One Year After Obama’s Victory: Hopes and Disappointments

One year ago, Barack Obama won the American presidential election and reached the White House as the first black U.S. president. He gave a speech about flexibility and openness, and he spoke of a new era of peace and stability in the world. He restarted U.S. relations with Islamic countries, as he declared in his two famous speeches in Istanbul and Cairo. People of the region and the world regarded it as a good omen to move on to a new era due to the power of the United States and its role in the international community. However, it’s clear that hopes have dropped and the U.S.’s speeches about peace are no longer given much attention. U.S. policy about the Middle East has gradually returned to its base, which is protecting and backing up Israel.

To summarize a whole year:

1. The U.S. administration retracted the statements of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by demanding a complete halt to Israeli settlements as a precondition to resume peace negotiations. Instead, the U.S. demanded the peace process resume and will discuss all issues during negotiations.

2. The U.S. peace envoy, George Mitchell, has turned into another Colin Powell, or even Warren Christopher, when he receives his tasks. Each of them made successive visits to the region to talk about a chance for peace before it faded due to the fallout from the settlements and before the U.S. official surrendered due to Israeli extremism, which threatens the stability of the region.

3. The U.S. administration exerted pressure on the Arabs to normalize relations with Israel, on the pretext of taking measures to reach a peace agreement in return for not exerting any effective pressure on Israel to put an end to the settlements, the killings and the blockade. Thus, U.S. policy returned to its old equation.

4. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the dilemma remained unchanged; it went even farther. The general feature of Obama’s policy was hesitation and an inability to take any initiative, nor any decision to either withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan or even increase their numbers.

5. In Iraq, despite Obama’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the cities, it is clear that the security situation has not improved significantly. Political divisions deepened, especially with the approach of general elections, while the issue of reconstruction remained outside the priorities and agenda of the government.

6. The likelihood of Iranian-American dialogue declined because of the Iranian nuclear file and the return to a policy of escalation, rather than building the bridges of dialogue or taking concrete measures to make it possible.

Without any doubt, this simple review of recent developments concerning most of the region’s issues indicates that the map (of hopes and dreams) drawn by Obama remains in place, but the words still need corresponding actions. This does not mean the end of the positive climate created by his policies and, at the same time, his policies face challenges both locally and abroad.