Arab News Blog

I’ve been asked to contribute to the latest edition of the Foreign Policy report card on the Obama administration.  I gave an A- after the first 100 days.   I’m not sure when the whole thing will be published, but here’s my contribution:

The administration has moved from the initial period of "reset"
to the tougher period of implementation.  A lot of people focus on the
inevitable lack of immediate progress — some because they want change
and are growing frustrated, others because they oppose his agenda and
seek every opportunity to declare failure.  I get frustrated, and I’ve
been critical of some of Obama’s tactics and priorities.   But stepping
back from the day to day triumphs and frustrations shows an
administration which has come a long way in less than ten months.

This is a global perspective, but I’ll focus mainly on the Middle East.
  Obama has transformed the tone and tenor of America’s relationship
with the Islamic, downgrading the focus on terrorism and al-Qaeda in
favor of a broadly-based outreach and engagement.  The Cairo speech
isn’t enough, and the follow-up hasn’t been as visible and sustained as
I’d like — but the fact is that al-Qaeda today is as marginal in Arab
politics as it has been in a decade, and Obama deserves credit for
that.  

Obama has done a great job of maintaining his committment to
withdraw responsibly from Iraq despite all sorts of pressures and
temptations to change his mind, and has not overreacted to each day’s
new crisis. The engagement with Syria continues.  He has chosen to
engage seriously with the decision-making about Afghanistan, and has
run an impressively inclusive and thoughtful deliberation process
despite the impatience of advocates for escalation or withdrawal.   And
he’s done an extremely impressive job of building a global coalition
towards Iran, and has made more progress on the nuclear front than most
expected.

Obama has been less successful in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian
track. After an outstanding beginning which demonstrated his strong
commitment to achieving a negotiated two-state solution and the correct
decision to call for an Israeli settlement freeze, his team allowed
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to drag the process down into the
tarpits to die.  He should have pivoted away from the settlements
battle months ago, and now is paying the price.  The administration has
also struggled with Palestinian politics, relying heavily on Mahmoud
Abbas and Salam Fayyad but undermining their legitimacy and failing to
do anything to alleviate the suffering of Gaza. 

 Nobody expected Obama to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace, end the
Iranian nuclear standoff, or transform the Islamic world in ten
months.  And he hasn’t.  But he’s accomplished quite a lot and has set
the U.S. on a far better course in the region.  Impatience in the
region is clearly growing, and skepticism is setting in about his
ability to deliver.   He may well fail.  But for now, I think the broad
contours of his policy are playing out reasonably well.   Grade:  A-

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