Losing Influence

People in the Middle East, even long-time allies such as Israel, have figured out that the US no longer has the ability to assert much influence in that region. Oh, the President can complain and stamp his feet, but the Saudis aren't going to pump more oil, and the Israelis are going to talk to whomever they think they need to in order to shore up the peace process. David Ignatius has an interesting bit of analysis on the subject which was published in Lebanon's Daily Star.

What happens when a superpower becomes preoccupied by a costly war and loses some of its ability to coerce friends and enemies toward the outcomes it favors? We're seeing a demonstration of that change now in the Middle East, as Arabs and even Israel reckon with the limits of American power - and begin to cut their own deals.

The new power dynamic is clear in two developments over the past several weeks - the Lebanon peace deal brokered by Qatar on May 21, and the Israel-Syria peace talks, with Turkish mediation, that were announced the same day. Both negotiations could help stabilize the region, albeit not on the terms the US would have preferred.

This independence from American tutelage is arguably one advantage of the new diplomacy: It is grounded in realism among the Middle Eastern nations about their own interests, rather than in wishful thinking about what the United States can accomplish. It reflects, as well, the growing strength of Iran and its radical allies, and the diminished clout of the United States - and in that sense, it accords with the altered balance of power in the area.

The best explanation I've seen of this rebalancing came from veteran Arab journalist Rami Khouri in Lebanon's The Daily Star. "We are witnessing the clear limits of the projection of American global power, combined with the assertion and coexistence of multiple regional powers (Turkey, Israel, Iran, Hizbullah, Syria, Hamas, Saudi Arabia, etc.)," he wrote. This new alignment, he added, "is not a full defeat for the United States - it's more like a draw." [Emphasis added]

Although the US influence in the Middle East has been on the wane for longer than the current administration has been in office, this White House sped up that process by pretty much ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian problem for the first six years, preferring instead to simply pass dollars and weaponry to Israel. At least the prior administrations made some effort at being seen as an "honest brokers," pressuring Israel to do some things that country clearly did not want to do. This last minute effort at peace making by the US has been ineffective and to a great extent has only made matters worse because it is so clearly an attempt by President Bush to salvage some foreign policy initiative in the waning days of his administration.

Perhaps the biggest cause of the loss of US influence in the region, however, was the decision to go to war in Iraq (and Afghanistan, for that matter). The war showed both the ineffectiveness of the vaunted war machine and allowed for a rather dramatic realignment in the region's balance of power. Iran has emerged as the big winner in this tragic miscalculation. Hamas and Hizbullah have also gained influence, much to the chagrin of a White House who couldn't imagine the people of the region would rally to those organizations as a result of the war and of the unbending White House resolve to let Israel do as it wished.

Heckuva legacy, George.

232 days.