Barack Obama is unpopular everywhere in the Middle East these days. But now he has the task of trying to force two small competing nations to compromise.
His portrait has been trampled underfoot and set on fire in the West Bank, while in Israel only one person in 10 likes him. Barack Obama, wildly popular in many other areas, is currently disliked by everyone in the Middle East.
That need not be a bad starting point for the beginning of Obama’s visit to the region on Wednesday — provided the U.S. president derives from it the freedom to tell both sides not what they want to hear, but what they both have to do.
Obama’s first foray into the Middle East peace process failed in that it was well-intentioned but not well carried out. Sounding much like an itinerant gospel preacher, he made loud promises he was incapable of keeping and muted threats that he abandoned at the first sign of opposition. This lack of consistency came back to bite him with a vengeance: The region engages in new conflicts and the influence of the United States lessens.
With the advent of his second term, Obama has another chance. He announced that he has no new peace plan and is going to Jerusalem and Ramallah “to listen” to both sides. But as soon as the doors close this tactical understatement needs to end. The President of the United States not only has the power, but also the duty, to force two small quarreling nations to reach a compromise.
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