PARIS – No sooner did US
President Barack Obama welcome home American troops from Iraq
and laud that country’s stability and democracy than an unprecedented wave of
violence – across Baghdad and
elsewhere – revealed the severity of Iraq’s
political crisis. Is that crisis an unfortunate exception, or, rather, a
symptom of the failure of Obama’s Middle East diplomacy,
from Egypt to Afghanistan?Upon taking office, Obama set four objectives in the Middle East: stabilize Iraq before leaving it; withdraw from Afghanistan from a position of strength and on the basis of minimal political convergence with Pakistan; achieve a major breakthrough in the Middle East peace process by pushing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to freeze settlements; and open a dialogue with Iran on the future of its nuclear program. On these four major issues, Obama has clearly achieved little.
With regard to Iraq, since George W. Bush’s presidency, the United States has strived to exert a moderating influence on Shia power, so that the country can create a more inclusive political system – specifically, by passing a new law on sharing oil-export revenues among the Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish communities. Unfortunately, the precise opposite happened.
Kurdistan has embarked on a path toward increased autonomy, while the Sunnis are increasingly marginalized by a sectarian and authoritarian Shia-dominated central government. This has implications for the regional balance of power, because Iraq is growing closer to Iran in order to offset Turkey, which is seen as protecting the Sunnis.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s remark during a recent trip to Washington that he was more concerned about Turkey than Iran exposed the huge gulf between Iraq and the US, which now appears to have lost all significant political influence on Iraqi affairs. Indeed, in a disturbing development, the US decided not to play its last remaining card in dealing with al-Maliki: arms sales.
There can no longer be any doubt that the occupation of Iraq was a huge strategic defeat for the US, because it ultimately served only to strengthen Iran. Yet Obama lacks a medium-term vision to deal with the seriousness of the situation – an oversight that, sooner or later, will cost the US dearly.
One of two things will happen: either tighter containment of Iran through sanctions on oil exports will produce positive results and weaken Iran, or containment will fail, leading the US inexorably toward a new war in the Middle East. It is not unlikely that some in US foreign-policy circles regard the deepening Iraqi crisis as a building block in constructing the case for military intervention in Iran.
But Obama is nobody’s fool. He has registered the US Congress’s hostility toward Iran and the desire to confront the Islamic Republic militarily. He believes, however, that he can avoid extreme solutions; in diplomacy, anything can happen, and the worst-case scenario is never guaranteed.
The problem is that Obama has a strong tendency to overestimate America’s ability to influence weaker actors. What is true for Iraq is also true for Afghanistan: Obama can pride himself on having eliminated Osama bin Laden, which was undoubtedly a success, but one that failed to address the root of the problem. Despite a 10-year military presence, involving the deployment of more than 100,000 troops at a cost of $550 billion, the US still has not succeeded in creating a credible alternative to the Taliban. Worse, its political alliance with Pakistan has frayed.
Indeed, US-Pakistan relations have regressed to their level before September 11, 2001, a time marked by deep mutual distrust. Pakistani leaders obviously bear a heavy responsibility for this state of affairs. But if the US has been unable to involve Pakistan in resolving the Afghanistan conflict, that failure simply reflects America’s refusal to give the Pakistanis what they wanted: a shift in the regional balance of power at the expense of India.
Pakistan, accordingly, froze cooperation with the US, because its leaders no longer saw much to gain in fighting the Taliban. The risk is that when the American withdrawal from Afghanistan begins – a process that has just been brought forward to next year, from 2014 – the US will again seek to impose sanctions on Pakistan, an unreliable nuclear state that will react by strengthening ties with China and deploying Islamist terrorism.
Obama also sought to use America’s influence to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as part of his strategy for the broader Middle East. He initially thought that by pressuring Netanyahu to freeze settlements, he would succeed in reviving the peace process. But he was quickly and skillfully outmaneuvered by his ally, who knows how important the Israeli issue is to US domestic politics. By putting Obama at odds with the rest of the US establishment, Netanyahu forced him to retreat.
In 2009, Obama envisioned a settlement of the conflict through the strong commitment of the international community. In 2011, he asserted that only both sides’ willingness could ensure a successful outcome. Clearly, the US cannot do much to resolve the conflict.
There is no overarching explanation for Obama’s successive Middle East failures, but there are a few factors worth considering: the increase in the number of asymmetrical conflicts, in which the traditional use of force is largely ineffective; increasingly blurred lines between difficult allies and intransigent adversaries; and major political differences between a centrist US president and a Congress that is dominated more than ever by extreme ideas.
But Obama himself bears a large part of the blame. Contrary to what one might think, he does not have a real strategic vision of the world – a shortcoming reflected in his quick capitulation in the face of opposition to his proposals. Obama often has a plan A, but never a plan B. When it comes to conducting a successful foreign policy, plan A is never enough.
Zaki Laïdi is Professor of International Relations at
Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po).
