5 Nov 2009

Change won't happen just because Obama asks for it

The Obama administration have all but admitted that their attempts to re-start the Middle East peace process have failed.

The State department are now advocating a new tactic – where both sides take “baby steps” toward lower level talks because they know there is no chance of getting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to sit down with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu for meaningful discussions anytime soon.

There has been a bit of fuss about whether Hillary Clinton made an error at the weekend when she described an Israeli offer to partially freeze settlement building as “unprecedented” even though it was far short of what the US had originally demanded – a total freeze.

But that wasn’t the real mistake. The biggest error was thinking that the new US administration could force this concession out of the Israelis just because they were asking for it.

Obama came into office determined to make progress on the Middle East and to do it early in his term when he still had fresh political capital to expend on the process. So many other US presidents don’t pay any real attention to the Middle East until they are nearly out of office and seen as lame ducks.

That was a laudable goal from Obama. But there was a level of idealism – some might say naivety – from the administration at the start of this year about how much change they could bring to the world simply because they wanted to. One American diplomat has diplomatically called it an “excess of zeal”.

The Israelis were not so mesmerised by Obama’s election that they were prepared to halt settlement activity just because he asked them to. And in fact Netanyahu has bolstered his popularity inside Israel by refusing to bow to the US demands.

But Abbas was emboldened by the tougher tone coming from Washington and publically announced he would not begin negotiations until there was total freeze. Not only has the US plan not worked – it’s prevented the re-starting of talks.

Despite this impasse President Obama has already been awarded the Nobel peace prize. The committee said it was because Obama had given the world hope for a better future.

But one year after his election it’s maybe time to ask not just if that hope was misplaced – but whether its is getting in the way of action.

It’s not just the Nobel committee who were captivated by what seemed to be the potential in an Obama presidency. Much of the rest of the world was too – along with his own team it seems.

As they say in America “they’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid” and have started believing their own hype too much. Believing that international players would do what they said simply because Obama had asked them to. That’s how they would bring about that Change they promised.

But in the real world it doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked in Iran where the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday dismissed Obama’s overtures by saying that talks with America would be “naive and perverted”.

It certainly didn’t work when both Obamas flew into Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago’s Olympic bid. The president didn’t take too much of a hit inside America when that bid failed – he got points for trying.

But what the rest of the world saw was a man (a couple) who thinks they can fix anything just by showing up. A president who thinks he can change the world just by being.

That rock hard self belief has led Obama to try ambitious things others wouldn’t dare. And that’s a good thing. But where does hope end and hubris begin? And when does it stand in the way of making progress?

On the night Obama finally clinched the Democratic nomination for President in Minnesota he promised “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal” and he was widely mocked for his arrogance at the time.

Next month he will have the chance to make good on that commitment at the Copenhagen global summit on climate change. But we wait to see how much healing action he will be able to deliver.

There is much speculation about whether Obama will go to Copenhagen in person – and whether he would make a significant difference to the chances of getting a deal.

If he does decide turn up his presence could change the dynamic at the summit. But only if the US comes with a promise of some substantial action as well. Not if Obama thinks he can heal the planet just by showing up.