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The Implications
of Obama's Foreign Policy Team for the Middle East
A briefing by Jonathan S. Tobin
March 20, 2013
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Jonathan S. Tobin, senior online editor of Commentary magazine and
writer for the magazine's "Contentions" blog on its website,
briefed the Middle East Forum via conference call on March 20, 2013. The
briefing took place during Obama's first presidential visit to Israel.
Mr. Tobin began his talk by comparing the foreign policy teams of the two
Obama administrations. He argued that while all three members of the
first-term team (Secretary of State Clinton, Secretaries of Defense Panetta
and Gates) were no advocates of a strong forward foreign policy, they were
keenly aware of Washington's security requirements and the need to stand by
its allies. By contrast, the composition of the second-term team raises the
specter of a dark period in U.S.-Israeli relations, an undeterred Iranian
nuclear threat, and a weakened U.S. national security. Specifically,
- · Secretary of State
John Kerry, a believer in multilateralism and the U.N., has described
Syria's President Assad as a moderate and is afflicted by the dangerous
hubris of solving the crises in the Middle East.
- · Secretary of Defense
Chuck Hagel belongs to the old Realist school of thought that upholds
the unrealistic belief in an outreach to Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah
while questioning the value of the U.S.-Israel alliance.
- · Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan sought to appease Egypt's
Muslim Brotherhood in his former capacity as chief counterterrorism
advisor to the White House, displaying a distinct lack of resolve in
pursuing the war on terror.
In the final account, however, it is Obama who sets policy in this top
down administration rather than his team; and having wasted his first term on
dead-end diplomacy with Tehran and the Palestinians, the president's Israel
visit suggested that he has learnt from his mistakes. This was demonstrated,
inter alia, by his reaffirmation of Washington's "eternal" alliance
with Jerusalem in language validating Israel's ancient history: in stark
contrast to his 2009 Cairo speech which ascribed Israel's right to exist to
the Holocaust. Obama also upped his rhetoric regarding Iran, leaving himself
little room short of a full diplomatic success that would contain Tehran's
nuclear threat.
These positive aspects notwithstanding, given Obama's past failure to
follow through on his rhetoric it remains to be seen whether his recent
pronouncements translate into actions that make the U.S. more secure while
maintaining its close alliance with Israel.
Summary account by Marilyn Stern, Associate Fellow with the Middle East
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