What Makes Obama Tock in the Middle East

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
13 June '10

In critiquing the Obama Administration, I don’t mean to suggest it has no reasons for desiring to please Arabs and Muslims as one of its highest (sometimes seemingly its highest) priorities. Unfortunately in practice this often means flattering the more extremist forces in those groups and giving short shrift to the more moderate among them.

This strategy isn’t a conspiracy; it just doesn’t correspond to the realities of the region or work particularly well.

The main factors inspiring this effort in terms of foreign policy--in contrast to ideological premises about America itself--are as follows:

1. The hope that Arab governments will help the United States extricate itself from Iraq and ensure there is a stable regime there that is friendly to the United States.

Leaving aside U.S. efforts within Iraq itself, there is no visible pay-off on this issue. Even relatively moderate (Sunni-led) Arab states are keeping the (Shia and Kurdish-led) Iraqi regime at arms'-length while still favoring Sunni rebels. Syria continues to back Sunni terrorists in every way and if their effectiveness is declining that's not due to Syrian moderation but to U.S. and Iraqi defensive efforts.

2. The hope that Arab governments will help the United States against Iran, especially in trying to stop Tehran from getting nuclear weapons and, if that fails, containing Iran. Clearly, some effort is needed here to assure basing rights. Yet here, too, the policy makes little difference. Arab regimes need U.S. protection against Iran and want American weapons for themselves.

At the same time, though, Arab states are also intimidated by Iran (especially given their perception that the Obama Administration is weak), and worried about internal subversive forces and their rivals portraying them as lapdogs of the West. They also know that nationalist and religious sentiments run high, in part because these same governments have long encouraged them further. Thus, their help will be limited no matter how much Obama tries to persuade them that he is a nice guy, sorry for the past, and not too close to Israel.

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