Between New Hopes and Old Realities: The Obama Administration and the Middle East

Even though U.S. Middle East policies have long followed relatively predictable patterns (Quandt 2005; Little 2002), every new administration brings excited debate about the prospect of new directions. To some extent this is due to the fact that while regional political actors have a way of deflecting or even manipulating outside intervention (Brown 1984), the way Washington thinks about foreign policy in general and the Middle East in particular does from time to time profoundly influence the constellation of political forces in the region. One only has to think about President Jimmy Carter’s role in the conclusion of a cold peace between Egypt and Israel, the Reagan administration’s role in the Iran-Iraq war, the emergence of a direct U.S. military presence in the region under George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton’s unsuccessful involvement in the failed Oslo peace process, and, most recently, George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. This raises the question about the set of factors which will shape the way U.S. foreign policy under President Obama will react to or even seek to initiate political developments in the Middle East.