Obama's Mideast Strategy Implodes

Another misstep by Bibi—bringing Gaza back into focus—has tanked Washington’s plan to stop Iran, advance peace talks, and heal the region.

It seems an especially hopeless task to declare that conditions in the Mideast have reached a new low of hopelessness, but that is where we are, and the first step toward any future hope must be to acknowledge its present absence. The deadly Mavi Marmara confrontation is a particular blow to President Barack Obama, the would-be grand strategist of the Mideast. Eighteen months ago, Obama had wanted to get all the cylinders of change working in his favor. He had sought a regional strategy that would alter the underlying dynamic by winning back the favor of the Arab and Muslim nations, bringing everyone on board against Iran and its nuclear program, and forging ahead on peace between the Israelis and Palestinians as a way of making it all come together. In other words, turning a negative spiral into a positive one.

In recent weeks Obama had seemed to be making some progress, however meager. Months of painstaking diplomacy had achieved a measure of consensus over new U.N. sanctions against Iran, with Russia’s and China’s grudging compliance. “Proximity talks,” employing former senator George Mitchell as middleman, were about to begin. But once again, an unforeseen incident—unforeseen, that is, except by those who planned it—has overturned all those calculations. The Mavi Marmara debacle has done more than further aggravate the mistrust between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (recall their blowup half a year ago over the abrupt announcement of new settlements during Vice President Biden’s visit) and distracted everyone once again from Iran. It has reminded all these would-be strategists that the issue they most wanted to go away—Gaza, and all that it means politically and morally—is back again, and it may be here to stay for a long while.

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