The government of Iran, much like many across the Middle East, believes that the Obama administration is so consumed with a desire to undo the wrongs of the Bush era and get out from under the costs of two difficult, hard-to-justify wars in the region that it would never intervene against them militarily. Iranian leaders seem to believe that the United States would not risk another war in the region just to stop their development of nuclear weapons.

The government of Israel, also worried that its number one ally has lost its appetite for complex entanglements in the region, seems to think that by playing the Iran card it can goad the U.S. into action that will restore the bonds between the two nations. Israeli leaders believe that they can translate their perception of Iran as an existential threat against them and a brazen, rising regional hegemon into a new renewed U.S. commitment to the region and closer ties with Israel.

Both are wrong.

According to the U.K. newspaper the Guardian, which has an extraordinary package of stories on the growing Iran risk and the escalation of that risk associated with an upcoming International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that will reveal game-changing progress by Iran in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons capabilities, even America's closest allies in Britain believe "President Obama has a big decision to make in the coming months because he won't want to do anything just before an election." Wrong.

Here in the U.S., analysts believe that Obama would not risk being drawn into a war in the region or the upheaval a series of attacks might cause. Even though tensions are definitely rising and those familiar with the IAEA report that will be circulated next week say, "It is going to be hard for even Moscow or Beijing to downplay its significance," there is a sense that Obama won't pull the trigger. Iran analyst Karim Sadjadpour was quoted by the Guardian as saying, "A U.S. military attack on Iran is not going to happen during Obama's presidency. If you're Obama, and your priority is to resuscitate the American economy and decrease the U.S. footprint in the Middle East, bombing Iran would defeat those two objectives. Oil prices would skyrocket." While an attack is no sure thing yet, the analysis is wrong.

Certainly no one in the Obama Administration is eager to launch an attack on Iran. Taking steps that would risk being drawn into another war or that might damage the global economy further or could distract from the world at home would be vigorously opposed by several of the President's most senior advisors, and he undoubtedly would be deeply divided on the issue himself.

But in the end, as dangerous as an attack might be militarily and politically, if the President believes there is no other alternative to stopping Iran from gaining the ability to produce highly enriched uranium and thus manufacture nuclear weapons, he will seriously consider military action and it is hardly a certainty he won't take it. From a domestic political perspective, right now Obama's strong suit is his national security performance. For the first time in years, he has taken the issue away from the Republicans. Right now they simply cannot attack him as being weak or assert they understand defense better. That is why they are so silent on the issue. Obama has only four real areas of vulnerability on this front. First, if he pushes too hard for defense budget cuts before the election, the Republicans will go after him. He won't. He will seek cuts but will be comparatively cautious. Next, if there were a terrorist attack of some sort and the administration seemed unprepared or responded weakly, that would create a problem. But that is a perennial wild card. Third, if he distances himself from Israel, the Republicans will seek to capitalize on the sense some supporters of that country have that Obama is not a committed friend. There is already plenty of activity in that area ... and the Israelis are eager to take advantage of their perceived election year leverage. And finally, if Iran were to detonate a nuclear bomb, Obama would be blamed and fiercely attacked for a policy of engagement that ultimately proved to be toothless. 

As a consequence, the President and his advisors are acutely aware of the Iran issue. But their concerns go much deeper. The President and his national security leadership are deeply worried about the potential consequences associated with an Iranian nuclear breakthrough. It would likely trigger an arms race in the region at a time of considerable instability. It would immediately ratchet up tensions between Iran and Israel ... but also between Iran and its historic enemies in the Gulf. It would both raise Iran's perceived clout and underscore the absence of a counterweight either from the U.S., the West, or the international community at large.

While an attack on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities almost certainly would produce a spike in oil prices, those prices would stabilize if the attacks were successful and did not produce a protracted war. Further, with the world economy in a slump, prices are feeling less upward pressure anyway these days. However, if Iran gained nuclear weapons, it might trigger a kind of uncertainty that would be protracted and would have a longer-term effect on oil prices.

The British assumption that the President would not take this action close to the election is mistaken on two levels. First, from the most cynical perspective possible, a strong action right before the election in response to a genuine threat after an extended effort to pursue more peaceful options to resolving the issue might well work very well for the President politically. The American people's reaction to an attack at any time is likely to give the President the benefit of the doubt. That said, it would be a mistake to think this President would make such a cynical analysis. Should he act on an issue like this, he will do so without making any political calculus. He's a politician to be sure. But on national security matters he has grown both increasingly self-confident and proven himself to be exceptionally disciplined. Indeed, the calculus as to what he might do needs to factor in that he has achieved some success taken strong military actions of a focused nature. The "no more Middle East wars" notion went out the window with Libya. The "Obama is timid on these matters" thesis was actually silently put to an early death when the President, just in office, ordered the ultimately successful effort to eliminate Osama bin Laden.

Finally, the Israelis are wrong if they think that U.S. cooperation on this issue will restore the bond between the two nations.  They may work side-by-side on this as they did on the Stuxnet intervention. They share close ties. But so long as Israel pursues settlements and other policies that inflame the Palestinian situation and make a solution less likely, this administration will be more divided internally in its views on Israel than its public statements may suggest. Further, the reality is that history is moving against the Israelis. Not only are America's strategic priorities shifting -- the end of the Cold War and the War on Terror were both blows to the "indispensability" of Israel to the U.S. -- but other countries, like China and India, are gaining more influence in the region as they become more important consumers of the region's oil. And they view the Israeli-Palestinian issue as an irritant, a risk to their interests and a matter that needs to be disposed of, one way or another, whichever serves their ultimate goal of stable, cheap supplies of energy. In fact, paradoxically, it is probably a nuclear Iran that stands the best chance of keeping Israel more relevant to America.

