- 29 Oct 2015
The Obama Administration’s Middle East Muddle
Abstract
The Middle East is a mess, and a dangerous mess. The sources are many, and are mostly internal to the region, but external influences matter too, and the United States has contributed more than its share. This contribution has come in two basic forms: the mostly inadvertent export of revolutionary change through what is known generically (and somewhat misleadingly) as “globalization” over roughly the past quarter century; and policy aspects both global (winning the Cold War) and regional (the manner in which U.S. administrations reacted first to 9/11, in the Bush Administration, and then in turn to conditions partially created by that reaction, in the Obama Administration).
As to the latter, contrary to some claims made by some critics, President Obama has never deliberately planned U.S. “decline.” Contrary to the argument of some others, too, he has also lacked a coherent master or grand strategy for the Middle East in the proper sense of the word. Rather, he and his closest associates have evinced some general theoretical/ideological orientations to the region and to the larger globalenvironment in which it sits, but for the most part it has been the unexpected that, as usual, has driven policy in what has been a very White House-centric and partisan-political foreign policy operation. Sometimes the crisis d’jour has fit with or evoked Administration principals’ general theoretical/ideological orientations, and sometimes it hasn’t. Over time, patterns have developed and legacies have taken root that have shaped consequent decision-making. Bottom line? Mistakes have been made.
About the Speakers
Editor
The American Interest (Washington)
Adam Garfinkle is founding Editor of The American Interest. Before founding The American Interest in 2005, he served between 2003 and 2005 as principal speechwriter to the Secretary of State (S/P, Policy Planning). He has also been editor of The National Interest and has taught at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the John Hopkins University, the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford College and other institutions of higher learning.
Dr Garfinkle served as a member of the National Security Study Group (as chief writer) of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission), and as an aide tp Senator Henry M. Jackson. A widely published scholar, he has received awards and grants from the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright Fellowship Program, the American Academy in Berlin, the German Marshall Fund, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Moshe Dayan Center for the Study of Middle Eastern and African Affairs (Tel Aviv University).
Dr. Garfinkle’s most recent book is Jewcentricity: Why Jews Are Praised, Blamed, and Used to Explain Nearly Everything (Wiley, 2009). His Telltale Hearts: The Origin and Impact of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement (St. Martin’s) was named as “notable book of the year” (1995) in the New York Times Book Review. Among Dr Garfinkle’s publications are several on Jewish subjects. He also publishes an occasional fiction or humor piece.
Dr. Garfinkle received his Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
