Having declared himself on the side of the demonstrators and no longer the defender of the status quo, many of the participants in the Arab Street will ask Obama to make his bones. And the only way President Obama can prove that he’s on their side is to throw one or two dictators their way. The Bush plan would be to throw Khamenei and Assad to the crowds first. But that appears to be off the table, because he wants to talk to them, so in the Obama variation the alternative appears to be giving only America’s allies in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, the heave-ho. When it is too hard to ditch your enemies, ditch those who trusted you....
I think the president believes he can achieve a nuanced outcome by taking both sides of history in the Middle East; to preserve U.S. security interests while spreading democracy — all largely achieved by the State Department. Maybe he will succeed. But the worst case scenario is that this will lead to a complete unraveling of the U.S. position in the region coupled with an unwillingness and inability to defend any red line whatsoever. Consider: if Plan A fails, what on earth is Plan B?
Israel is not going to go quietly into that good night.
The problem that Obama has is that he has no control over the cycle of violence or political upheaval in the Middle East. All he can contribute is incitement. He can incite the current rulers to greater acts of repression, knowing that being deposed does not mean retirement but death. He can incite greater mass demonstrations knowing that American support of the old regimes is ended. He can incite Israel to abandon its belief that America will rush supplies to its military during a war; making the use of nuclear weapons more likely. And he has incited Iran to finish development of its nuclear capability to checkmate Israel’s use of nuclear weapons in the next war.
All that in one single campaign speech. Quite an accomplishment, Barry.
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