President Obama and His Middle East Politics

By

Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi

I voted for Obama last November because he was the better of the two candidates: he understands multiculturalism; he can visualize problems and figure out alternative solutions to them; he understands that no government can obscure reality forever; he understands that our power stands for good and not for evil; he believes (I guess) as I do that God is a God of good and evil is His enemy; he understands that the weak needs the strong to defend him and preserve his rights; the respect of others is not a gift for good behavior, it must be part of our nature, and part of our values. We respect both and talk to both: those who like us and those who do not like us but earnest about peaceful exchanges.

He went to Cairo, Egypt, and talked to the Arabs and Muslims; he went to Ankara and Istambole, Turkey, before that, and talked about the same things. He talked in Europe too, and mobilized the World to work (as I see it) for peace and love among nations. He talked about democracy and freedom, and he talked about the sacrifices that need to be made to achive these and all value related goals. I have enjoyed reading his words, and rejoiced the poetry in them.

Speeches are nice and necessary, but actions ring louder: I want to see Israel stop desecrating the Palestinian land and the holy Christian and Muslim religious sites. I want to see them stop planting concrete while building settlements that transformed Israelis into militant settlers. I want to see Israel be realistic and start to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians the withdrawal and the security concerns of both peoples, not the security which Israel claims, and not the security which is an excuse for continued occupation, continued building settlements, and continued land grapping: The security that is achieved by peace treaties that are guaranteed by the United Nations and the big guns of the East and West. I want Israel to repatriate the Palestinians who had been scared out of their homes and lands.

Our previous policies have succeeded in dividing the Iraqis into religious sects and political factions. I want our government to disengage with Iraq and give the Iraqis the chance to reunite, like us in the United States, to protect their territories and their people. I want us to listen to the Iraqis and to be good friends to them. I want us help them heal the wounds and close the gushers that our previous polices had created that drained their blood.

Our policy in Afghanistan was wrong from the beginning. We completely ignored history. We also underestimated the difficulty of achieving the unrealistic goals. Our technology and our brave men and women in the armed forces did what they could do. But some of us wanted them to be supermen. They are human beings, and the technology they and others had created had its limits. Stop the operations of our troops inside Afghanistan, and demand from the government that we had created, to form a unity government that represents all the people. The government would be responsible for all activities on its soil. The government would prohibit the creation of militant groups to attack other people.

Our policy toward Pakistan destabilized an ally. The Pakistanis must be left alone to solve their own problems. They had delivered and they will deliver any person whom we think plotted or would plot military attacks against us. Do not ask the impossible from the people of Pakistan. Encourage them to unify and make peace with India. Encourage them to solve the poverty problems of their own people.

The recent history of Iran is vivid in the minds of the Iranians and their leaders. British petroleum companies discovered petroleum in Iran before its discovery in any of the neighboring Arab countries including Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In the early fifties of the last century the democratically elected government of Iran, lead by Prime Minister Musaddaq, nationalized the petroleum industry. The result of that action set the Western intelligence services to create street demonstrations and concocted schemes to disqualify the prime minister. The conspiracy succeeded. The prime minister was removed from office and the Shah was reinstalled as king. In 1979 when a real, albeit religious, revolution wanted to remove the same shah and establish democracy, the Western countries stood with the shah against the revolution.

Mistrust of the West is in the living memory of the Iranians. They see the West as deadset against their Islamic revolution. With this historic package in the background it will be extremely difficult for the Obama administration to make the Iranians trust him or trust any American or British government. The use of military force against Iran, as it has been promoted by local extremist groups and foreign governments will exacerbate the currently bad situation.

However, we can take the word of the Iranian government (we are strong to take that risk) that its nuclear power program is dedicated to peaceful applications only, such as generating electricity. Then we should work on the Israelis to dismantle their nuclear military program, because it would be the justification of the Iranian government to have a military program of its own, to balance the nuclear program of the Israelis. As Americans we must understand that as long as Israel is at war with the Palestinians and others, and as long as it has an active nuclear military program, some country sooner or later would take that as justification for developing its own military nuclear program.

I know that what I have suggested as desired actions are not easy to do. But I want us to declare in nice and committed words that we intend to do them, but in order to accomplish such feats we need to work through the labyrinth of politics. We are a democracy, we are the oldest working democracy in the world, imperfect as it is, it is a blessing which keeps reforming itself. In such democracy interest groups flourish. Some of them ignorantly or willingly seem to be working against our values, our global interests, and our leadership of the World.

Let us pray for the safety of our president, so that we may see how much of his enchanting words would deliver solid results.