Obama's Reverse-Pivot to the Middle East Offers Yet Another Opportunity For

7/27/2019 Obama's Reverse-Pivot to the Middle East Offers Yet Another Opportunity For

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Obama's Reverse-Pivot to the Middle East Offers Yet

Another Opportunity for "Change"

by Younus Abdullah Muhammad

President Obama's well organized speech in front of the UN General Assembly on

September 24, 2013 was marked by an apparent recognition that the ensuing battle

for the future of the Middle East, as opposed to Asia, will determine the near-term

geopolitical future and balance of power in the world for at least a generation to

come. Up unto that point, Obama's Mideast policy had been, by design, mostly

rhetorical, meant to salvage the Muslim world's public opinion as much as possible

while pivoting the loci of US concern to the projected high-growth economies of East

Asia. Mideastern interest was mostly confined to preserving the US's unspoken

military dominance in the Gulf and increasingly East Africa.

President Obama's election once spurred some early "hope" that US-Mideast

relations would alter but as scholar Fawaz Gerges has described it, "contrary to the

public perceptions, Obama's lofty rhetoric about a new start in relations between

the United States and Muslim countries did not signify that the region ranked high

on his foreign policy agenda. When Israeli-Palestinian peace talks proved much

costlier than Obama and his advisers had foreseen, the president first allowed his

vice president to be humiliated by the Israeli prime minister and then awkwardly

disengaged from the peace process, thereby undermining his own credibility and

doing consequent damage to America's prestige and influence. So while Obama has

invested some political effort on Mideast diplomacy, he has shown himself unwilling

to do more to achieve a breakthrough. The decision speaks volumes about the

administration's foreign policy priorities, as well as the decline of American power

and influence in the region." (Obama and the Middle East, 2012, p.11)

Nevertheless, Obama's latest UN address seemed to offer a 'reverse-pivot' and path

to serious reconcentration. In the speech Obama explained that the US "will be

engaged in the region for the long-haul" and he suggested that reengagement will

center around reinitiating the Israel-Palestine peace process and resolving the

Iranian nuclear issue. Now, after five years of reduced focus, and in turn influence,

from all but the region's major oil producers, the Obama administration has

recognized that its withdrawal has created conditions under which foreign powershave emerged and through which regional discord, civil conflict and divide have

exasperated. Today stark division subsists not only between Sunnis and Shiites,

secularists and Islamists, but also increasingly between a politicized and militant

social underbelly and their elite and traditionally Western-allied counterparts.

Obama's speech offered one very promising principle that could slowly mediate

such clash. While addressing the unfolding conflict in Egypt, Obama expanded the

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definition of American interests beyond oil, Israel and neoliberal economics to

include support for the development of government that "legitimately reflects the

collective will of the people." If realized in practice and policy, that would prove a

major alteration that might initiate a new era and style of American diplomacy. In

the end, long-term lessons might be learned that document concern with the

promotion of pluralism and representative governance leads to mutually beneficialengagement while real politick masked in rhetoric more often than not results only

in entanglement and eventual catastrophe. If the past five years are any indication

Obama's words will prove merely a rhetorical tool, an attempt to deflect the

enhanced awareness that Obama really has not had a Mideast policy. Whether

because of that reality or in spite of it, the center of gravity in international affairs

has clearly shifted back to the Middle East. Any actual connection between the U.S.

hegemon's vital interests and support and aid for authentic representative

government, with all the plurality and risk that necessarily accompanies it, would

not only represent a major change in course but may usher in an era led by America

in the Middle East.

The Obama presidency began with an order to close Guantanamo Bay. In June of

2009 he went to Cairo and called for a "new beginning between the United States

and Muslims." But, like his promise to close the Guantanamo Prison, his efforts to

improve relations have proven overblown. It is important to recognize that Obama

did not, at this time, link democracy promotion to the national interests of either the

US or the people of the Middle East. In his Cairo address he stated, "I know there

has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much

of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of

government can or should be imposed upon one nation by another." As opposed to

his democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton, now-President Obama actuallyrejected a policy of democratization and reform initiated by President Bill Clinton in

the 1990's after it became apparent that political Islam was on the rise and the days

of Arab authoritarianism were numbered. Instead, Obama called Mubarak a

"stalwart ally" and when the Arab Spring protests rent asunder in Tunisia and Egypt

his Vice President Joe Biden refused to label Mubarak a dictator. In actuality, US

reaction sought to subvert Egyptian protests and first to replace Mubarak with his

vice president, Omar Suleiman. They maintained support for Ben Ali in Tunisia until

his departure and continue to support oil-rich autocrats in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

They increased military support and cooperation in Yemen even after the regime

started firing on protestors and then were pressured by Britain and France to

intervene in Libya before remaining totally lethargic so far with regard to Syria.