None of this means America will act. But it would be a mistake to bet against it or to consider U.S. threats to be mere posturing.

Sept. 11, 2001 marked the beginning of a decade in which the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy was "the war on terror." As we approach Sept. 11, 2011, it is clear that America's foreign policy priorities have changed.

Not only has the United States achieved our principle goal of decapitating al Qaeda and degrading its capabilities, we have hardened our assets, enhanced our intelligence capabilities, developed better networks of international cooperation and, above all, recognized that there are other issues of far greater importance to our national interests that should take precedence. Even the term "war on terror" has thankfully fallen into disuse, a sign that while combatting threats from extremists remains an important element of our national security mission, we no longer seek to equate tactical responses to isolated threats with past conflicts in which our strategic interests were at stake. Instead, we are now appropriately addressing such broader strategic questions such as the rise of new powers like China, India, and Brazil, collaborating to manage the global economy, and containing important regional threats that include but are far from limited to the risks associated with terror.

Nowhere is this shift more striking than in the Greater Middle East, the source of not only the 9/11 attacks but of many of the most serious terror threats of recent memory. Recent events in Libya only underscore that America's number one issue in the region is now supporting the transition of a large number of important regional governments from autocracy to more inclusive forms of government and from top-down, crony states to more open, opportunity-rich economies. In the Middle East we have gone from the war on terror to a new campaign focused not on destruction but on building, not on sidestepping our ideals in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo but on promoting them consistent with the spirit of places like Tahrir Square.

In Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan, while the individual situations are different as is our involvement, our missions are consistent and mutually reinforcing. In the near future, it is to be hoped that similar missions will exist in Syria and in Palestine. Related reforms in countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and even Jordan -- no one like the other, but all sharing a need to evolve to reflect new economic, political, social, and technological realities -- are also likely to grow ever more important to our overall goals in the Middle East.

Of course, the initiatives we support -- those that enfranchise citizens and create opportunities for self-sufficiency and advancement -- are also far more effective tools to combat the spread of terror than have been many of our military and political initiatives of the recent past. That's not to say that there is not an important dimension to that on-going fight that will require swift, decisive use of force -- sometimes even unilateral use of force. But among the best elements of this new approach in the region is that it can only be done through effective multilateral cooperation in conjunction with a broad array of other supporters and international institutions.

Anniversaries like 9/11 are important because they help us remember. But they are also important because they provide needed punctuation marks, allowing us to bring to an end dark chapters like the "war on terror."

It is not the narrative we had hoped for. It is certainly not the story line that would have been most uplifting. It is not even the scenario that seems most consistent with the course of centuries of human progress. But it is one we have to consider because with every passing day, it does seem the direction events are now headed.

Judging from developments throughout the Middle East, it seems quite possible that the primary outcome of the "Arab Spring" may be the reinforcing of the power of the old guard.

In Egypt, recent reports such as David Kirkpatrick's in the New York Times this weekend suggest that the military is working tirelessly to retain its traditionally dominant behind-the-scenes role in that country's political life even after any further reforms are implemented. In addition, political candidates -- like former foreign minister Amr Moussa -- with close ties to Hosni Mubarak's regime may fare well in upcoming elections.

In Jordan, Yemen, and Tunisia, promises of reform have thus far outnumbered any substantial steps in that direction. (See, for a thoughtful analysis, my Carnegie colleague Marina Ottaway's "Tunisia: The Revolution Is Over, Can Reform Continue?")

In Syria, while Bashar al-Assad regime has been weakened by protests, even weaker has been the international response to its brutality. The regime could well survive. Perhaps more importantly vis-à-vis the region at large, take how it has thus far faired compared with toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, and the message to autocrats threatened in the future may be: strike hard, strike without mercy, the worst you will have to contend with from the rest of the planet is a flurry of diplomatic wrist-slaps. The fact that similar crackdowns in Iran and Bahrain were also effective only underscores the point.

In Bahrain, the formula is a little more pernicious. It suggests for regimes lucky enough to be located in the Gulf -- because of the oil, because of America's desire to contain Iran, because of old friendships -- you can get away with virtually anything. See today's article in the Independent titled "Poet jailed in protests claims she was beaten by Bahraini royal." It is a credible account of just one more ugly dimension of a protracted repressive episode that the United States and the rest of the world effectively chose to ignore … which in such cases is much the same thing as complicity.

Read on

Imagine being Muammar al-Qaddafi. There you are, struggling with the day-to-day challenges of trying to get a decent colorist and botox doc to come to your bunker, and the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for you for crimes against humanity. You're thinking, "crimes against fashion" sure, I would understand that. People are jealous they can't rock the gold epaulets like I do. But crimes against humanity? I'm just following the job description to which every other leader in my region adheres. Sure, I'm trying to put down a rebellion. Abraham Lincoln did the same thing, it resulted in way more killing and mayhem than has happened here, and he's on the five dollar bill.

