On October 17, 2012, the Brookings Doha Center (BDC) hosted a videoconference policy discussion on the U.S. presidential election. Speakers in Washington and Doha debated both candidates\u2019 foreign policies toward the Middle East and how those policies could affect U.S. relations with the Arab world. The panel in Washington featured Tamara Wittes, Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, and Danielle Pletka, Vice President of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. They were joined in Doha by Al Jazeera Arabic presenter Ghada Oueiss and Shadi Hamid, Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center. The discussion was moderated by BDC Director Salman Shaikh and attended by members of Qatar\u2019s diplomatic, academic, business, and media communities.<\/p>\n
Tamara Wittes began the discussion by emphasizing the relative unimportance of foreign policy issues in an election that remains largely focused on domestic issues. Noting a U.S. mood that is \u201ctired of extensive foreign engagements,\u201d she said the result of the vote would likely be determined by \u201cjobs and the economy.\u201d A recent intensification of the discussion on foreign policy, she asserted, was driven not by a shift in voter interests, but by the opportunism of the Romney campaign following the events in Benghazi and Cairo last month.<\/p>\n
Wittes went on to say that there are only marginal differences between the stated foreign policy positions of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney; Romney is more willing to use the threat of military force with Iran and more skeptical of any progress in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. The real difference, she said, is in the narratives promoted by each candidate with regard to the role of the United States in the Middle East and the world at large. While Romney argues that a period of U.S. weakness has fed chaos and uncertainty, Obama denies that he has shown a lack of resolve, pointing to his success in pursuing al-Qaeda and winding down the war in Iraq. While those in the region may despair that the realities of their politics are subsumed by what they see as cynical, self-serving agendas, Wittes said, it is important to note that Americans also find it frustrating when events in the United States become \u201cpolitical footballs\u201d in the Arab world. She pointed to the recent anti-Islam film made in California and its \u201cfrustrating\u201d impact.<\/p>\n
Ghada Oueiss asserted that the U.S. had failed to bear its responsibilities in the Middle East, rendering its strength meaningless. She said Washington\u2019s failure to act, particularly in Syria, was in part a result of the history of U.S. involvement in the region and its continued frustrations. She cited the lack of progress on peace between Israel and Palestine, the disaster of the Iraq war, and the fact that even after intervening to support rebels in Libya, anti-Americanism remained rife there. The real problem, Oueiss argued, was that because the United States had consistently prioritized its interests over its values, its policy toward the region had been corrupted by hypocrisies and double standards. Oueiss pointed to Washington\u2019s current embrace of Islamists who have prospered through the Arab Spring, as compared with its rejection of the democratically elected Hamas government in 2006. The next president of the United States, Oueiss stated, must successfully deliver the comprehensive reform of foreign policy toward the Arab world that was promised by Obama in 2008 but never delivered.<\/p>\n
Danielle Pletka agreed with Wittes on the U.S. disinterest in foreign policy \u2013 national security is only the ninth most important issue to American citizens today, according to a recent CNN poll. But Pletka argued that the poverty of the discussion on U.S. foreign policy \u2013 which she described as alternately \u201caccusatory or proclamatory\u201d \u2013 was also a function of Obama\u2019s unwillingness to talk about it and Romney\u2019s lack of experience in handling it. The result, she said, is that \u201cwe are all starved of information.\u201d Pletka pointed to the \u201clack of flesh on the bones\u201d of each candidate\u2019s foreign policy vision and agreed that there was little to distinguish them. In his criticism of Obama\u2019s \u201cweakness,\u201d Romney seemed to promise a more \u201cengaged\u201d approach, she said, though it was unclear what this would mean in practice. Pletka argued that there remains much interest among Arabs for U.S. involvement in the region \u2013 for example, in supporting Syrian rebels or helping to solve the Palestinian question. She said that Obama\u2019s emphasis on withdrawing from Iraq and pivoting toward Asia had sent a terrible message, that the Middle East is a \u201csecond-tier concern\u201d on which we are turning our backs. The revolutions in the Arab world and the challenges they present, Pletka insisted, call for a more active policy toward the region.<\/p>\n
Shadi Hamid began by questioning the negative response to Romney\u2019s October 8 speech on foreign policy speech as \u201cshallow\u201d or indistinct. While echoing \u201cneocon clich\u00e9s\u201d about Obama\u2019s \u201clack of confidence, clarity, and resolve,\u201d he said, the speech did offer a coherent foreign policy message. Part of the reason for that is the truth in some of Romney\u2019s assertions, Hamid argued. Even in the Arab world, he said, Obama is frequently seen as \u201cweak and somewhat feckless.\u201d More broadly, there is a sense that in its desire to decrease the U.S. footprint in the region, the current administration has \u201cgiven up its leadership role.\u201d Hamid pointed to Obama\u2019s failure to impose a settlement freeze on Israel in 2010 and his acquiescence in the face of the Egyptian SCAF\u2019s \u201cwar on NGOs\u201d as examples of incidents that had fed this sense of U.S. weakness.<\/p>\n
Another failure, Hamid said, was the general incoherence of Obama\u2019s response to the Arab Spring. Though positive moves had been made in supporting democratic transitions in some countries, in others it was very much \u201cbusiness as usual.\u201d The U.S. today, he said, is in a dangerous position in that both Arab revolutionaries and Arab autocrats feel they have been abandoned by Washington. Despite the efforts of policymakers, Hamid argued, it remains unclear to many exactly what the United States stands for in the region. Hamid went on to say that this gap between U.S. policies and how they are perceived in the region, could partly be explained by an \u201cissue of trust.\u201d However much Obama reassures U.S. allies in Israel or the Gulf, they continue to mistrust him, Hamid said. Part of the reason for this, he argued, was a failure to \u201cbuild relationships of trust with key leaders\u201d in a region where politics are often \u201cpersonality-driven.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following presentations from each of the panelists the floor was opened to question. Abdul Baset Sieda, President of the Syrian National Council, was invited to speak. He offered stern criticism of the U.S. response to the Syria crisis, saying that it had \u201cnot been on the level we hoped for.\u201d He questioned Washington\u2019s placing a red line on the regime\u2019s use of chemical weapons. \u201cDoes this mean that the use of all other weapons is acceptable?\u201d Sieda asked, citing the use of cluster bombs and barrels of TNT to target civilians indiscriminately.<\/p>\n
One audience member asked whether there would be more scope for bipartisan action in Congress following the presidential election. In response, Tamara Wittes pointed out that the debate on foreign policy was split not between Democrats and Republicans as much as between \u201cinternationalists\u201d and those focused on domestic issues. Within each party there are those who see that the United States \u201ccannot escape the world and so should lead in it.\u201d Meanwhile, there is the emergence of a strong caucus in Congress that is focused on cutting the deficit and skeptical of foreign aid; this will remain the case, Wittes said. It is worth noting, she said, that the complexity of the debate on a more interventionist U.S. approach is very much paralleled in the Arab world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":71090,"template":"","class_list":["post-71089","event","type-event","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event\/71089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/event"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}