Zaki Laidi: 奧巴馬的中東之誤
巴黎—美國總統奧巴馬歡迎美國駐伊拉克軍隊回國、盛贊伊拉克實現了穩定和民主的話音未落，巴格達和別的地方就出現了一波前所未有的暴力事件, 表明伊拉克陷入了嚴重的政治危機。這場危機是一個不幸的例外事件，還是奧巴馬的中東外交政策,
從埃及到阿富汗, 失敗的徵象？
奧巴馬一上台就提出了關於中東的四大目標：在撤軍前穩定伊拉克局勢﹔在於巴基斯坦達成最低限度的政治一致的情況下以有利地位從阿富汗撤軍﹔敦促以色列總理內塔尼亞胡 (Binyamin Netanyahu) 凍結殖民區計劃從而取得中東和平進程的重大突破﹔以及與伊朗就其核計劃展開對話。就這四大目標而言，奧巴馬的成就極小。
在伊拉克，自喬治·W·布什
(George W. Bush) 上台以來，美國就一直在努力對什葉派勢力施加影響，從而讓伊拉克能夠建立更加包容的政治體系,
特別是通過一項新的法律好使什葉派 (Shia)、遜尼派
(Sunni) 和庫爾德 (Kurdish)人之間分享石油出口收入。不幸的是，事情的進展與美國的初衷正好相反。
庫爾德地區在朝自治的方向前進，而遜尼派受到宗教色彩強烈的、由什葉派主導的威權中央政府的排擠，日漸被邊緣化。這對地區實力平衡產生了影響，因為伊拉克為了對抗被視為遜尼派保護者的土耳其而與伊朗越走越近。
伊拉克總理馬利基最近在訪問華盛頓時說，比起伊朗，他更擔心土耳其，這顯示伊拉克和美國之間存在巨大的分歧，而美國現在已經在伊拉克事務上不再有重大的政治影響力了。事實上，由於進展不盡人意，美國已決定不動用對付馬利基的底牌：軍售。
事到如今，毫無疑問佔領伊拉克是美國的重大戰略失誤，因為其最終效果隻是坐大了伊朗。但奧巴馬並沒有處理這一嚴重情況的中期規劃，而遲早會給美國帶來沉重代價。
對以石油出口制裁為手段牽制伊朗將產生積極效果並削弱伊朗，或者牽制手段失敗，讓美國不得不在中東開展，兩者必居其一。或許美國外交政策圈中有人把伊拉克危機的深化視為軍事干預伊朗的借口。
但奧巴馬還沒有愚鈍到如此程度。他已經注意到了美國國會對伊朗的敵對態度和對伊朗伊斯蘭共和國採取軍事手段的意圖。但是，他認為，他可以避免極端手段﹔在外交上，什麼都可能發生，最壞的情形未必就是唯一的可能。
問題在於，奧巴馬總是有高估美國對弱勢行動者施加影響的能力的傾向。在伊拉克發生的事情同樣適用於阿富汗：清除本·拉登足以成為奧巴馬引以為傲的功績，毫無疑問，這是一項成就，但這項成就並沒有除掉問題的根源。美國入駐阿富汗整整十年，派出了超過10萬的軍隊和花掉了5
500億美元，仍然沒有打造出受人信任的塔利班替代者，反而丟掉了政治盟國巴基斯坦。
事實上，美巴關系已經退回了2001年9月11日之前的水平，當時，兩國之間彌漫著相互不信任的情緒。巴基斯坦領導人顯然對這一狀態負有重大責任。但美國無法將巴基斯坦納入解決阿富汗沖突的方案中，其失敗是美國拒絕滿足巴基斯坦要求的明証：犧牲印度，改變地區實力平衡。
相應地，巴基斯坦凍結了與美國的合作，因為其領導人看不到與塔利班打仗的好處。問題在於，當美國開始從阿富汗撤軍時——該進程將在明年提出，從2014年開始實施——它將重新開始對巴基斯坦採取制裁，因為巴基斯坦是一個不可靠的有核國家，可能倒向中國並開展伊斯蘭恐怖主義作為回應。
奧巴馬還尋求利用美國的影響力解決以色列-巴勒斯坦沖突，作為其大中東戰略的一部分。一開始，他認為向內塔尼亞胡施壓，要求他凍結定居點計劃就可以讓和平進程重現生機。但是，他的盟友很快便巧妙地算計了他，因為內塔尼亞胡知道，以色列問題在美國國內政壇屬於不可承受之重。內塔尼亞胡把奧巴馬置於美國其他勢力的對立面，迫使他讓步。
2009年，奧巴馬認為可以通過國際社會的強力承諾解決沖突。2011年，他宣稱隻有雙方又有意願，才能保証出現成功的結果。顯然，美國對於解決沖突並無多少辦法。
奧巴馬在中東問題上一再失策，其原因不一而足，但其中有幾個因素值得關注：不對稱沖突數量上升，傳統軍事干預已不再奏效﹔盟友越來越難對付，敵人越來越強硬，兩者之間的界線越來越模糊﹔中間派的美國總統和史上最極端國會之間存在重大政治分歧，等等。
但奧巴馬本人也頗有失策之處。與人們所設想的相反，他並沒有一幅關於全世界的戰略圖景，這一短板可以從他一碰到反對的聲音便迅速妥協一窺端倪。奧巴馬總是能拿出方案，但永遠不會有備選方案。但要在外交政策上獲得成功，隻做一手准備是不夠的。
Zaki Laidi是巴黎政治大學國際關系教授
