The Day After: Obama and the Middle East

Day After: F. Gerges – Obama and the Middle East

IN THE past six months, the Gallup World Poll found voters in 71 of 73 countries preferring Barack Obama to John McCain. But recently Obama’s support has been at its lowest in Arab- and Muslim-dominated countries, where most respondents indicated they expected U.S. relations with the world to remain unchanged. Conventional wisdom among many Arab and Muslim commentators suggests that they believe that Obama’s foreign policy will represent a continuation of the last eight years.

This skepticism is unwarranted—seriously unwarranted–I believe. The historic election of Obama as America’s 44th president will indeed inaugurate a sea change in America’s foreign policy, and nowhere more than in the Middle East and the greater Muslim world, where Obama’s approach will be radically different from that of George W. Bush in style as well as substance.

Obama is no pacifist. He will not turn American foreign policy away from the defense of American interests in the region. But he possesses a deep commitment to dialogue and diplomacy and a healthy skepticism about wielding brute force to resolve differences with adversaries. “I’m not opposed to all wars,” he said in his now-famous 2002 speech against the invasion of Iraq. “I’m opposed to dumb wars.”

That same speech laid out a realist case against the war in Iraq, which
Obama presciently predicted would “require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, of undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” There is a vast intellectual divide that separates the Bush doctrine–which embraced preventive war against countries perceived to be potential threats–and Obama’s emphasis on partnership and multilateralism.

Obama put it succinctly in a Democratic debate in 2007: “The Obama
Doctrine is not going to be as doctrinaire as the Bush Doctrine because the world is complicated…That means that if there are children in the Middle East who cannot read, that is a potential long-term danger to us. If China is polluting, then eventually that is going to reach our shores. We have to work with them cooperatively to solve their problems as well as ours.”

Obama’s genius lies in nourishing a desire for a return to political realism, if not enlightened liberalism, in foreign affairs. Seven years after the onset of the costly global “war on terror,” America is in the mood for normalcy, military de-escalation, and diplomatic engagement. Americans now realize that their country’s foreign policy has been hijacked by a small group of ideologues and social engineers. Time and again Obama reminded Americans of the Bush legacy: tarnishing the country’s standing in the world and making more foes than friends.

In Iraq, Obama will break with both Bush and McCain by insisting that the new mission of the military is to bring the Iraq War to an orderly end. Although Obama’s plan will leave a residual force in Iraq, there will be no permanent military bases, he has repeated again and again. The question is not whether he will disengage from Iraq, but how swiftly he can carry out his pledge.

In his commitment to a new realism, Obama will have a chance to repudiate George W. Bush’s legacy as no other American president could. But he will also benefit from his personal history. We should never underestimate the symbolic power of Obama’s appeal to the Muslim world. President Obama, an African American with Muslim ancestry, will shatter widespread stereotypes about America. A visit by him to Egypt, Iran, or Indonesia will send a powerful message to the Arab and Muslim world—especially to those leaders who feel the United States still regards them as the enemy.

Fawaz A. Gerges is professor of International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence College. His most recent books are Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy and The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global.