Contrary to the popular American narrative, the number one obstacle in the way of

Obama's actual foreign policy strategy has been the surging demand for

democratically-minded transformation across the Middle East.

Despite the recent reversion to authoritarianism and other complications, any

lasting US influence in the Muslim world "for the long haul" will necessitate both

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policy and practice that tracks closer to the democratic oratory espoused by

Obama's teleprompter. Egypt, home of a quarter of the Arab world's population and

arguably its cultural center, represents the best opportunity for such alterations. At

the same time it is a case study in American hypocrisy. In Obama's UN speech he

argued that in Egypt Mohammed Morsi was elected but "proved unwilling or unable

to govern in a way that was mutually exclusive." The President said nothinghowever of the reempowered military junta presently running the country with its

long experice in autocracy. And Obama emphasized that the US "purposefully

avoided choosing sides" while failing to mention that by refusing to classify the

intervention as a coup the US has clearly made its decision. "We have determined

that it is not in the best interests of the United States to make that determination,"

as he put it before. He then went on to connect US interests to the support and aid

of government reflecting the "collective will" of the Egyptian people. However,

"collective will" is a vague term that can easily be manipulated in definition, away

from one that supports government for the people by the people and into one that

serves as a cover for a return to elite dictatorship protected by sustained US

assistance.

So far US policy has show no sign of promoting actual pluralism. In August,

Secretary of State John Kerry described the coup in Egypt as "restoring democracy."

That was right before the regime gunned down hundreds of nonviolent, pro-Morsi

protestors, classifying the women and children killed as terrorists, rounded up the

leaders of the nonviolent Muslim Brotherhood and imprisoned them on trumped up

charges, shut off free expression, closed down television stations, imposed curfews

and reset emergency laws from the Mubarak era. As the late Christopher Hitchens

succinctly described it, most nations are states that have militaries but Egypt is a

military that has a state. The root obstacle now to pluralism and governmentrepresentative of the collective will in Egypt is in fact the 'deep state' that revolves

around the military. In reaction to the clear coup, the Obama administration merely

canceled a joint military exercise, temporarily reviewed the $1.3 billion in military

aid before sustaining the bulk of it and has sat idly since as all genuine political

plurality has been subverted. For their part, the EU conducted an "urgent review of

Egyptian relations" partially suspended the export of military equipment and

continued most of a $5 billion package in loans and aid to support "democratic

transitions." Such assistance will further entrench the return of Egyptian

totalitarianism.

These efforts at 'democracy restoration' do not represent the plurality of either Arabor Egyptian thought. Neither the Egyptian military or US government has ever

supported Mideast publics. In reality, such manipulation is part and parcel of a

sustained suppression of political Islam that has hallmarked the West's creation of

the modern Middle East through the secretive Sykes-Picot accords of the first world

war era. The preference for Arab authoritarianism has only heightened since it

became clear in the 1990's that any free and fair elections would bring Islamists to

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power. The interim Egyptian government has issued a "road map" to restore

elections. However, that road map was drawn up absent consultation, even with

members of the anti-Morsi coalition busy slogging that the people and the military

are "one hand." The interim government announced a 50-member panel that will

draft a new constitution, but that panel will include only two, pro-regime Islamists

and so could not be realistically representative of Egyptian aspirations. The peopleof Egypt overwhelmingly elected Islamists in initial parliamentary and presidential

elections. And while the so-called Islamist constitution of Morsi passed through

national referendum, the new constitution will be put to no test other than the

scrutiny of a judiciary that recently added insult to injury by releasing Hosni

Mubarak from his prison chains.

