Review Of The Obama Approach To The Middle East

Write a Review of the Obama Approach to the Middle East.

United States of America has maintained a toxic relationship with the Middle East countries since long. This relationship included the non-collaborative economic plans as well as strategies which harmed both the parties. During the first election of President Barrack Obama, he intended to express a view regarding the transparency of foreign policy with the Middle East countries. In his second term, the entire foreign policy of US government evaluated two questions about the economical trade with Middle East. The first question that aroused was whether this foreign policy can be transformed according to the requirement and if so then to which extent it will be restructured in terms of the America’s theory of realism. The second question was whether Obama continued the old policy where America differentiated the Middle East Countries according to the oil trade and terror in terms of the economical profit of the country (Indyk M. S., 2013). This essay reflects the four main arguments through these two questions regarding Barrack Obama’s foreign policy with the Middle East countries. This debatable foreign policy is more continuation of the previously stated strategies than anything newly developed; His approach was different than George W. Bush in reality because he employed the force of liberalism into the democratic structure of Global Politics. However, in the case of Middle East, Obama seemed entirely reluctant with few corrections totally unnoticeable. This essay explains the efficiency and flaws of the policy in the context of America’s debatable realism as well as liberalism. It also emphasizes the ideological struggle of Barrack Obama as the President of United States of America.

Many academicians and critics have argued that Obama’s foreign policy lacked the strategic vision which landed him up into trouble with the Middle East. However, there is a little conflict in this idea. At the beginning of the president ship, Obama came up with a conviction that the excessive military control and political investment in the countries like Iraq and Iran were the part of one prominent interest of the national security of America itself. “Rightsizing” the United States’ impact in the region intended not only reducing its material existence but in addition working out restraint diplomatically, stepping again and challenging allies for taking greater responsibility for their particular security (Indyk M. S., 2012). Obama provided adhered to this specific strategy, prioritizing it callously along the way in addition to firmly resisting efforts in order to force it off the track. This was not a new strategy much beloved inside Washington or in a new region hard-wired for the typical exercise of American power. Nevertheless, it was an obvious and coherent strategy which led Obama to embark on major initiatives on the typical problems he viewed since rising to the amount of core national security pursuits: Iran’s nuclear weapons plan, terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian turmoil, and the war within Iraq.

Arguments

The Middle East remains the most dangerous, most complicated, and perhaps most controversial component in the Obama administration’s conduct of world affairs. Among the arguments President Obama made for his Iran offer is that many associated with the same men and women who argued for the war within Iraq are actually making the particular case against the Iran nuclear deal. Essentially the president was inquiring them to contrast their judgment against some of his opponents, and promote the position of the particular as more sensible party, which usually the president evidently thinks he is. The international policy of the United States in terms of the Middle East countries has eventually structured on two basic ideologies. The first principle insured that the particular region of Middile East’s oil flowed smoothly towards the industrially developed planet without any local hegemony developing in order to either dismantle the oil supply of the oil chain or end up being a participant who disrupted the management of a share of the oil region totally disproportioned. The next strategy talked about de-escalation, in order to the stretch the area of possibilities, regarding the conflict happening in Israel as well as its neighbors who are Arab in expressions. And apart from this particular subject of the final four decades the administration successfully has got opportunities that adhered to these two ambitions, with a preconceived strategy and action plan. The invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s had been successfully turned over by the problems of the nations which were under the leadership of America. The attempts that Iran made for projecting its military power into the countries which are Gulf in general, and pressurized them for the closure of the straits of Hormuz in specific addition, were repeatedly blown down simply by the presence of the American military in the region. Additionally, American council related to the security guarantees and the availability of the particular advanced United States techniques related to the weaponry was the main problem in terms of the security of those countries. The turmoil between the nation of Israel and the neighbors, a problem that caused both the countries a serious war, Jordan, and Syria on the time period of 1948 and 1973, was de-escalated with major significance. Under United States sponsorship, Israel was forced to sign the peace treaties with the countries named Egypt and Jordan. A de facto regarding an entirely unofficial armistice, was also conducted between Israel and Syria. To be certain in the case that it was not really the peaceful end of conflict as well as problems in the region. Regardless of a particular number of several conducted “peace agreements” between the debatable issue of Palestinians and Israel, a lasting settlement about it tried and provided is yet to become fulfilled. This fact was underscored by two unidentified Palestinian Intifadas, with an ambition of a one third settlement that stays on the verge of a meaningful association with the start, and going “terrorist” attacks.

