Kissed to death by America

People in and around the Obama administration are taking the position that his low key on Iran is carefully calculated. It's not that he doesn't sympathize with the protesters, he just doesn't want their cause to be identified with the United States. That would be a kiss of death. I'm not persuaded, and as I've suggested already, his real problem with Iran's turmoil is that it's just so inconvenient to a Palestine-first approach.

Laura Rozen at her blog The Cable quoted an "Iran hand in touch with the administration" as saying that Obama "is dedicated to diplomacy in a manner that is almost ideological," that he's already decided what he wants to do in the Middle East "over the next eight years" (bit of presumption there), and that he doesn't want to be "distracted" from the "larger strategic objective" or "let himself get shaken by stuff like this" - "stuff" referring to the reality in the streets of Iran and the Middle East more generally. If this spectacular hubris isn't a formula for failure in the Middle East, what is?

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Sweeping Khalidi under Obama's rug

The Washington Post ran an article Saturday, exploring the origins of President Obama's heels-dug-in stance on Israeli settlements. White House officials described Obama's position to the Post as "years old and not the product of recent events or discussions." The Post then traced it way back to some of Obama's Jewish friends from Chicago days. The earliest influence named in the piece is the late Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf of Hyde Park, whose synagogue was across from Obama's home (and whom Marty Peretz memorably described as "one of those remaining nudnik Reform clergy who is always pained that, given the distress of the Palestinians, life is too good for the Israelis").

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The return of George Mitchell

As early as today, according to reliable reports, President Obama will appoint former Senator George Mitchell as his special Middle East envoy. Mitchell, it will be recalled, led a commission to investigate the causes of Israeli-Palestinian violence back in 2001. (Details and some takes here.)

I had the chance to spend some time with Mitchell last month, when he and I attended a conference at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. I don't think he'd spent much time in the region since his earlier mission, and he was clearly collecting information on all that had happened in the interim. During a twenty-minute taxi ride, he peppered me with questions about Hamas and Gaza - the new twist that will make his mission that much more difficult. I hope I set him straight.

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Obama buys the myth

In one of my earlier posts The Myth of Linkage, I brought a number of exemplary quotes from figures such as Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski to illustrate my point. Now another quote can be added to the collection - this one from Barack Obama, fresh from his quick tutorial in the Middle East:

I think King, King Abdullah [of Jordan] is as savvy an analyst of the region and player in the region as, as there is, one of the points that he made and I think a lot of people made, is that we've got to have an overarching strategy recognizing that all these issues are connected. If we can solve the Israeli-Palestinian process, then that will make it easier for Arab states and the Gulf states to support us when it comes to issues like Iraq and Afghanistan.

It will also weaken Iran, which has been using Hamas and Hizbullah as a way to stir up mischief in the region. If we've gotten an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, maybe at the same time peeling Syria out of the Iranian orbit, that makes it easier to isolate Iran so that they have a tougher time developing a nuclear weapon. "