The interim government is led by former finance minister Hazem el-Bablawi, a

proponent of the neoliberal reforms induced under Mubarak who argues for an

outright ban of the Muslim Brotherhood. Actual Egyptian political plurality, not

unlike the rest of the Middle East, is extremely diverse. True liberals performed

horribly in early elections but represent a growing segment of society especially

amongst the youth. The National Salvation Front is a coalition of parties that range

from strict secularists, to Nasserites, communists, and people of all political

persuasions. The ultraorthodox salafi al-Nour party won more than a quarter of the

seats in Egypt's first parliament. The nationalist al-Wafd party, present in Egypt

since the days of British colonialism, has a heavy constituency and many other

parties and platforms formulated in the early days after the Arab Spring. The coup

and return of control to the military backed by the judiciary and its remnants of the

Mubarak-age will only subvert the collective will of the Egyptian mass through a

return to one-party dominance.

Much has been made about the Obama administration's embracement of the

Muslim Brotherhood. Truth be told, such embracement had more to do with

pragmatism than any actual support for change. The US wields tremendous global

economic influence and with the Egyptian economy on the brink of collapse it

wasn't hard to imagine that the Islamists early election victories would be short

gained. President Morsi was no radical. He appointed General Sissi to please the US

and his constitution did nothing to take away the military's powers. He shut out his

salafist counterparts almost altogether. He embraced IMF loans and hosted a trade

delegation for major US multinationals. US communication was always paternalistic.

For example, John Kerry attached its meager financial support to Morsi's backing of

IMF reform. "In light of Egypt's extreme needs and President Morsi's assurance thathe plans to complete the IMF process, today I have advised him that the US will now

provide the first $190 million of our pledged $450 million in budget support funds,"

he said. At the onset of Egyptian protests against a controversial Youtube video last

September, Obama called Morsi's government a "work in progress." The Obama

administration clearly recognized that the Muslim Brotherhood led government

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doubt the realists that hold the actual reign of US power were properly alarmed.

Consequently, it is little wonder America accepted the Saudi-induced coup and little

wonder Obama no longer wants to "lead from behind" in the Middle East. The

ultimate reverberations have already induced alternative solutions in Syria (Assad

'must not go now') and in negotiations with Iran, both allies of Russia.

These international connections highlight the reality that the Egyptian military's

putsch represents a neo-fascist trend in international relations, marked by a merger

between state and corporate power that relegates government so it serves the

needs of an interconnected global elite. That growing movement, typically clothed

in the rhetoric of democracy, represents the most serious challenge to the balance

democratic nation states inherently offer against transnational powers. Today, from

the US in the West to China in the East, national policies are increasingly dictated

by globally-minded influences, from multinational corporations, a military, industrial

complex, international financial institutions and other institutions that serve the

primary interests (namely immediate profit) of upper-tiered income earners around

the world. Under these conditions, the politics of democracy becomes a mere

shadow cast on populations by the "interest" of elites. If viewed from this radical

perspective, these influences become evident in the Egyptian coup.

The Egyptian Army, with an annual budget of $4 billion represents the fourteenth

largest army in the world. Because the military's influence, in conjunction with the

state bureaucracy, extends to every sector of society it is home to some of the most

lucrative international contracts. Whether by way of interest rates paid on Egyptian

bonds, the sale of weaponry, foreign direct investment or the import of subsidized

American food, Egypt serves as a major stimulus for transnational capitalists. Saudi

Arabia, a country General Sissi also served in thoroughly, is exemplative of the

same. Saudis not only send all their petrodollars back to Wall Street and the City of

London for investment, but they have signed record-breaking arms contracts over

recent years.

The late Chalmers Johnson described the Saudi military nexus in his book The

Sorrows of Empire (2004), "Vinnell Corp. a Northern Grumman firm in Fairfax,

Virginia has had primary responsibility for training the Saudi National Guard and

has, 'constructed, run, written doctrine for, and staffed five Saudi military

academies, seven shooting ranges, and a health care system, while training and

equipping four Saudi mechanized brigades and five infantry brigades. Saudi Arabia

has, in turn, funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into major defense corporationsto equip those forces." As in Dubai, Saudi's partner in the Egyptian coup, where the

former CEO of Blackwater, the US's foremost private mercenary firm, resides and

provides security for the regime, military equipment and training focuses on

protecting the dictatorship from domestic uprising, particularly pertinent in lieu of

