Life Mission: Kerry Is Coming Because He Wants a Nobel

Forget careful Hillary Clinton, who avoided engaging in the peace process. After Obama’s unjustifiable Nobel Peace Prize, the new secretary of state hopes to accomplish the same — and to deserve it. Pay attention, regional leaders.

The spring of 2009 was a time of euphoria in the United States in general, especially in the White House. It had been decided that the election of Barack Obama, the first black president in American history, promised change, vitality and refreshed and effective leadership after years of just plodding along. Those days also awakened hope among the leaders and peoples of the Middle East that were waiting breathlessly for Obama’s visit. And indeed, he did not delay in coming: In Cairo, Istanbul and Riyadh, the president delivered impressive speeches that were intended to design a new Middle East, cleansed of threats of terror and extremism and open to a renewed dialogue between the Arab states and America and between Islam and the West. The highest goal was strengthening America’s allies in the Middle East and alienating its enemies. More tangible objectives that Obama set for himself included promoting a solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and preventing a nuclear Iran.

Today, four years after Obama’s ambitious visit in which he passed over Israel, he will find a new Middle East — and not for the better. The regimes that were friendly to the United States — those of Mubarak in Egypt, Ben Ali in Tunisia, and Saleh in Yemen — have been crushed under the wheels of hostile, extremist Islam. Libya and Syria are falling apart; the chances of radical Islam gaining control there as well are rapidly expanding.

At the same time, the United States’ traditional allies in the Persian Gulf have lost their faith in Uncle Sam’s desire and ability to defend them as long as the regime of the ayatollahs in Iran continues to exist as a threat. And that is not to mention the standstill — even backslide — in the negotiation process between Israel and the Palestinians. This is not what the members of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee were hoping for when they decided to award their prestigious prize to President Obama just a short time after he entered the White House in 2009.

Take Two

Four years later, it is time for a major amendment. President Obama’s second and final term in office frees him from political constraints and he has nominated a new secretary of state: John Kerry, the ambitious and knowledgeable replacement to Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s intent to vie for the presidency in 2016 was always a central element in her considerations; that was apparently the primary reason that she preferred to avoid as much as possible any involvement in our region.

All of these conditions — especially the experience coming from Obama’s first term and the lessons he learned from his mistakes — are bringing him back to the Middle East next month. Having learned from four years of experience, this time Obama will begin his visit here in Jerusalem; he understands now that only the building of trust with the Israelis will allow for the advancement of the peace process. The additional stops that have been planned — Amman, Cairo, Ankara and Ramallah — are intended to return the United States to its place of prominence in the region and to renew the world’s faith in the nation’s leadership ability and its resolve to stop the Iranian threat.

But more than anything else, this visit is intended to establish the position of the new secretary of state, Kerry: to establish that he will apparently be a regular visitor in this area in the coming days, as the ultimate presidential emissary for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for stopping Iran and for establishing stability in the Middle East.

John Kerry comes from an aristocratic family from Boston. His paternal grandfather was a Jew that converted away from Judaism. His younger brother, Cameron, is a successful lawyer who returned to his Jewish roots, converted back to Judaism and married a Jewish woman. Kerry served as an officer in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and then represented the state of Massachusetts in the Senate for 29 years. Before his recent nomination as secretary of state, he served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — the most prestigious committee in the Senate. In 2004 he was chosen as the Democratic candidate for the presidency; he lost the election to George W. Bush. It seems that his background and life’s path have led him to the lofty position of secretary of state, the second most important position in the American government in terms of foreign policy. At the age of 70, this is likely to be his last position; he sees in it his life’s mission.

Kerry needs the president’s blessing and support in continuing his interactions with us, with the Palestinians and with the rest of the major factors in the Middle East. In consideration of Kerry, his abilities, his position and his ambitions, I assert that he intends to invest all his energies in our region in the hopes that they will perhaps also win him the coveted Nobel Prize — and this time, because it is deserved. Pay attention, leaders of the region.

The author, Danny Ayalon, has served as the Israeli ambassador in Washington, a member of Knesset and deputy foreign minister.