"What about Assad?" he must be asking any remaining Ukrainian nurse practitioners as he is shuttled from one hiding place to another?

"What about the Bahrainis? What about Ahmadinejad? What about every one of my local colleagues who have dropped the hammer on the people trying to push us from office?"

"Heck, what about the NATO powers that were supposedly not authorized to pursue regime change here who keep "accidentally" bombing every place in town where I have stopped to take a nap?"

"What about George W.T.F. Bush?" he must be asking aloud while daubing shoe polish on his moustache and wondering silently who does Tom Selleck's? "He and Cheney violated every international law on the books, invaded a country, hundreds of thousands of innocent people died, and what do they get? Presidential libraries! Book contracts! State of the art pacemakers!"

Of course, Qaddafi has every reason to be bitter. The international community singled him out and has starkly and apparently unabashedly ignored far worse violations by Bashir al Assad, to pick just the most egregious case of a double standard. Not that Qaddafi doesn't deserve the arrest warrant issued by the ICC on Monday. Not that the world won't be a better place when he is out of office or better, behind bars paying for his brutality, his sponsorship for terror and his myriad abuses against his own people. But, if ever a guy was having a "why me" moment, it must be him as he reads about Syrian crackdowns, recalls the Iranian crackdown, watches as leaders from North Korea to China to Myanmar to Russia to Zimbabwe to Sudan to the Congo to Venezuela order their opponents locked up or worse.

Read on

While President Obama's Middle East address is likely to cover many of the core issues confronting the United States in the region, there is one absolutely central theme that will remain unspoken but that will influence future policy more than any other. America's influence in the region is fading fast and will soon be at its lowest ebb since the Second World War.

The president will seek to lay out a vision for America's policies in the region. He has already tipped his hand as to where he stands on several respects. He is offering the speech -- long discussed and in the minds of many, too long delayed -- at the U.S. State Department, about as safe a venue as one can imagine. He has timed it to precede by a week a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, thus making it appear a trifle reactive and a bit defensive. And he today announced targeted sanctions against Syria, thus trying to set the stage for the speech with a posture of toughness and to inoculate himself against criticisms that he has done too little to counter the barbarity of the Syrian regime. He will still buoyed by the success of the bin Laden raid, but these other factors hint at some of the unease found in private exchanges with U.S. policymakers.

In his speech, the president and his speechwriters will also be confounded by the fact that there are so many issues linked together in the region that it would literally be impossible for anyone to describe a coherent policy. The Arab Spring alone has set Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories side by side to demonstrate that the United States can ill afford, and Obama is disinclined to pursue, cookie-cutter approaches to situations that are radically different in terms of players, stakes, historical context, and governing dynamics. Add to this mix the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the Iranian nuclear program, the efforts to contain the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction more broadly, the transition out of Iraq, the transition out of Afghanistan, the problems with the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, Kurdish aspirations for independence, the efforts by Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas to orchestrate a growing web of influence throughout the region from Syria to Lebanon to the West Bank and now to Egypt and beyond, the global aspirations of Turkey, the growing influence of China, energy politics and economics, rising food prices, massive unemployment, terrorism, tribal divisions, economic stagnation, and a social fabric being rapidly rewoven thanks to new technologies, and you have a bit of a sense of the brain-numbing nature of trying to create something called "Middle East Policy."

Instead of such a grand plan, what Obama will offer are sketches and snippets illustrating how his policy is different from that of past presidents and where it is consistent with America's historical posture. Expect a hint of a more sympathetic stance toward moderates, an echo of the Cairo speech, a dollop of incentive toward political and economic reform, a dose of anti-terrorist toughness, a modicum of multilateralism, a shot of unilateralist willingness to defend ourselves, and an utz or an utz and a half of a willingness to embrace and encourage social transformation throughout the region.

Read on

It would be too easy to say that Barack Obama has been a big loser so far since the onset of operations against the Qaddafi regime in Libya. It would also be wrong. The Obama administration has mishandled many elements of the crisis, but nothing they have done wrong thus far is irreversible and in terms of the simple objectives of imposing a no-fly zone and containing Qaddafi, the effort has been effective.

Further, whatever the criticism of Obama may be, his intentions have been both defensible and sound: The desire to forestall a humanitarian disaster and to do so through multilateral mechanisms were worthy and responsible goals. The challenge thus far has been in the execution ... although clearly, the risks going forward remain high and were this to result in a protracted U.S. involvement, unacceptable costs, a stalemate on the ground that left Qaddafi in power or the installation of a new government that ultimately proved to be as bad or worse for U.S. interests than its predecessors, then we would have to revisit our list.

Meanwhile, at this stage of the game, the five biggest losers associate with the whadeveryacallit (see Jay Carney's convolocution above) are:

5. Qaddafi

Much as the Libyan people were only the number five beneficiary of events so far in our winners list because the outcome is so uncertain, Qaddafi is only the number five loser of the major international military onslaught targeting his regime because it is not certain how this will all end up for him. With the UN's promise not to put boots on the ground, Qaddafi's tenure in office could be a long one and absent a "lucky" missile strike or a major increase in the effectiveness of opposition forces, a stalemate in which he retains considerable power over important chunks of Libya seems a strong possibility. Another alternative which might not be so bad is exile and the prospect of living with billions of dollars and all the Ukrainian nurses that can buy (which is a lot). So, while the most advanced military forces in the world are working against him, right now Muammar still is clinging to hope of a better tomorrow ... or any tomorrow ... which could prove to be a very unsatisfactory outcome from the political perspective of some of his leading international adversaries. That said, my money is on him not surviving as Libya's leader and in any event all his attempts at remaking his image over the past half decade have been undone and he has been permanently restored to his much deserved lunatic pariah status.

