Ms. Faith and Mr. Obama

Maybe it is a disturbing paradox that U.S. President Barack Obama is changing from the man who was welcome in Arab streets when he became president. A lady called Faith appeared from among some Egyptian women who were criticizing Obama and proclaimed a now famous statement, “Sisi, yes! Sisi, yes! Morsi, no! Morsi, no!” at the end of her speech, which appeared on the front page of The New York Times. A clip of the woman’s speech was shown on television; Mr. Obama listened to her in the White House. The mocking paradox embodies the feelings of frustration widely felt in Arab streets. It also reflects a popular aversion, perhaps impression, built on incorrect but widespread ideas. See, the United States is capable of doing nearly anything to overthrow presidents, in order to install others. The people’s feelings stem from failures in the American strategy, at least in terms of understanding the deep problems facing the region.

Mr. Obama will be in the region at the end of the month. Many issues will be under consideration in Riyadh, including several hot issues. Analyses from the United States and Europe and from the Arab side have proliferated about what priorities could be discussed in Riyadh, firstly with the Saudi advisers and secondly with the Gulf Cooperation Council, or with their representatives, as the information has suggested up to now. Some are going to say that it is a crucial meeting; others look to the meeting to renew the alliance with new information. However, the knowledge of the coming roadmap rests on five problematic points:

First: The United States — with its existing capabilities — is not necessarily uncertain of the facts in the Middle East. It is like any country. The facts may not be available to its staffers or the elites may not want the country to see the truths on the ground. I have two pieces of evidence to prove it. The first is from 1978, in the famous visit to Tehran by Mr. Jimmy Carter, in which he called it “an island of stability in a turbulent corner of the world.” A month later, it turned out that he was sitting on a volcano, but he, and not his staffers, wanted to acknowledge that. Otherwise, he would have at least changed the tone of his words. The second is Mr. Bush Jr.’s statement in 2004 in which he commented on “the example [Turkey] has set on how to be a Muslim country” in an attempt to tout the Turkish model. We know now that this “example” had a policy of fraud and maneuvering. What we can discover prima facie is almost certain. The Obama administration lacks precise information about the shifting developments in the Middle East.

Second: Because of this shortcoming, the current American administration is measuring the results of the previous administration’s experiments in both Afghanistan and Iraq, experiments which failed on many fronts to realize their intended goals. There is a syndrome that American administrations suffer from after each political or military failure. It is like the syndrome that struck after the Vietnam War. American administrations start to believe that any problem must have a diplomatic solution until the problem leads to a loss of interests. The planners forget that diplomacy without teeth cannot realize desired goals. “Active intervention” begins to mean, in the dictionary of the current administration, “military exploits,” and “retreating from commitments” comes to mean “repositioning.” The administration changes concepts in order to persuade itself.

Third: Obama arrives in the region facing changing dynamics. The first to confront the American administration is the Iranian issue. The U.S. is trying to market what has become known as coercive diplomacy without a glance at the Iranian Supreme Leader, who is the real decision-maker. The Supreme Leader was not generous with Mohammad Khatemi in the mid-‘90s, when he tried to open up what is known as a dialogue of civilizations. It is not certain that the leader today will be generous with Hassan Rouhani in arriving at final solutions to persisting problems. The Iranian supreme commander and some of his extremist supporters are certain that any opening will lead to the loss of its type of government, because it is simply outside current law. The government in Iran is betting on the Obama administration’s generous retreat in the face of Iranian demands, which exceed the narrow idea of the nuclear issue to Iran’s expanding appetite, extending from Iraq to Lebanon, passing through a number of stations in the Arab world. This expansion irks the Arabs. The pretext that Mr. Obama can offer for his Gulf travel is the time period to reach an agreement that will end next June and the fact that the American administration will become more severe after this deadline. It is possible that the Iranian administration, which has been able to maneuver after every incident during the Obama era until last month, recognizes that. Obama will also find changing dynamics in the Gulf, which we hope will not spread. It is the thing that long-time American strategy makers fear from their results, especially on the level of defense strategy. It has meaning in the region. When the face of Iranian expansion approaches, the United States will have truly lost many assets, including, possibly, the confidence of its allies.

Fourth: Two hot issues, each with its own priorities. First is Syria. Second is Egypt. They share the American perspective, as Antony Crossman wrote in his long paper about American-Saudi relations and the surrounding effects. They share the possibility that they will endure for more than half a decade. They differ in the details. In the Syrian case, it does not seem — from the Gulf viewpoint — that the American administration’s perspective on the issue is rational or that it is considering a clear, justified strategy, as Obama himself said, “Involve Iran, reduce the power of Syria and implicate Hezbollah.”* That justifies extreme negativity. The position on Syria is not in harmony with the caution and care that the administration has followed on more than one issue. This caution may have implicated the administration in Ukraine, and in Syria before that and right now, when the Syrian people are suffering horrors approaching the Holocaust — the complete destruction of the entire people.

On the subject of Egypt, all that is said about American support for the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak or enabling Morsi, on a practical level, is exaggerated. Moreover, here comes the negative use of American soft power, which through its hesitation and then its declining position since events in Egypt after June 30, 2013, has fostered an atmosphere of suspicion. Everything that diplomacy relied on in this air of uncertainty was built on a pretext of results in the ballot box. That justification fell like ripe fruit before the administration’s position on the developments in Ukraine. In Egypt, a president comes to power by ballot and the United States and its allies stand by his overthrow. However, what if Vladimir Putin uses the ballot box in Crimea — just as Bashar al-Assad is preparing to use the ballot box? Thus, the ballot box is not an end in itself.

Fifth: Differences in perspectives among the allies might happen. However, insisting on one agenda that must be followed, from one perspective, is wrong. The Gulf, which Mr. Obama is coming to, today falls in an area where these challenges proliferate around it — from the north, the Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian axis; from the south comes Iran itself. The Gulf, which has spent $85 billion in purchasing American weapons, wants its allies to know that it will continue to supply the world’s energy. It needs to continue, and a brewing conflict in the neighborhood threatens the region as a whole. The protests of related issues may not be able to bypass strategic issues. It is true that terrorism and its fighters must continue, but it need not be the nature of the concept, as is happening now, in the Ukrainian issue confronting Russia. When people talk about freedom, it is said that they are “fascists.” Whenever people talk about great misfortunes touching the Syrian people, it is said that there are several thousand terrorists.

Sixth: Obama’s trip to the region needs a “new engagement” with the allies and a return to common interests. It is necessary that the partners are understanding about the trip, and place priority on reaching goals of reducing danger and increasing opportunities for peace, not choosing among goals and retreating from some with hesitation, just as American diplomacy needs to fix the problem that it has sunk into, apart from addressing the problems in the Middle East and the alliance with Russian powers, by finding political solutions. It has been proven that a friend cannot rely on Obama. Really, the seriousness of the continuing lack of stability in the Middle East is not because of the lack of the use of power; it is the result, in part, of the blurriness of the American diplomatic position, which is criticized even domestically.

Last word: The sages say that “your son looks to your behavior more than he listens to your advice.”

*Editor’s note: This quote, while accurately translated, could not be sourced.