America No Longer Fits the Bogeyman Image

I Iran’s reformers have picked up a tail wind; in Lebanon, Hezbollah was punished at the polls. Is Obama’s speech to Muslims already having an effect?

Could Hezbollah’s defeat at the polls be an early result of Obama’s Cairo speech? That’s the speculation in Beirut cafés, where members of the pro-Western government have been celebrating their recent election success. Defeat the radicals with kind words – that could be the new formula for success in the Near and Middle East.

The power of this softer approach has yet to be proven. The long-term effects are still unfolding and will continue to be seen in the Iranian elections this Friday and thereafter. This is a bitter struggle between President Ahmedinejad and his challenger, Mir-Hussein Mussawi. Ahmedinejad has one disadvantage: he can no longer run against George W. Bush, who is now conspicuously absent.

President Barack Obama will have absolutely nothing to do with playing the role of bogeyman. A week ago, he gave an epochal speech in Cairo announcing a new policy tone toward the Middle East. The Arab newspaper al-Hayat referred self-deprecatingly to “this confusing guest, who shows us the great Satan’s attractiveness.” Many Muslims were genuinely delighted. Obama’s attitude has a lot to do with that. The usual lecture from on high about Western infallibility was left out this time.

Example: Obama avoided using the term “terror,” a word his predecessor employed ad nauseam and one that is so often misused by governments as an excuse to suppress others. He paid homage to Muslim women who choose to voluntarily wear headscarves. He changed the image of modernity by establishing that the West had no monopoly on progressiveness. He broke from the logic of the Bush and Clinton eras that provocations by Islamists and the Iranian president should naturally be met by beating the war drums and mobilizing armies.

At this point, many may be asking if it’s necessary to take a stand against the Iranian nuclear program. Shouldn’t we object to Ahmedinejad’s Holocaust denial? Aren’t the advances made by radical parties like Hamas and Hezbollah cause for alarm? Yes. But an effective counter-strategy has to begin with the realization that the West has lost the so-called war on terror. Al-Qaeda is still alive.

Blockading Hamas in Gaza, shelling Hezbollah in Lebanon, isolating Ahmedinejad in Iran and excluding Assad in Syria have made this axis of four stronger than ever before. Saudi Arabia and Turkey are light years ahead of Iran in economic terms. But thanks to the Iraq War and Western crusade rhetoric, a decaying Iran has been able to become a leading regional power. That can’t be allowed to continue.

In Cairo, Obama sketched out the basic change, but he has yet to fill in the details. What’s next? This week, Obama’s Near East point man, George Mitchell, will travel through the region in an attempt to remove one of the largest stumbling blocks to the creation of a Palestinian state, namely the Israeli settlements being built at an ever-increasing pace in the West Bank.

That’s the right thing to do. In the meantime, however, Israel has altered the “road map’s” basis for negotiations massively to its own advantage. That’s why without the rapid and comprehensive destruction of existing settlements, little will ever come of a Palestinian state. In his speech, Obama mentioned Hamas, but only in connection with Palestinian Islamist wishes. That in itself is proper because Hamas has to recognize Israel if it wants to participate in negotiations. Who in the West will speak to Hamas as long as they refuse to recognize Israel? That’s a trump card the Islamists won’t readily give up without some quid pro quo.

Perhaps the Western approach to dealing with Hezbollah provides the best solution. The Lebanese coalition government is headed by a Shiite, something unlikely to change even despite the election losses. The Shiites don’t recognize Israel. Despite that, the West has coexisted happily with this government whose premier was as likable as he was pro-Western. Could this perhaps serve as a model for a Palestinian state?

There remains only one more major stumbling block – Iran. Hope is steadily increasing that Ahmedinejad may lose to challenger Hussein Mussawi. Mussawi has the wind at his back due to the “Obama Effect” and Ahmedinejad has lost his threat of an apocalyptic global confrontation.

Regardless of the victor, however, Iran’s policies will not significantly change. The centrifuges enriching uranium will continue to turn. Iran won’t abandon its quest for leadership in the region. Obama has said he won’t contest Iran’s right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

But how can Obama convince the Iranian leadership that nuclear weapons are essentially superfluous? Certainly not by threatening war. The grand regional security pact acceptable to Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria has yet to be developed and implemented.

Ahmedinejad’s defensive irritability in the campaign and the lesson learned by Hezbollah in Lebanon seem to indicate that these radicals are more effectively countered by extending a friendly hand to them rather than one holding a gun.