4. NATO

While the forces in the field have been performing admirably, the early days of this operation in terms of the alliance's political operations haven't been pretty. The world's most important, powerful, experienced, best-equipped military alliance has all the toys a middle-aged coalition could want but someone seems to have misplaced the instruction manual for smooth establishment of a command structure. From the minute they committed to this there have been arguments about who is in charge, about goals, about tactics, about basing, about burden-sharing, about virtually everything that alleged friends could possibly fight about. While the attacks NATO has carried out have apparently been effective, it is still unclear whether in the long-term they will be making the region any safer. Further, and more damagingly, they have revealed real problems in the ability of the alliance to work together on the kinds of conflicts with which they are most likely to be confronted in the near future. The apparent decision, a week into the crisis, to put a clear NATO command structure to be in charge helps matters considerably ... but the delays in getting there also underscore the kind of fault-line issues bedeviling the participating countries. This will all be papered over once this draws to a close but going forward, resistance of countries like Germany and Turkey to participation in undertakings like this could remain high for some time to come.

3. Arab League

Not that they had much credibility to begin with and not that many people expected much of them when it came to championing either democracy or even the basic human rights of the people of their region, but the Arab League at least during the early days of this operation did the near impossible and reduced the value of their role as a force of good within their region by their inability to follow up on their welcome promise of playing a key role in containing Qaddafi. Again, it's possible that they could undo the damage that has been done by stepping up their commitment of men and materiel to the mission -- and today's welcome announcement of substantial air support from the UAE buttresses the commitment of the Qataris in important ways -- but there are plenty in the coalition who acted in response to their promises who are absolutely furious at how so many members of the League have proven to be all keffiyeh and no camel on this issue. (A reference to the old Texas slam about posturing would-be ranchers who were "all hat and no cattle" for those of you wondering where I was going with that.)

2. Multilateralism

Viewing points 3 and 4 above, one can't help but worry that at the dawn of what could be a new era in international affairs, an essential idea has been set back by messy execution. In the wake of the Iraq debacle, America and the world both were motivated to move away from the ugly inequities of a one superpower world dominated by a we-can-do-it-all-ourselves USA.  The only alternative was better sharing of responsibilities for decision-making and problem-solving when it came to global problems. Barack Obama's willingness to embrace that new approach in the face of this first real 3 a.m. phone call type crisis of his presidency was welcome and the right thing to do but it could produce more damage than good if critics ultimately feel we did the right thing in the wrong way. If the message about multilateralism is that it is slow or messy or costly or politically damaging, it will not only become harder to rally allies in the future but in the U.S. unilateralists will have a case in point to use when next they want to drop the hammer on someone without benefit of the blessing of the international community.

1. Coherence

It is a good thing that William Safire, the New York Times redoubtable lover of words and their meanings is dead because if he weren't the White House press statements on this crisis would have killed him. We don't have to start with the good and capable Jay Carney's ill-considered coherence-limited characterization of the Libya conflict cited in the title of this post. We can turn to Ben Rhodes' clarity-challenged clarification of whether or not the U.S. was seeking regime change cited in an earlier post this week. Or we can go to Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough's appearance on the PBS NewsHour which was described by the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin as "He was asked questions. He answered them. And in the end you had no idea what he said." (For our international readers let me note that the Washington Post is not seen as a crazy right wing mouthpiece of the Republican Party.) Speaking however of crazy Republicans, they are not immune from the disease currently affecting Washington, either. Take Newt Gingrich who may have finally stuck a stake through the heart of his already slim chances of being a credible candidate for president when he offered two completely contradictory positions on intervention in Libya within the course of a couple of weeks. (Although his creative "patriotism excuses infidelity" stance -- also known as the flag-made-me-do-it excuse for cheating on your cancer-stricken wife -- is likely to ensure him a few male votes should he ever run.) It is almost as if the underlying foundation of the United States's current foreign policy is Newton's Third Law of Motion, paraphrased to suggest that for each guiding principle of our actions there is an equal and opposite principle to which we also adhere. We're leading and we're not. We're for regime change and we're against. We're for democracy in some places but not in others. For those seeking comfort, there are always the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." For those worried by the trend outbreak of double-talk there is however the fact that Fitzgerald offered that observation in an essay called "The Crack-Up."

The greater good is the bitch-goddess of foreign policy. It provides at once both the inspiration to elevate society and the temptation to debase it. I'm sure one of the reasons that the study of foreign policy draws in so many passive-aggressive poindexters is because they get a cheap thrill from entering a fraternity in which the only admissions requirement is checking your conscience at the door.

In the first international affairs class one attends or the first serious discussion of foreign policy in which one participates, sooner or later the focus turns to the tough choices that must be made in the name of the Shiva of Foggy Bottom.

It is easy to understand this impulse when one watches scenes as in Libya in which a corrupt despot seeks to maintain his illegitimate chokehold on a society through the slaughter of those who only seek the rights due all men and women. Using force and taking life to stop evil and to protect those who cannot defend themselves is certainly justifiable albeit fraught with moral complexities that we too often too easily set aside.

