Obama Administration’s Eyes Are Closed on Completely Predictable Middle East Crises

by Barry Rubin

A Hollywood mogul once explained that he didn’t get headaches, he gave headaches to others. President Barack Obama’s determination not to give headaches to America’s enemies guarantees that he brings them onto U.S. interests. Here are examples happening right now and certain to blow up before the November 2012 elections.

Iraq and Afghanistan: Obama plans to withdraw U.S.combat troops by December 31 from Iraq and next year from Afghanistan. A “logical” American official, not understanding how things work in the Middle East, would say:

Well, of course they know we are leaving so they will be quiet and let us withdraw.

But that’s not how the Middle East works. Knowing that U.S. forces are leaving, revolutionary Islamists in both Iraq and Afghanistan are stepping up offensives now to make this look like a U.S. retreat due to defeat. Their purpose is to build morale and support among their own people. The Taliban will say:

We drove out the Russians and the Americans. We defeated both superpowers. See, Allah is on our side! Join us. Our victory is inevitable.

So in both Iraq and Afghanistan the Obama administration has to choose between extending the withdrawal deadline and keeping in troops or sticking to it while the situation deteriorates. In both places the government is hinting that it wants the Americans to stay longer. There are already hints that American troops will be in Afghanistan for many years. At any rate, to coin a mixed metaphor, the constantly signalled weakness is coming home to roost.

Palestinians: Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas is touring the region telling everyone that he’s having no problem with the Obama administration regarding the PA’s internationally supported campaign to break all of its previous commitments to Israel and the United States and to go for unilateral independance and UN recognition. Is he telling the truth?

I think the basic answer is “yes.” Some PA officials are frightened that the Obama administration might react toughly and cut aid as well as other forms of support. Sssh! Let’s not tell them the truth that they have nothing to worry about.

In contrast, though, a time bomb is going to go off in late September or October when the Obama administration vetoes the Palestinian bid and all hell breaks loose as Muslims and Arabs proclaim that Obama is worse than his predecessor! All the president’s apologies and all the president’s courting won’t put his (alleged) popularity together again.

Indeed, Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah leader who started the bloody 2000 intifadah, is warning that a U.S. veto would be an act of “terrorism” that would wreck Palestinian relations with the United States. All that money and diplomatic support doesn’t count. Unless you do 100 percent of what they want — very detrimental to U.S. interests–it amounts to zero percent in their eyes. And he is openly threatening anti-American terrorism.

So here are coming crises that are just not being discussed in the Western policy debate, to which one can add the Egyptian elections in November or afterward and the growing mess in Syria which is hardly resolved by the Obama administration finally announcing that it wants a revolution there.

Everyone knows that jobs and the economy will be the number-one issue in the 2012 elections. But with the likelihood of several major crises in the region during the next year, will foreign policy in the Middle East be number two? And if not, certainly it will be number three on the issues list.