the Arab Spring. The $12 billion in aid to Egypt will help temporarily quell an

impending economic crisis but their concern with the prospects of an altered US

government have nothing to do with private western power. In the weeks following

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Indeed that is the case. In early August the Obama administration ordered 19

embassies closed and issued a worldwide travel alert. In Afghanistan, where Al-

Qaeda and the Taliban are set to declare victory at the end of 2014, casualties

amongst Afghan troops are at all-time highs. The Pakistani Taliban have surged in

influence and just killed more than 70 Christians in church allegedly in retaliation for

US drone attacks. Three US citizens apparently took part in the recent mall attack inNairobi. The Shabab claims to have more attacks planned. Meanwhile, jihadists flock

to Northern Syria from all over the world in ways typical of Afghanistan in the

1980's. To coincide with the September 11th anniversary Al-Qaeda head Ayman al-

Zawahiri directed offshoots to continue focusing on attacks inside America.

Intercepted communication between he and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

leader Nasr al-Wuhaishi triggered the embassy closure. Militant Islam will only

increase under the reimposition of Mideast authoritarianism. So groups like Al-

Qaeda have also proved primary beneficiaries exerting pressure on President

Obama to reengage.

Despite these nondemocratic pulls, Obama should utilize his last three years in

office to initiate both policy and practice that promotes true reform. Initial efforts

could pave the way for sustained engagement under a likely Hillary Clinton

presidency. Principled policy that pushes for actual pluralism and political

contestation poses an alternative paradigm, something sorely needed to break the

tragic status quo. Linking US interests to government reflective of the collective will

could create conditions that actuate a crosspollination in political ideology. This

typically embeds secular notions of the separation between religion and state, no

matter the oratory of religious parties. Defending free expression and association

helps to promote political contestation over violence. These axioms make the

democratic experiment attractive to people across the globe and Arabs are noexception. However, in practice US policy has consistently undermined these

principles. It is time to temper America's engagement with realpolitik.

It is also important to recognize that plurality in the Middle East necessitates a role

for political Islam. As Olivier Roy described it when Islamists surged in multiple

elections in 2012, "Liberalism does not precede democracy; America's founding

fathers were not liberal. But once democracy is rooted in institutions and political

culture, then the debate on freedom, censorship, social norms and individual rights

can be managed through freedom of expression and changes of majorities in

parliament. However, there will be no institutionalization of democracy without the

Muslim Brothers." That analysis remains true and the US must do its best topromote a return of Islamists to political participation in Egypt in ways that allow

them to learn from their mistakes and hold sway.

Since its ascension after the Suez Canal Crisis in 1956, US policy in the Middle East

has been marked by a dissonance and anger created by the contradiction between

an espousal of Wilsonian idealism and behavior derived solely from self-interests.

Under realpolitik, concrete reality not ideology shapes the world. As Dr. Henry

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Kissinger described it in his Diplomacy (1994), "One of the principle tasks of

statesmanship is to understand which subjects are truly related and can be used to

reinforce each other. For the most part, the policymaker has little choice in the

matter. Ultimately, it is reality, not policy, that links events. The statesman's role is

to recognize the relationship when it does exist - in other words, to create a network

of incentives and penalties to produce the most favorable outcome." 50 years offailed diplomacy in the Middle East should document that it is time to realize

idealistic notions of promoting government for the people by the people with more

than rhetoric and absent the footprint of occupation are truly linked to US peace

and prosperity. Therefore it can be argued that crafting networks of incentives and

penalties to attain democratic objectives would in fact pave the way for mutually

beneficial and realistic outcomes beneficial to all.