That said however, we have to acknowledge that the natural habitat of this particular bitch-goddess is the slipperiest of slopes. It is worth remembering that most of the world's greatest sins have been committed in the service of someone's definition of the greater good. It is a point the Obama administration ought to take to heart as recent headlines suggest that we are crossing to the wrong side of the world's most dangerous border, the one that divides "realism" from "evil."

Not surprisingly, no place illustrates this danger like the region we call AfPak. And as a consequence no place more emphatically shouts out the question: "Have we no decency? Are there no limits to what we are willing to accept in the pursuit of our allegedly high-minded goals?"

We accept Hamid Karzai and elements of the Pakistani government although we know them to be corrupt and very likely supporting or enabling our enemies. We do this despite the lesson being chanted in public squares across the Middle East -- not to mention most of the history of modern U.S. foreign policy -- is that this approach inevitably comes back to bite us in the most sensitive parts of our national interests. We are seen as the co-authors of the wrongs our chosen despots commit or tolerate because ... well, because we are. That we are doing this in Afghanistan even as we are seemingly preparing to embrace a bigger role for the Taliban in the government only compounds the wrong -- the only justification for supporting Karzai is that he is better than the alternative but we don't seem to think that's necessarily the case anymore. Whatever your view of the issue, you have to admit it's a treacherously morally ambiguous place to venture to reclaim the national standing the Obama team correctly feels the United States lost during the Bush years.

Read on

This morning's New York Times contains an article quoting various "regional experts" as saying that the current upheaval in the region is playing into the hands of Iran. This is a flawed analysis on several levels.

First, we are so early in this process that it is premature to say who will benefit from or be damaged by it. It is still too early to know how many states will be affected or what the effects of the revolutions will be. Several scenarios are plausible. In one, prolonged upheaval, Iran may benefit as the alliance that existed against it is compromised. In another, a shift to democracy, Iran may or may not benefit depending on the orientation of the government, but in all likelihood it would be damaged as more democratic governments are likely to be both more open to the rest of the world and an inspiration to the repressed people of Iran. In a third, a new generation of strongmen emerges, you could theoretically have pro-Iranian Islamic states take hold, but the reality is, given the long-term history of Iran within the region, old anti-Iranian alliances would recoalesce. This is especially true because new regimes would likely have large military components comprising experienced officers who have been in anti-Iranian stance throughout their careers.

Iran is certainly working to take advantage of the current uncertainty, using Hezbollah, Hamas, and related networks to promote both the instability it seeks and voices that it considers friendly. But Iran is not, and cannot ever be, "of" the Arab world. The cultural and historic barriers are too great. And therefore, the notion of it somehow creating an enduring network of states aligned to it is far-fetched.

This point about Iran however, does bring into focus a bigger point about the nature and future of the remarkable wave of revolutions currently sweeping across the region. Just as Iran is in the Middle East without being, in the minds of its Arab neighbors, a real part of their world, so too has the great problem of the Middle East at large been that for a variety of historical, political, and cultural reasons it has been in the world without having been of it.

The cultural disposition of the region has been to set itself apart, to create barriers to integration to the rest of the world, and in fact, to view integration with the rest of the world as a threat. This is a generalization, of course. There are hugely sophisticated global business leaders from the region, and there are cosmopolitan pockets within each of the countries of the Middle East. But for intentional and unintentional reasons -- education, religious views, political ideologies, social stratification, deliberate policy choices made by ruling regimes -- the benefits of integrating into the global economy have not been as available to people from the region as they have been to others in the Americas, Europe, or Asia.

The regional experts assessing the situation in the New York Times article are viewing what is happening purely in terms of old paradigms and politics. But one of the most important questions raised by the current situation is whether we are not seeing merely the latest round of political musical chairs, but rather we are seeing something deeper and more profound that could alter historical patterns. This is not, by the way, just an abstract question. It has very practical strategic implications for how the world outside the region handles the remainder of this period of change.

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While it is too early to assess the long-term outcomes of the uprising in Egypt, there are nonetheless a number of important conclusions to which we can reasonably come.

First, something profound has changed. It did not change because of the uprising in Tahrir Square. It changed and the uprising was the result; the power has shifted in the region. We have passed a generational and technological tipping point. While the dinosaurs cling to the levers of power in virtually every country in the greater Middle East, the under 30 majority is now the great force to be reckoned with. While the establishment has done almost everything conceivable to keep them down from denying them education to curtailing the spread of information technologies to gutting the economies, nonetheless, new information sources and technologies and ways of connecting and collaborating seeped in to these societies through every one of the cracks spreading across the Ozymandian edifices of the elite.

These changes are irreversible. They are seen in the cell phones that even the poorest carry with them, in the broadcasts of Al Jazeera, in the burgeoning Twitter feeds, the apps young Arabs create to provide work-arounds every time a government tries to curtail Internet access, and even in the technological use of some of the region's worst players.

These changes have remade the social and political fabric of the region. What they have yet to do is what they have done everywhere else in the world and that is to fuel economic change.

That is the second inescapable conclusion we need to consider. The great challenges before this under-30 majority are economic, they are about opportunity. They are not about Israel or battles between Shiites and Sunnis or tribal divisions. Those problems still fester, but the unifying challenge for this generation is even more basic: They need jobs. They crave opportunity. And the failure of their leaders to provide them with these basic sources of sustenance and dignity is what has fueled the revolutions of 2011.

