:: Nihal Singh

Has US altered its West Asia policy?

S. Nihal Singh

March.19 : It is now clear that President Barack Obama has lost the initial round in West Asia. No one expected the new US administration to work miracles in a region full of contentious long-running problems. But after speedily appointing George Mitchell as his envoy and sending the newly minted US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on her first foray into the lion’s den, the question everyone is asking is, So what has changed in Washington’s approach?

The veteran mediator Mr Mitchell set about his new task cautiously in the listening mode while the sum total of Ms Clinton’s pronouncements revealed the constraints of getting Israel to see reason stemming from domestic US policy. In any event, Israel is in the throes of forming yet another government, and the new dispensation, as and when it takes office, will pay lip service to peace while strengthening its colonial rule and plotting new moves against Iran.

The Obama administration did announce a new approach to Iran and Syria, but the steps taken so far have been mealy-mouthed and meagre, Washington having wasted a unique opportunity to try to change the rules of the game to tackle old problems in a new format. Iran has been invited to a conference on Afghanistan and two senior US officials have visited Syria. These moves have raised some interest, but few in the region believe that such tortoise-like steps will take the countries very far.

In a sense, Britain has stolen the American thunder by announcing its readiness to deal with the political wing of the Hezbollah of Lebanon. Interestingly, this is totally out of character with the subservient policy towards Washington London has traditionally followed. Politically, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had to pay a heavy price for the war Israel fought in Lebanon, resulting in a stalemate, with Hezbollah winning plaudits on the Arab street. As a consequence, Hezbollah secured a veto over the Lebanese government’s decisions for the first time.

The traditional US argument is that the regional actors must assume their responsibilities and behave more rationally to resolve deep-seated problems. There is, indeed, much blame to go around in the region but the biggest roadblock is the American mindset and how strategic goals have been enmeshed in an almost irrational attitude to supporting Israel in whatever it chooses to do. Indeed, there was dismay in the appointment of Dennis Ross as the envoy on Iran. Anyone familiar with the old warhorse in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict knows how biased towards Israel he has been.

It remains a mystery why a new administration promising a new beginning was compelled to serve a googly to Iran, a country it is seeking to befriend. The answer perhaps lies in a senior national security official having had to withdraw his nomination in the face of a barrage from the American Jewish lobby. His fault was that he had spoken candidly in the past about the harm Israel was causing itself by following the kind of policies it had. What credence will West Asia then give to President Obama’s promises to remove cobwebs from Washington’s traditional approach?

The Obama administration has received one answer from the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah who has flatly rejected Washington’s call that it recognise Israel before the US will agree to talk to him. Earlier, the Palestinian Hamas movement had said it would not recognise Tel Aviv. Surely, if Washington were serious, it would know that the issue of recognition is often fudged when governments wish to deal with guerrilla and popular movements.

The Bush administration had imagined that the road to Israeli-Palestinian peace lay through Baghdad. America and the world have learnt to their cost the fallacy of that approach. The new administration has been making the sensible point that a broader regional reconciliation and reordering of relations is necessary to resolve the central Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Here, Iran and Syria and the wider body of Arab states must be brought in to lend a helping hand.

But the US must be seen to be acting on its own new approach in a decisive manner. There are roadblocks, of course, such as Iran’s determination to conduct the full uranium enrichment exercise, as it is permitted to under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. There is widespread suspicion that Tehran wants to have the capacity to make nuclear weapons as and when it decides to. There are ways to square the circle, as for instance in getting an international consortium to become a partner in enriching uranium on Iranian soil.

If the Obama administration does not display greater determination and speed in following its own strategy, the danger is that it could miss out on a unique opportunity to make a better world by giving Palestinians justice, instead of repeating the cliché of a two-state solution as they see Israel stealing more and more of their land under their noses each day, every day.

The manner of Israel’s response to rocket firing by Hamas into southern Israel, reminiscent of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre on a massive scale to the Indian memory, killing 1,300 Palestinians locked into a narrow strip has made the American task harder. It is no surprise that Osama bin Laden is seeking to make propaganda use of it by castigating Arab rulers for helplessly watching the killing of fellow Arabs in the confines of the Gaza Strip.

The United States, as the world, is caught up in coping with the consequences of the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression. But some political problems will not wait till the world regains economic health. With his rock star status, President Obama has the enviable opportunity of biting the bullet and changing the nature of the American debate on Israel. He could begin by asking former President Jimmy Carter to be his emissary. The man who engineered the Camp David accord has been telling his fellow countrymen the nature of Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and could herald a new era.