Let’s see the audacity in Obama’s Mideast policy, too!

I loved Paul Krugman’s column in the NYT today.
He was arguing that Barack Obama could learn a lot from studying the record of the “New Deal” policies enacted by Franklin Roosevelt in response to the economic crisis of the 1930… And in particular, from the fact that FDR’s economic policies almost failed– because they weren’t bold enough, soon enough.
Krugman makes a strong case for this argument, at both the economic and political levels. But reading the column, I thought an almost exactly similar case could be made regarding Middle East policy.
For the past 16 years, US diplomacy regarding the Middle East has been both atomized and painfully incrementalist. Under both Clinton and George W. Bush, the US government sought to keep its policy on Iraq and the Gulf as separate as possible from its policy on Arab-Israeli affairs; and within the domain of Arab-Israeli affairs it worked hard to keep each of the negotiating tracks separate while giving Israel ample time to stall and stall forever on all of them.
The policies pursued by Washington in both the Arab-Israeli theater and the Gulf region have failed. Now, if the war-battered peoples of this vital region are to see their lives stabilized, then a much broader and bolder approach should be used.
The Baker-Hamilton report of December 2006 certainly recommended this. It’s time to pull it off the shelf quickly– along with the records of the old Madrid Conference of 1991, and prepare for a whole new, Mideast-wide stabilization effort… To be undertaken in close coordination with the other four permanent Members of the Security Council.
Obama has written about “the audacity of hope.” So now, to keep the hope alive, let’s have some real audacity of diplomatic action.

4 thoughts on “Let’s see the audacity in Obama’s Mideast policy, too!”

  4. Our Party, Right Or Wrong!
    [“Wednesday Nov. 12, 2008 15:28 EST”]
    It is worth remembering that the Democrats who are going to exert dominant political control are the same ones who have provoked so much scorn — rightfully so — over the last several years, and particularly since 2006. This is the same Democratic Party leadership which funded the Iraq War without conditions (and voted to authorize it in the first place); massively expanded the President’s warrantless eavesdropping powers; immunized lawbreaking telecoms; enacted the Patriot Act and then renewed it with virtually no changes; didn’t even bother to mount a filibuster to stop the Military Commissions Act; refrained from pursuing any meaningful investigations of Bush lawbreaking; confirmed every last extremist Bush nominee, from Michael McConnell to Michael Mukasey; acquiesced [in] even the worst and most lawless Bush policies when they were briefed on them; and on and on and on. None of that has changed. That is still who they are.
    Happy days.

Comments are closed.