The contradiction between US behavior and its expressed belief has helped to

cement a cognitive dissonance amongst the primary drivers of US policy that blocks

the realization that realism has mostly failed wherever it contradicts so-called

American values. Blindness of this actuality explains how a Wall Street Journal

editorial, and others likely it, are able to advise a continuation of US support for the

Egyptian military because it "buys access with the generals." And why it can then

explain with a straight face that, "Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling

generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who took power

amid chaos but hired free market reformers and midwifed a transition to

democracy." In reality, Pinochet was put in charge with the assistance of none other

than Henry Kissinger and the CIA. He overthrew Chilean democracy and was

ultimately charged with international war crimes. In September, 2000 the CIA was

forced to finally reveal that in Chile it, "sought to instigate a coup to prevent Allende

from taking office after he won a plurality." Pinochet was assassinating protestorsand executing political opponents while the US sustained sales of "controversial

military equipment." It took 17 years for Chile to restore democracy and today a

rapacious elite continues to rein despite reestablished elections. Chile remains a

country with an incredible gap between rich and poor. However, because Chile is

now a part of the neoliberal order for the Wall Street Journal it is a success story. It

is unacknowledged contradictions like these that allow John Kerry to describe the

similar situation unfolding in Egypt today as 'democratic restoration.

The gist of Obama's rhetoric is actually not that new. His initial National Security

Strategy outlined that the U.S. would, "reject the notions that lasting security and

prosperity can be formed by turning away from universal rights" and thatdemocracy "does not merely represent our better angels; it stands in opposition to

aggression and injustice. And our support for human rights is fundamental to

American leadership and source of our strength in the world." Additionally, in

accepting his Nobel Prize, President Obama rejected "a tension between those who

describe themselves as realists or idealists" and explained, "no matter how callously

defined, neither American interests nor the world's are served by the denial of

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human aspirations." While not even the hallmark of his UN address however,

Obama's connection between the collective will of Arab publics and the national

interest of the United States represents a principle of foreign policy that can be

measured. It is only by surveying that record and realizing that it has consistently

been opposed that one can see the prospect for positive change if Obama chooses

to practice what is preached.

Such a proposition has recently been documented by American political scientist

Amaney Jamal. In her important and courageous new book Of Empires and Citizens

(2013) she confirms that the US has always insisted on "pro-American democracy or

no democracy at all" in the Middle East. Dr. Jamal's thesis that Arab societies are

"divided between the people who benefited from their leader's relationship with the

United States and therefore sought to preserve the dictatorship and those that did

not, and therefore sought democracy" has generated expected but unfair criticism.

Nevertheless, such an empirical recognition documents that the 'collective will' of

Mideast peoples has always been defined, at least in the minds of US planners, as

equivocal to the perspectives of those interested in preserving the regime. Grasping

these relationships leads to an understanding of how the American Empire has

expanded on colonialist tools for indirect rule. As Mark Lynch, the Obama

administration's chief academic advisor during the Arab Spring, put it in Foreign

Affairs (May, June 2013), "If Jamal is right then much of the received wisdom of the

last decade needs to be reconsidered."

No academic that wants to stay in favor can take that position however. In turn he

dismisses her claims as farfetched and instead defers to neo-Orientalism, explaining

that Mideast publics, and by discrete extension Dr. Jamal, suffer from 'cognitive

bias' - "the misplaced belief that Washington's power to shape their lives is actually

much more interesting than the prosaic truth." In reality, Lynch's dismissiveness is

typical of the hubris and cognitive dissonance that helps Americans justify its role in

making the Muslim world the democratic exception. Conjuring up pejorative labels

like 'the Arab Street' helps the wielders of power blame the victims themselves. As

Fawaz Gerges explains it, the Arab Street "is a derisive term so often used by the

foreign policy community and even by the best Western journalists [that] is in great

part a myth that has prevented US policymakers from examining or even

acknowledging the existence of civil society politics." Realistically attending to the

collective will of the people and connecting that attention to US interests would

require such altered realizations. Effecting alterations in defense of the actual

collective will of Mideast peoples would require a refusal to participate inauthoritarianism. The use of carrots and sticks, or what Kissinger described as a

"network of incentives and penalties to produce the most favorable outcomes" has

always sought to preserve the status quo and in opposition to publics. That explains

Obama's general failure in Mideast policy, the indifference to the Egyptian coup,

and his initial disinterest in engaging at all with the faultiness his predecessor's

efforts to impose pro-American democracy by force had exposed.

