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Obama and the Middle East

[Wall Street Journal] Fouad Ajami - President-elect Obama has signaled that the foreign world will not be his primary concern, that the repair of the American economy will trump all other pursuits and temptations. There is a detached tone to Obama's utterances on the Islamic world. If Bush believed he could remake that old and broken and wily region, Obama signals a fatigue with it, an acceptance of its order of power. If Bush believed that he could insert himself into the internal affairs of distant Islamic lands, Obama and his foreign-policy advisers portend a return to realpolitik and to a resigned acceptance of the ways of foreign autocracies. One thing is sure to go with Bush when he departs: his "diplomacy of freedom." That diplomacy - which propelled the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which drove the Syrians out of Lebanon after they had all but destroyed the sovereignty of that country, and had challenged pro-American allies in Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula - is gone for good. The writer is professor of Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
2008-12-16 08:00:00
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