In These New Times

“Remember, he was supposed to change the mood, tone, music with respect to America in the Arab and Muslim world,” said Miller, now apublic policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Institute.

“Well, guess what? This guy is coming into office against a backdrop of incredible bitterness and anger against Israel and, by implication, the United States,” Miller said

Yahoo

8th January, 2009

WASHINGTON (AFP) – When he becomes president in two weeks,Barack Obama will have little breathing room to deal with “the horrible mess” left by his predecessor George W. Bush over Israel’s war inGaza, analysts say.

After refusing to comment on the 12-day war on the constitutional premise that “there is only one president at a time,” Obama promised Wednesday to engage in Middle East diplomacy “immediately” upon taking office January 20.

His remarks signaled how fast he is being pulled into the conflict that analysts say will at the very least deny him the maneuvering room he may have sought to appoint key officials and develop a new strategy.

The conflict may have even worse consequences for a new president who wants to make a clean break with the Bush era, according toAaron David Miller, a former adviser to both Republican and Democratic secretaries of state.

“Remember, he was supposed to change the mood, tone, music with respect to America in the Arab and Muslim world,” said Miller, now apublic policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Institute.

“Well, guess what? This guy is coming into office against a backdrop of incredible bitterness and anger against Israel and, by implication, the United States,” Miller said.

“That’s a big problem because it strips him of an opportunity to create his own character, his own stamp,” he said. “He inherits the Bush administration policies whether he likes it or not.”

Miller also said that even if Israel soon ends its onslaught against the Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, it will still take weeks to work out post-conflict security, humanitarian and economic arrangements.

“This is Obama’s or (rather) Hillary’s baby,” he said, referring to Obama’s choice of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

Miller expected Hamas to emerge stronger politically from the conflict while it would be more difficult to deal with Israel.

“The United States are going to be perceived to be weak … We can’t or won’t deal with Hamas, we can’t or won’t restrain the Israelis and we don’t have the capacity to put together a deal,” he said.

“That’s horrible for an incoming president, that we’re weak. Forget that we’re biased. Everybody knows we’re biased,” Miller added.

“The Obama administration has a big mess on their hands no matter what happens — a big mess.”

Miller argued that unless Obama learns to impose limits on Israel instead of taking cues from it — as Bush and his predecessor Bill Clinton have largely done — Washington will remain an “ineffective mediator.”

Nathan Brown, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who regrets that Bush is leaving Obama with “a horrible mess,” said the conflict in Gaza forces Obama to act more quickly than he would have liked.

“What I think (the Obama team) may have hoped for would have been several months breathing room while to get appointments in place, figure out a strategy,” Brown told AFP.

He recalled that Obama had mentioned a speech he would give in a “major Muslim capital, and that would have started him on a very different footing … on a level of engagement rather than on crisis management and war.”

But he said the first African-American president of the United States will still have “some options” to act differently than Bush in striking post-conflict arrangements.

Obama has little choice but to start new initiatives because the Annapolis peace process launched inNovember 2007 is going nowhere, Brown added.

Scott Lasensky, an analyst with the United States Institute of Peace, agreed with Brown and Miller that Obama will have to use a firmer hand with Israel.

“I think they (the Bush administration) just found a very comfortable position to unambiguously back Israel and to not be involved and try to reach a ceasefire,” Lasensky said.

“It is harming American interests and endangering people in the Middle East.”