Evaluation

That order, in which we all live for the period, was structured to favor democratic systems associated with government that value human rights and equal security for all over definitionally illiberal and undemocratic kleptocracies, autocracies and theocracies. Obama’s argument for the servicing of this order had been liberal in an old-fashioned sense, in that he or she directed policy based upon the belief that individuals of all faiths, creeds and tribes could eventually coexist. Because these global organizations were founded upon American values. Obama thinks that they act as force multipliers for American power. In other words, the projection of American force is really a cheaper endeavor when it is done through establishments that enforce America’s worth set on its account (Krieg, 2016). Thus he argued that America’s complex architecture associated with alliances and financial obligations to international bodies in fact strengthens the nation more compared to the nation could actually strengthen itself on its own. In sketching his grand vision for the particular world and his role in it, Obama never emerged to understand the Israeli individuals, who in their particular pursuit of secure nationhood have proudly shunned views and dictates coming from the outdoors. They reject a globalist political philosophy. And therefore the particular Israeli individuals never came to understand Obama or even his hopes for the less tribal yet abundantly multicultural world. Israel never ever adjusted to his vision; the prospects for this kind of a dramatic political realignment were slim from the particular start (Dalacoura, 2012). And Obama never ever adjusted to the actuality of what Israel is usually, as opposed to what he thinks Israel should be; in order to the Jewish state since it appears today, distinctively scarred or resilient, based on the light. Obama struggled to comprehend how the recipients of liberal democratic freedoms – whether in His home country of Israel, France or his very own homeland – could, by means of their own rights, refuse the rights of other people. He found this exercise hypocritical, while recognizing that, in the US – and also under his own leadership – security concerns have the direct and dramatic influence on the advancement associated with civil liberties. Obama approached the Israeli-Palestinian conflict getting prejudged the players. This individual chose early on to treat the Israeli federal government as a political adversary (Bouchet, 2013). Israelis thought Obama viewed them not as the partner within a liberal democratic alliance, but from the particular perspective of a globalist seeking structure for the particular Palestinians and credibility along with an unstable, fractured plus illiberal Arab world. Obama’s dismissiveness of tribalism arrives from an American model of liberalism that is tough, otherwise impossible to discover in the Middle East. But despite his literacy on regional history, Obama considered tribalist politics within Israel as somehow much less acceptable as in undemocratic nations with fewer systems for cultural assimilation.

In retrospect, the article is convincing to some degree. While the foreign policies of the United States have been given a proper idea and how or why the views have changed over time. However, the point that can still be raised after everything is the aspect of continuous war that is going on in the Middle Eastern countries. The “invasions” have had a jittering effect on the Middle eastern countries that have ravaged the whole region and may have already had impacts on these countries for decades to come. Only a certain point has been reached by the article about being successfully able to convince the reader while justifying the US policies on  the middle eastern countries.

Conclusion

This essay concludes with the idea of supremacy that United States of America has always evolved in order to develop its economic and political power structure. The idea Obama infused was changed in the flow of global politics. Therefore, the foreign policy with the Middle East remained a strategy to oppress the people in the terms of trade. Obama could have opted for a better path which talks about the liberalist perspective of global politics. However, the transparency never emerged and Palestine-Iraq conflict remained a key tool for power politics. Obama’s approach to the Middle East was neither professional nor liberal according to the theory of realism. Perhaps, it was not the path of Obama that changed the global politics, but it was Washington that changed Barrack Obama forever. Upon analyzing the article, it is inferred that more people should read this, so that more people can be made aware about the foreign policies of the United States and how the country views the Middle East. Change evolution of the United States’ perception on the Middle East, and how their foreign policies changed based on those views, have been given an almost chronological order so that the entire shift in the mindsets of the policy makers and the government of the USA can be understood. The verdict of the article, hence, is that it is quite enlightening in terms of being insightful about the foreign policies of the country. However, the all the areas are not covered and many controversial topics which may be uncomfortable to talk about have been evaded completely or not fully elaborated.

References

Bouchet, N. (2013). The democracy tradition in US foreign policy and the Obama presidency. International Affairs, 89(1), 31-51.

Dalacoura, K. (2012). The 2011 uprisings in the Arab Middle East: political change and geopolitical implications. International Affairs, 88(1), 63-79.

Gerges, F. A. (2013). The Obama approach to the Middle East: the end of America’s moment?

Indyk, M. S., Lieberthal, K. G., & O'Hanlon, M. E. (2012). Scoring Obama's foreign policy: A progressive pragmatist tries to bend history. Foreign Affairs, 29-43.

Indyk, M. S., Lieberthal, K. G., & O'hanlon, M. E. (2013). Bending History: Barack Obama's Foreign Policy. Brookings Institution Press.

Krieg, A. (2016). Externalizing the burden of war: the Obama Doctrine and US foreign policy in the Middle East. International Affairs, 92(1), 97-113.