A corollary to this conclusion is that we in the United States have been sending the wrong people with the wrong approaches to solve the wrong problems in this region for decades. The problems of this region will not be solved by negotiators or generals. They require investors and entrepreneurs and educators. To the extent that we can contribute, we must do so by supporting the creation of economic opportunity. It is a massive undertaking but it is the only true peacemaker.

A third conclusion is related to the second, however. The role for the U.S. government in all this is very, very limited. We would do well to redirect what aid we provide to address this core challenge of creating jobs for the under-30s. We would do well to put our best economic minds in charge, perhaps even appointing a special economic envoy of real stature. But the only people who can ultimately solve this problem are in the Middle East. In fact, in the hierarchy of those who can help, if the people of the Middle East are first and by far foremost, it is the people of Europe, not the United States who must be second. They are the natural economic neighbors of the region and they must answer the question whether they want those under-30s employed in the Middle East or seeking employment in Europe. After the Europeans, it may even be the Chinese or Indians and others dependent on oil in the region and closer to its problems who should take more prominent roles in helping to solve the problem than the United States, which is a lightening rod and has problems of our own at home.

A fourth conclusion is that the hardest part is clearly still ahead of us. Egypt must make the transition to democracy and that means the military must really step aside after six months. Friends of mine who have met with them believe they understand the implications of the political earthquake that has taken place during the past month and that they will do so. But there are dinosaurs among their leaders so it is by no means a sure thing. Even beyond establishing a democracy is actually keeping one, and beyond that is addressing successfully the economic challenges alluded to above. Further, there are the problems of all the other countries of the region. They will be difficult to handle but we in the United States need to be confident enough in our core beliefs to let them work them out among themselves. There will be fights and setbacks and people we don't like will periodically gain the upper hand. But give me a duel between two guys armed with the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter feeds and let one offer the people the 11th Century and another offer the 21th and I know who I will bet on.

Finally, my fifth conclusion is that of all the big challenges ahead for U.S. foreign policy associated with this period of upheaval, the greatest by far lies with Israel and the Palestinians. Personally, I am not sure why the Palestinians have not yet unilaterally declared independence. The world would surely support them. But imagine what would happen if, perhaps on the road to such a declaration perhaps following it, a hundred thousand Palestinians took to the streets peacefully demanding real self-determination. With memories of Tahrir Square fresh in the minds of the world, how could the Israelis respond as they might have in the past? On what side of history would they appear to be as President Obama might put it? And in that vein, on what side of that history would President Obama and the United States want to be?

Until now, the fact that Israel was the region's only democracy was its "get out of jail free" card. It was used to excuse ... or attempt to excuse ... a multitude of sins. For this reason, no Arab military offensive could be as effective in undermining Israel's strategic advantages as real democracy taking root elsewhere in the region. The Netanyahu administration would be flummoxed if people power came to the West Bank and Gaza. They would be cast involuntarily with the dinosaurs. They would have no pages in their playbook indicating how to handle this. They would have very few good choices.

Actually, they would have only one. They would have to get out of the way. They would have to do what Mubarak did. They would have to step within the 1967 borders and let the Palestinians begin the job of building Palestine. And they would have to hope that the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world helped the Palestinians do it because once that happens, it will be of the utmost importance for Israel that its new neighbor produce real opportunity for its people ... because we have seen the alternative and it, for this generation who have both nothing and nothing to lose will not be contained by the tactics or the rhetoric of the past.

First, congratulations on having been selected by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assocation Michael Leiter, head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center as "the most significant risk to the U.S. homeland." Given your U.S. roots, this must be particularly gratifying. Your family must be very proud. I'm sure that the U.S. institutions of higher learning you attended-Colorado State, San Diego State and George Washington University-are all updating their websites right now. While you have achieved many such accolades in the past-from sources as diverse as soon-to-be-ex Congresswoman Jane Harman to "Investor's Daily"-this most recent acknowledgement of your achievements as the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula must be especially gratifying.

Having said that, despite having spent your formative years in the American heartland (thus confirming my worst fears about the effects of extended exposure to country music), may I take this opportunity to point out to you that you guys have picked the wrong great Satan.

Have you seen what's been going on in Europe lately. Over the weekend, David Cameron gave an address in Munich in which he decried the failures of British multiculturalism. In the audience listening to him was Angela Merkel, the German chancellor who had made similar remarks herself.  Shortly after he spoke, his remarks were embraced by Marine Le Pen, Princess of France's ultra-right wing National Front Party that her father founded.   Le Pen said "It is exactly this type of statement that has barred us from public life [in France] for 30 years. I sense an evolution at European level, even in classic governments. I can only congratulate him."

Now in my family we have a rule. If you receive a thank you note with a return address from the Le Pen family, don't even open it. It can only be bad news. And since Le Pen's warm French smooch on both of Cameron's rosy British cheeks, the Prime Minister's people have been taking pains to say that she misinterpreted him.

