It is true that because of the leadership of Harry Truman the United Nations recognized the existence of Israel. But today's Israel is still overly dependent on the United States for its security and our own demographics may erode the overwhelming support that Israel currently enjoys in America. This will be doubly true if the only relationship that remains strong is between our Religious Right and the Israeli right-wing parties.

Palestinian reaction to the whole dust-up was predictable. They see no room at the moment for any negotiations or any future prospects for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Their recent tactics of non-violence might revert back to violence and force Israel into a total seige mentality.

If you want to know how desparate the situation is for the Palestinians, all you need to do is consult yesterday's Washington Post where they have an interactive map to follow the various land swap proposals. Compared to Israel,Palestine looks like an impoverished Bantustan with fragments of land here and about. They have been totally ill-served by their former Arab allies and their past leadership.

To let the transformational changes in the region grind to a halt or reverse themselves because of the continued impasse of peace talks would be tragic and unforgiveable.