Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • barack obama
Policy Fit for a Bumper Sticker
By Stephen Sestanovich
These days, all opinions, commentaries, and bold assertions about American
foreign policy should come with a disclaimer: “What I am about to say
could look awfully foolish by tomorrow morning.” With this understood,
three changes in the way the Obama administration approaches the Middle
East seem likely to me. (And one of them has to do with the analytical and
operational timidity that takes hold when people become too worried about
being embarrassed by fast-moving events.)
First, the Egyptian crisis cements the primacy of the greater Middle East
in American foreign policy as a whole. Perhaps some people thought that
Barack Obama’s administration, after skillfully closing out its inherited involvements
in Iraq and Afghanistan, could then turn to dealing with larger
problems of the global future, like the rise of China, nuclear proliferation,
or climate change Well, forget that. The immediate stakes for Washington—including
even for Obama’s political standing at home—will not seem
of comparable significance anywhere outside the Middle East. Obama will
regularly face this challenging question: How well are you dealing with new
realities in the region (Remember, although the end of the Cold War was
expected to make Eastern Europe less important, people judged Bill Clinton’s
foreign-policy performance by his handling of the Balkans and NATO
enlargement.) Iraq and Afghanistan will be factored into the evaluation.
After Egypt, it will be even harder for the president to walk away from Afghanistan
with an unsatisfactory outcome.
Second, Egypt’s fate—whatever it is—will make the domestic evolution
of all states in the region the prime concern of American policy. War and
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