But Anwar, it's really pretty hard to misinterpret what he said. On the eve of a major anti-Islamic rally in the United Kingdom, that country's chosen political leader decided it was the right moment to suggest that "passive tolerance" had only served to encourage Islamic extremism. The Prime Minister was clearly attempting to have it both ways-playing the populist game of pandering to nationalist fears while also mouthing words about liberalism and implying that the alienation that produced radicalization was due to separatist policies within the Islamic community. In short, he was essentially saying "we're to blame for our policies allowing them to be themselves." 

But the bigger point isn't whether Cameron made a rhetorical and political blunder but that his remarks echoed Merkel's crowd-pleasing speech on the same topic in Potsdam days before. The Chancellor said, "(In) the beginning of the 1960s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country. We kidded ourselves a while. We said: 'They won't stay, [after some time] they will be gone,' but this isn't reality. And of course, the approach [to build] a multicultural [society] and to live side by side and to enjoy each other ... has failed, utterly failed."

She got a standing ovation. In Germany. Attacking foreigners. What a shocker, right?

And that's my message to you. Why do you think America is your primary enemy when there is probably no non-Islamic country in the world in which the Islamic population lives with as much freedom and tolerance as in the United States? Why do you think America is your primary target when the inflammatory, insensitive and disturbing views expressed by European leaders are not a departure but are really European standards, old favorites that are played on the radio from generation to generation? Look at European attitudes toward immigrants from the Islamic world? Toward letting Turkey into the EU? Who's doing the anti-Mohammed cartoons? Who did the crusades?

It is the Europeans (and their Eurasian cousins in Russia) that have a longer, more hostile history? Do you think any major country in Europe could elect a leader today whose middle name is Hussein? Do you think any major American political leader could survive five minutes in the media after spewing the veiled and not-so-veiled anti-Islamic, intolerant messages that are so popular in Europe today?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should direct your anger at Europe. The real work for Islamic leaders like yourself is fixing the Islamic world first-because the only places where there is less tolerance and where Islamic groups are more viciously targeted is in the Middle East. And the real need of the people for whom you are allegedly fighting is for real opportunity, education, economic growth and responsive, representative government at home. 

But still, if there is an East-West faultline that is growing more tense, you can look for it a lot closer to home.  Back where it has been for a couple thousand years. Back where it once made famous the Siege of Vienna and the Moorish conquest of Spain. Back in Europe where intolerance, nationalism and social polarization have given us many of the darkest stains on the pages of world history.

President Hosni Mubarak's speech to the Egyptian people in the wake of days of rioting was a masterpiece of insensitivity. With his citizens in the street expressing their needs, he addressed his own. He spoke of poverty and concern for his people, but his message was something far darker. He was making a stand for the status quo.

Watching him, ghostly in the stark podium lighting designed to hide what hints of his age his hairdresser and doctors could not, it was clear that this was an old man comfortable in the old ways of the Middle East. As such he was as much a remnant of Egypt's past leadership as any mummy in the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, just as brittle, frail, and ready to turn to dust.

His sacrifice of his cabinet also evoked ancient practices, as well as the last ditch measures of autocrats throughout history. His ministers -- many of whom were not objects of the people's anger -- were used as cannon fodder, a way to test whether the old president's position would hold. The hours and days ahead will determine whether it was enough: whether there are real reforms he might actually entrust his new government with or whether he is betting that his lifelong ties to the military will protect him in ways that his political savvy no longer can.

He is a man out of touch with his people and his times. Like Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, he is a symptom of the greatest problem the region has faced over the past several decades: its self-absorbed, corrupt leadership. From Algiers to Kabul, an arc of autocracy extends across nearly all of the greater Middle East, denying citizens the right of self-determination, buying international favor with oil or political deals, ignoring educational needs, the rights of women, and the investments needed to compete in the global economy.

But with each starkly out-of-touch pronouncement like that from Mubarak today, the arc trembles a bit. Certainly, the fall of Ben Ali started it quivering. In Yemen and in Jordan, demonstrators tested the waters to see if progress might be made there. We have already seen the potency of the Green Revolution in Iran and recognize that even when the autocrats seem to win the day, they only postpone the inevitable. You can't keep the cell phones and the Internet and Twitter accounts off indefinitely and compete in the modern world. You can't deny a future to populations dominated by the young and expect enduring stability.

In Israel, leaders are deeply ambivalent, fearful of instability in a country that has been vitally important to the region's stability -- and even more fearful that what they perceive as an even weaker, minority regime in Jordan might totter. At the same time, on some level they cannot help but note that not only do these uprisings underscore their nearly unique role as a democracy in the region (we will see what reform in Iraq brings) but even more importantly, they illustrate clearly that Israel is far from the biggest problem the region faces.

It is tempting for "realists" everywhere to cling to stability over the questions that opening these countries to self-determination might raise. But we should all have long since passed that point of hesitation. Either we are for the principle or we are not. Either all people deserve these freedoms or they do not. Someday historians may draw a direct connection between President Barack Obama's call for reforms and a new relationship between the United States and the people of the Islamic world in his Cairo speech and the events of this winter. We can only hope that it is connection marked by U.S. actions that are consistent with the high ideals espoused by the president.

In the words of Secretary Clinton today, we have hope that will be the case. In the "Made in the U.S.A." marking on the tear gas canisters being used against the Egyptian protestors we see the potential ugliness that can come from that old-fashioned form of flawed pragmatism that is a hallmark of US foreign policy -- the form in which we make a deal for today's stability that puts us on the wrong side of tomorrow's revolution.

