U. S. President Barack Obama has been in office for 6 months. The World’s Aaron Schachter takes a look at the impact the young administration has had on Middle East politics so far.
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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins.  And this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston.  President Barak Obama’s special envoy for the Middle East is getting ready to head back to the region.  George Mitchell could be there later on this week.  His mission is to get a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks.  But that mission is complicated by Israel’s rejection of a key US demand to stop the construction of settlements.  Commentators in many Arab and Muslim countries say it’s about time a US president made serious demands of an Israeli leader.  But as The World’s Aaron Schacter reports they’re uncertain about President Obama’s ability to make a difference in the Middle East.

AARON SCHACHTER: The six-month anniversary of the Obama Administration isn’t getting a whole lot of play in the Middle East.  But with just about everything the administration says or does feverishly reported, perhaps marking time with an anniversary is beside the point.  But when asked, what many Mideast analysts have to say about the administration is a variation on a theme:

RAMI KHOURY: I give it very high marks for rhetoric and intent, but we really have to wait and see where’s the meat, I mean where’s the substance?

SCHACHTER: Rami Khoury directs the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut. He gives the Obama administration a B+ for the first six months, based mostly on the president’s change in tone.  But he says Mr. Obama has to start chalking up some concrete accomplishments.

KHOURY: What could he do, he could do a lot.  He could engage with all of the different players in the Middle East; he could do the kinds of things with Israel that the US has done with many other countries when they didn’t like what they were doing; lowering diplomatic contacts, playing with the aid, getting a UN resolution.  He could put pressure on all the players to move towards negotiating their solutions to their differences rather than having perpetual warfare.

SCHACHTER: One area where both Arab liberals and religious conservatives agree is on the Obama administration’s delicate dance with Middle Eastern autocrats.  A prominent young Saudi blogger gives the US president just a C+ for that very reason.  He told me Obama’s rhetoric has been appreciated, but the US president hasn’t called out leaders in Egypt and plenty of other places for their undemocratic behavior.  But in other spots in the Muslim world, the US president is seen as already leaving his mark.  Analyst Meir Javedanfar runs Meepas.com.  He says the US president couldn’t have done a better job with Iran.

MEIR JAVEDANFAR: First of all was his New Year’s message, which was very positive and he reached out to the people of Iran.  He also recognized the Islamic Republic of Iran, which meant that the issue of regime change has been removed from the vocabulary of US foreign policy.  Regarding the recent outbreak of violence in Iran, America was very careful not to be seen interfering.

SCHACHTER: Still, Javedanfar gives the new Administration an overall grade of B, because he says Mr. Obama has done little so far to solve the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. One analyst says the new administration’s actions in his country over the past six months have been out-and-out refreshing. Hasan Askari Rizvi is a Pakistani political analyst based in Lahore.

HASAN ASKARI RIZVI: The focus of the American administration seems to be changing from military assistance to greater attention to social and economic development in Pakistan to address the root causes of extremism, which lie in poverty and underdevelopment.

SCHACHTER: The issue of US missiles fired at targets inside Pakistan remains dicey, but here too the Obama administration has made changes, allowing Pakistan’s military some hand in where the missiles are fired and when. Most analysts around the region say the US president has perhaps another six months to show major results in the region before he loses the confidence of even the pro-American mainstream.  For The World, I’m Aaron Schachter in Beirut.

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