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Promoting government that "legitimately reflects the collective will of the people"

would serve US interests, especially in the long-term. Apart from seeking to reignite

the Israeli, Palestinian peace process and to negotiate with Iran, Obama should

make some clear, principled alterations that would have wide appeal. First, the US

should immediately halt its military aid to Egypt, making it contingent on the

removal of repressions and the reimposition of multiparty civilian rule open to allsectors of society. Gulf sheikhdoms may provide cash but they cannot provide

actual weapons or development and while majorities in Egypt have sided with the

coup, that support will twiddle away when it becomes apparent Egypt will only

return to the age of Mubarak. The military and whoever might be elected to head

the new regime will not be able to reimplement authoritarian rule without sustained

US assistance. The immediate reaction may be nationalist and anti-American, at

least from some sectors of society, but it will subsequently craft a 'collective will'

that ultimately proves supportive.

At the same time, the US should arm Syria's rebels and counter Russia and Iran's

massive support for the Assad regime. No matter ongoing diplomatic efforts to

remove chemical weapon stockpiles, the 'collective will' of the Syrian people also

needs supported. For over two years they've suffered most from Obama's

disengagement. It is time to usher in an era of foreign policy distinct from

Kissinger's realism. On Syria, Obama has followed his advice completely. In a

Washington Post editorial from 2012 entitled, 'The Perils of Intervention', Dr.

Kissinger argued against humanitarian intervention in Syria and democracy

promotion on the grounds it would endanger the world order and induce

lawlessness. He asked whether humanitarianism as a principle of foreign policy

implied that a vital but nondemocratic nation like Saudi Arabia should be opposed

simply because "public demonstrations develop on its territory." One year later,Syria indeed lay in lawless shambles with over 100,000 dead and the world order

remains subject to disintegration. Kissinger's point on Saudi Arabia however leads

to another necessary adjustment.

Were the promotion of 'collective will' as a principle of foreign policy actually

adopted, the Saudi regime would not be opposed once public demonstrations

formulated. Instead, it would be subject to immediate cessation in aid and support

simply on the grounds it quells all internal dissent and serves as the primary

obstacle to development. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal recently warned in an open

letter to oil minister Ali Naima, "the world is increasingly less dependent on oil from

OPEC countries including the kingdom." The US shale revolution implies thestrategic partnership with the House of Saud is no longer appropriate or necessary;

now that is true from both realist and idealist positions.

Additionally, discussions with Iran, no matter the displeasure of Benjamin

Netanyahu, must continue. The last thing the Mideast or America needs is conflict in

Iran that could pull the US into another quagmire or even lead to the breakout of

World War III. Iran's new president Hassan Rouhani is no doubt sincere and the

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potential for peace far exceeds the associated risks, regardless of whether the

Ayatollahs will accept the outcome of negotiations. Iran is nowhere close to

developing actual nuclear weapons and rational discourse between US and Iranian

officials would certainly generate valuable political and human capital, especially

amongst the next generation of Mideast leaders. To that end, the US must

understand that meaningful negotiations about the Israel-Palestine peace processcannot occur until the US makes sustained assistance for Israel contingent on its

cessation of settlement construction. It is absolutely insane to expect the

Palestinians to enter negotiations while Israeli occupation is expanding.

Finally, the effects of such an actual expansion in the definition of US interests

would entail a "long haul" commitment to development. In the immediate aftermath

of the Arab Spring, the US and Europe discussed a New Marshall Plan for the Middle

East with Egypt as its pillar. However, to this date US, EU assistance is below the

one trillion dollar mark. Yet, in his national security speech in May of this year,

Obama claimed foreign assistance is "fundamental to our national security and it is

fundamental to any sensible long-term strategy to battle extremism." In

cooperation with the rest of the international community and especially its local

NGO's, a long-term plan for Mideast development should be prepared and funded

and a few major initial projects should be initiated immediately.

All of this may seem idealist and the odds are that the traditional principles that

have driven US policy will maintain. However, we should contemplate the long-term

consequence of a sustained mismatch between our speech and action. At the same

time we might also pause to question why, no matter the degree of corporate

propaganda, US domestic policy also seems unrepresentative of the 'collective will'

and instead caters to an elite. Absent such alterations democracy on American

shores will continue to trend much closer to Egyptian totalitarianism.

Younus Abdullah Muhammad is a master of international affairs and American

Muslim presently incarcerated in the US federal prison system.

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Obama's Reverse-Pivot to the Middle East Offers Yet Another Opportunity For