There is an old joke that states a genius is an average student with a Jewish mother. And that may explain in part why Sarah Palin has just announced she is planning to visit Israel. Perhaps just what the average student turned presidential candidate needs is the love and protection of a bunch of Jewish Mama Grizzlies.

Of course, Palin's announcement … and the similar announcement by Mike Huckabee … is evidence of something else. It is a clear sign that the Republican right thinks Barack Obama is vulnerable on Israel policy. In the same way that you already see potential Republican presidential candidates combing over the wreckage of Obama's past bastion of support on Wall Street, this gravitation to the Holy Land is less spiritual and more calculatedly opportunistic.

Not only have the administration's efforts to restart the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians been fitful and recently, embarrassingly confused, but behind the scenes Israelis are yearning for the good old days of Bush and the neocons. Or of Clinton and Rabin. Or of Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, or, in fact, virtually anyone else. The reasons for these feelings are manifold. But even those who wanted to give Obama the benefit of the doubt are themselves now doubters.

There is an irony in this, of course. Because any clear-eyed assessment of what has gone wrong on the Israeli-Palestinian front demands the conclusion that Obama is not the problem and that changing U.S. leaders is hardly the answer. The needed political changes are not only much closer to home for the Israelis (and the Palestinians) but they are less changes about people and more about attitudes and circumstances.

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triumphantly tours southern Lebanon and says to cheering crowds of thousands, "The occupying Zionists today have no choice but to accept reality and go back to their countries of origin." He predicts Israel will disappear. Not too far away, families enjoy the happy diversions of the latest tourist attraction, the Magic Kingdom of sectarian warfare called, "Tourist Landmark of the Resistance" in South Lebanon. There they play on captured Israeli weapons and buy souvenir caps and T-shirts.

Earlier this week, the New York Times ran a column by Roger Cohen, in which he asserted that however odious Ahmadinejad may seem, he's really nothing to worry about. Why? Because Cohen doesn't think he is, that's why. Surely, one must conclude, he would dismiss these Lebanon antics -- rabble-rousing at one of the world's most dangerous frontiers -- as more showboating from his favorite "all hat and no cattle" "paper tiger." Pshaw. Silly frivolous Hezbollah-sponsoring Mahmoud.

And then, in the midst of this, comes a rather different New York Times op-ed, this one from Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, who offers a calm, well-reasoned, and compelling argument as to why the Palestinians should recognize Israel's identity as a Jewish state. But for all Oren's heartfelt and coolly-argued reason, even coupled with his exceptionally well-turned phrases, nothing he writes makes his case as persuasively as the combination of the provocations of the president of Israel's most dangerous enemy and the efforts by glib U.S. elites to shrug him off.

As unproductive as the Israeli stance on settlements has been the Palestinian stance on the nature of the Israeli state, and its ability to continue operations as conceived and sanctioned by the United Nations nearly six and a half decades into its modern existence is just as unconstructive and indefensible. The core concept of the existence of two states, central to any real and lasting solution of the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma, requires acceptance of the sovereignty and self-determination of those states. Neither side can expect a hand in the shaping of the societies within their neighbor's borders.

Indeed, the concept of accepting Israel involves accepting its Jewishness or, as Oren points out, it invites the demographic negation of virtually everything associated with Israel's own concept of itself thanks to Israel's commitment to democracy. To fail to acknowledge this would be the same as accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, but then imposing upon it borders that made its economic self-sufficiency impossible.

Peace requires moving past such destructive argumentative approaches. Clearly, we are not near to that point. Which is why Mr. Ahmadinejad is hardly "all hat and no cattle." His grandstanding and inflaming crowds on Israel's borders with the language of obliteration is not just rhetoric. It is part of a systematic and thus far effective effort to exacerbate dangers and, not secondarily, to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people whose right to a free, independent state created in their own image is, of course, every bit as great as that of the Israelis.

In a world in which Tony Blair could receive an award this week for his commitment to "conflict resolution," perhaps it is not a surprise that we are moving inexorably toward approving a massive $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Memories are short, and these events are just the latest evidence that we are moving out of what might be called the "post-9/11 era" and are moving into something new.

The Blair award is just one of those preposterous things that happen to leaders when they enter the eminence grise (which is to say the rubber chicken-lecture tour) phase of their lives. He's got a big book out and after all, he did make a real contribution to peace in Northern Ireland. That he was George W. Bush's most important international enabler in conducting the most notorious, least necessary major war of the past several decades is hardly a disqualifier for a "conflict resolution" award, apparently. We have started to hit the public opinion statute of limitations for such disastrous "War on Terror" era missteps.

The United States seems on the verge of okaying the biggest arms deal in American history to the country that provided 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, much of the critical funding for al Qaeda and was home to Osama bin Laden. This is a sign of something more than just the passage of time or our acceptance of the manifold official statements that there was no linkage between the terrorists and the Saudi government. (After all, such arguments hardly seem necessary as we know that the hijackers were backed both by elements of the Pakistani secret service and the Taliban and these days we seem willing enough to cut deals with them or, the case of "good" Taliban, at least contemplate it.)

No, the reason that the U.S. government -- that would not have done a deal like this in the years right after 9/11 -- is willing and even a little eager to move ahead with the deal now is that the War on Terror is being overtaken among top U.S. concerns by the advent of a nuclear Iran.

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