The long game in the Middle East

[randy_byers]

Marc Lynch ponders Obama's long game strategy (as seen in health care reform) and how it might play out vis-a-vis Iran and Palestine. Snippet:

The "no strategy" perspective doesn't need much rehearsal, since we all know it quite well. In this version, Obama stumbled into a useless and losing battle with the Israeli government over settlements and has neither recovered the confidence of the Israelis nor satisfied Arabs or Palestinians. His administration has been overly focused on getting to negotiations for their own sake, with little conception of how those negotiations will produce the desired outcome of a two-state solution. Meanwhile, goes this argument, Obama has pursued engagement with Iran despite its limited prospects, pursuing talks for the sake of talks and ignoring calculated insults and historic opportunities to push for regime change. This is pretty much the Washington DC conventional wisdom (which is almost in itself a good reason to believe that it's wrong).

The "long game" version is that Obama has a signature method when tackling difficult, long-term objectives, whether health care, Israeli-Palestinian peace or Iran. Obama's method is to lay out an ambitious but realistic final status objective in stark terms and then to let political hardball unfold around those objectives. His most fervent opposition gets more and more outraged, raising the rhetorical pitch until they discredit themselves with key mainstream audiences who recoil from their overheated, apocalyptic and nutty words. And then, just as the Washington DC conventional wisdom declares his ambition dead, they suddenly wake up to the reality that he's won. How'd that happen? The final outcome isn't as pure as many would like, but it's nevertheless a substantial, major achievement against all expectations.

Comments

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Interesting analysis. It may certainly work for domestic policy; we've already seen it in action and I bet it will work again. The problem is that the Israeli-Palestinean situation is older, longer, and more complex than the health-care debate ever was or will be, it's not a domestic situation so control of or influence over the parties behind the scenes isn't as great, and the mainstream in the Middle East hasn't yet shouted down the extremists in either camp despite nearly a century of trying.

Make no mistake--I want a stable, workable peace in Israel and I'll support the President in his efforts to get it. But I don't think Hamas will allow a peace to happen no matter what President Obama does--they'd rather see Israel and Israelis pushed into the sea. Netanyahu has proven himself obstinate on the subject of construction in the territories. The Palestineans are obstinate on the subject of dividing Jerusalem. If President Obama can tough-love these two sides into a stable, two-state solution--awesome. But I'm not convinced that his usual methods will work in this situation.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I agree that the strategy will play out differently outside the US than inside. For one thing, Obama has the Organization for America working for him here, and it won't have any effect outside the country. On the other hand, there are signs that US military leaders are beginning to make noises that the Palestinian problem needs to be solved, so maybe that's the constituency he's playing to in this particular situation.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

If the question is whether Obama is playing a short game or a long game, it seems to me that's the wrong question. Obama has a strong moral compass. Respect for others and engagement with them is something he always does, because he believes in it. You could see in the health care reform effort how he kept giving opponents extra chances to come around. Sure that plays well politically, he's not stupid, but it was also the right thing to do. In the Middle East, Obama's position on Israeli settlements is based on an understanding that stopping construction is the right thing for them to do. They have agreed to do so before, and should live up to their agreements. It is a major sticking point for the Palestinian side, who see East Jerusalem being taken away from them one house at a time. And the Israelis need peace a lot more than they need new apartments to be in a specific neighborhood. Morally and politically Obama is taking the right position. Who knows if he can succeed, but I hope he does.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, so far the Obama administration is holding the line that they will not work with Hamas. Can there be an agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians if Hamas is not on board?

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

Not total peace, not as long as Hamas continues to represent a significant fraction of the Palestinians. But Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan separately. It can make peace with Palestinian groups one at a time. But it needs to get that first agreement with the PLO to actually happen, and then work to make it seem like a good deal so the Gazans start asking Hamas why they've been left out.