2009 in the Middle East

As has been standard for far too many years, the year that was in the Middle East would have to be described as grim. While the outlines of a more constructive and realistic U.S. foreign policy vision were sketched out by President Obama during his historic June speech in Cairo, the region remains divided and doubts have begun to prevail about the ability of the United States to shape events and outcomes as opposed to simply setting the agenda.  

The Year’s Best:

Iraqi Security Trends: Two years ago when I compiled my first such year-end list, I noted tentatively the beginnings of improving security trends in Iraq. At the time it was hard to imagine their sustainability without a political breakthrough. But the force of the state has exerted its own will in maintaining security and bending expectations toward the political track. While al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other groups can still carry out devastating attacks, their capabilities and reach have been eroded. In relative terms, a sense of normalcy has returned to the country and the political arena has become the primary forum for competition. With the impending withdrawal of U.S. troops and major political disputes looming, particularly on Arab-Kurdish issues, the country is far from stable- but regardless of judgments about the propriety of the war itself, a stable Iraq is a necessary prerequisite to regional security and recent trends indicate some promise for that ill-fated country’s future.  

Obama in Cairo: The hype before the speech was matched by the President’s message and his honesty. The effect of the speech surpassed my own limited expectations and laid the groundwork for revamped U.S. policies in the region and created a level of receptivity to renewed U.S. leadership that had disappeared during the previous administration. As discussed below, the speech also created outsized expectations.  

The Rise of the Greens: For many years, U.S. foreign policy has attached its hopes and aspirations to Western-style liberal opposition types with little popular traction or constituency. While there is a natural affinity for such political actors, the unfortunate regional trend away from secularism, their lack of grass-roots support, and their perceived reliance on the West has undermined their ability to affect the status quo. With millions of Iranians from all walks of life flooding the streets of Tehran and other cities across the country, the Green movement is not solely an elite phenomenon but a broad-based, organic opposition movement that represents real promise in repudiating the most oppressive strictures of clerical rule. While outside observers should beware of raising expectations of an impending regime collapse, the resiliency of the opposition in the face of escalating repression represents a glimmer of hope for Iran’s long-term future.

The New Swing States: For far too long, U.S. foreign policy in the region has been based on exploiting and exacerbating existing divisions. While creating containment was a coherent policy during the Cold War, its most recent regional variants are incoherent and unsustainable. The most recent such effort has focused on rallying Sunni Arab allies against Iran and its influence in the region. While these states have serious concerns about Iran’s hegemonic intentions in the region, the Arab regimes cannot support publicly a policy that is seen by many of their own people as serving U.S. and Israeli interests while the question of Palestine recedes further into the background. These efforts are unsustainable, unwise, and will never be able to compensate for the force of geography. This is particularly so as the regional perception of the competence and ability of the United States to achieve its end goals have been undermined by the results of the Afghan and Iraq Wars. In its stead, a new brand of regional diplomacy, characterized by Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu’s “zero problems” approach to Turkey’s foreign policy, has come to the fore. The United States should see this approach as an opportunity to open new channels of communication through trusted allies and an alternative approach for mediation.

The Year’s Worst:

Troubling Signs of a New Transnational Terrorism: To start off this portion of the list, I will take the liberty of expanding my geographic reach, since the issue of transnational terrorism often has roots in and connections with the greater Middle East. For years, Americans have looked smugly across the Atlantic and noted how European social rigidity has hampered integration and assimilation and led to the rise of alienated second-generation youths; these youths have been uniquely susceptible to the lures of authenticity as represented by the most extreme and obscurantist strains of Islamism. While there is merit to these distinctions, the recent arrests of American-based individuals such as Najibullah Zazi indicate the rudiments of transnational networks that could facilitate less coordinated and spectacular attacks and more entrepreneurial future efforts on American soil. While the hysteria in some quarters is ultimately counterproductive in inflating the threat we face, these recent arrests should also be a reminder of the costs of radicalization in reaction to our extensive foreign military entanglements. While the cost-benefit analysis in this regard is speculative and impossible to quantify, we should bear in mind that today’s policies have long-term implications.  

Impatience and Bad Faith on Iran Talks: If nothing else, Obama’s opening to Iran and the subsequent P5+1 negotiations on Iran’s nuclear file have re-established American bona fides and unified international efforts on Iran’s nuclear program. The Iranian regime itself may be unable to come to an actual decision on such a momentous issue in the wake of the June electoral debacle and the political in-fighting that has ensued. With Iranian decision-making and motives in question, agitation has begun in the United States to short-circuit the talks and move to a more coercive approach, beginning with the imposition of unilateral sanctions on refined petroleum products. Even in the best of circumstances, such negotiations would have been tiresome, circuitous and time-consuming, but there is simply no evidence on record that “crippling sanctions” would dissuade the IRI from its current path and even less so that such unilateral steps would have anything but negative consequences for attempts to persuade Russia and China toward multilateral sanctions. Such unilateral steps would harm the fragile international consensus on the talks, inflict pain indiscriminately, and hamper the opposition. With the continuing background threats of an impending Israeli strike, the most likely result of such impatience and grandstanding would be the premature end of negotiations with no practical room for maneuver and few feasible options.  

Whither Gaza?: When speaking with John Ging, the Director of Operations in Gaza for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in the wake of the Israeli military operation Cast Lead, he applauded ramped-up U.S. diplomatic efforts under the Obama administration but noted gravely that Gaza has continued to suffer from “too much politics, not enough focus on ordinary people.” No single issue has exposed the gap between U.S. rhetoric and the grim facts on the ground than the continued blockade of Gaza and the humanitarian disaster it has spawned. The Israeli blockade, buttressed with Egyptian support and U.S. acquiescence, has failed utterly in its efforts to dislodge Hamas and has primarily served to pauperize an entire population. Needless to say, and aside from the quite serious moral issues at stake, the closure is strategically counterproductive and efforts to pacify the Gazans will complicate efforts at coaxing Hamas into any future diplomatic process.

Cairo…..and Those Elusive Next Steps: As much as President Obama’s Cairo speech created a genuine sense of opening throughout the region, it was predicated on the clear message of impending U.S. action. As such, the speech clearly raised expectations in the Arab world, particularly with respect to the President’s commitment on Arab-Israeli issues, which has become the primary litmus test through which many in the region judge U.S. intentions and policy. While many of these expectations outpaced reality, the inability to push the Netanyahu government and the perception that the United States capitulated to Israeli intransigence on the issue of settlements has undermined faith in American ability to broker an equitable deal and further damaged the credibility of Mahmoud Abbas and his weakened Palestinian Authority.

So much for Syria: On a similar note, efforts to engage Damascus have faltered. U.S.-Syrian relations have been marked for many years by suspicion and unease on both sides, and reorienting the relationship on such shaky foundations was bound to be difficult and time-consuming. But it appears that bureaucratic inertia has taken precedence over attempts to begin serious discussion with the Syrians about a wide range of difficult bilateral issues. While CENTCOM has long sought to engage Syria on border security with Iraq and began discussion on such issues this year, there has been little follow-up and no progress in sending an American ambassador to Damascus.

2009 YEAR IN REVIEW: Hanna on The Middle East from The Century Foundation .