How to Lose Friends: President Obama and the Middle East

To alienate one long-standing friend is a misfortune. To alienate two such friends within less than a month is a sign of carelessness. Yet this is what President Barack Obama has recently achieved, angering both of America's principal allies in the Middle East, Turkey and Israel.

It might be said that with regard to Turkey the offence was not given by the president but by a committee of the US Congress which called for official recognition of the Turkish killing of Armenians during the First World War as an act of genocide. The White House promptly said it would make every effort to prevent such a resolution being passed by Congress. Nevertheless Obama had promised to support such a resolution when he was seeking Armenian American votes during his presidential election campaign. Turkey has not been appeased and has promised that if such a resolution goes through, it will have a negative impact on US-Turkish relations.

With regard to Israel, whatever the provocations of the Netanyahu government, Obama's promise to re-start the Middle East peace process with regard to the Israel-Palestine dispute was not being fulfilled even before the clash over the expansion of Jewish settlements in Jerusalem. To appease his Arab allies, Obama will no doubt heap all the blame for the current crisis on Israel, but his own failure to take any serious interest in the peace process must also take some of the blame.

One might add that the Obama administration's penchant for offending long-standing allies of the USA is not restricted to the Middle East. During the same weeks that American relations with Turkey and Israel soured, Obama's hostility to Britain once again came into prominence. His administration's proclaimed 'neutrality' in the recent renewal of the dispute between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands did not pass unnoticed by the London media. This confirmed for many the president's anti-British feelings, supposedly caused by the suffering of his Kenyan family during British colonial rule in that country.

Nor can America's Arab allies in the Middle East take much comfort from President Obama's inept diplomacy. They walk a dangerous tightrope. The Arab masses they rule are alienated by their support for America's wars in the Islamic world. These Arab rulers need America to achieve real progress in the Israel-Palestine dispute so they can show their people that they are not just Western stooges, indifferent to the suffering of fellow Muslims. If no such progress can be shown, the Arab masses will continue to be radicalized and fall under the influence of Islamist extremists and terror groups.

The situation is particularly acute in Egypt, the only Arab country which directly assists Israel in the oppression of fellow Muslims through its role in the blockade of the Palestinians in Gaza. Ageing and ill, the current ruler of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, wants a smooth transition when he hands over power to his son. An American-brokered settlement between Israel and the Palestinians which appears to give some gains to the latter would greatly assist such a transition. As it is, the Egyptian government can only seek to appease growing Islamist radicalism by deflecting it into attacks on the country's Coptic Christian minority.

Arab rulers are well aware of the great popularity with the Arab masses of Iran's President Ahmadinejad because of his hostile declarations against Israel. Most of this ranting is just empty rhetoric, regularly repeated precisely because it embarrasses the Arab rulers with their own peoples. Even Syria would not dare issue such dire threats against Israel as those coming from Tehran. Nevertheless it is a high-risk strategy for the Iranians. President Nasser of Egypt repeatedly threatened Israel in such terms, but found himself helpless and humiliated in 1967 when Israel chose to take his words at face value and launched a pre-emptive military attack.

The danger in the current situation is that America's President Obama, conscious of his weak performance both at home and abroad, will feel forced to act tough to repair his image and win back the support of alienated allies. One way of doing this would be to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Such action would be very popular with Israel, moderately popular with the rulers of America's Arab allies, especially in the Gulf, and might meet with Turkey's reluctant approval.

The wider consequences of such an attack for the Middle East and the rest of the world would of course be unforeseeable. Moreover, if for any reason the attack was less than totally successful, there is a risk for Barack Obama that his presidency would be doomed by events in Iran in the same way that Jimmy Carter's presidency was fatally blighted thirty years ago.