Middle East will muddle through 2013
By Aaron David Miller , Special to CNN
December 28, 2012 -- Updated 1351 GMT (2151 HKT)
CNN.com
Aaron Miller says a re-elected Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel will have no
incentive to tackle tough issues with Palestinians.
Aaron Miller says a re-elected Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel will have no
incentive to tackle tough issues with Palestinians.
Editor's note: Aaron David Miller is a vice president and distinguished scholar
at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and served as a Middle
East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. He is the author
of the forthcoming book "Can America Have Another Great President?" Follow him
on Twitter.
(CNN) -- Since leaving government almost a decade ago, my analysis of matters
Middle Eastern has been, well, annoyingly negative.
And the reason? Best summed up in a line often attributed to Groucho Marx but
actually uttered by Chico: "Well, who are you gonna believe, me or your own
eyes?"
What I see is an angry, broken, dysfunctional region that wants to transcend
itself and resolve the conflicts that hold it back, but just can't. And I'm not
at all sure there's a whole lot America -- that indispensable nation -- can do
about it.
Here are my predictions for 2013 on some of the key issues. This year's theme
is muddle through --neither breakthroughs nor breakdowns.
Iran:
2013 -- The so-called year of decision -- war with the mullahs who rule Iran or
the grand bargain -- will produce neither. President Obama will go to extreme
lengths to avoid a military strike aimed at Iran's nuclear program and will not
greenlight an Israeli one. Without that go-ahead, the Israelis will continue to
agonize but not act. And the mullahs will be smart enough not to brazenly give
either Jerusalem or Washington an easy excuse to strike.
Bottom line -- 2013 will be a year of diplomacy, not war. To borrow a conceit
from my friend New York Times reporter Elaine Sciolino, 2013 will witness the
Tom and Jerry game in which cat and mouse in the old cartoon continue a
never-ending game of almost gotcha. Who knows? If the Americans and Iranians
try hard enough they might actually bump into one another and reach a limited
deal to keep Iran a few more years away from getting enough uranium to make
weapons. But if you're looking for final closure on this one, go talk to Dr.
Phil.
Arab-Israeli peace:
Panetta: A nuclear Iran is unacceptable
Palestinians get U.N. upgrade
Iran's assault on civil society
Syrian rebels: Defection will spark more
The sun, moon, and stars really aren't aligned on this one for a big
breakthrough. Where should I start? The January 22 elections in Israel will
likely produce another Netanyahu government that has no incentive to destroy
itself politically by tackling the big issues like Jerusalem and refugees,
certainly not with the Iranian nuclear issue still open. And the Islamists --
Hamas and Egypt's Mohamed Morsy (who can barely bring himself to talk about a
two-state solution) aren't in the giving mood either. Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas is too weak to initiate much.
Bottom line -- The Americans will try and may succeed in getting the Israelis
and Palestinians into a process to talk about borders and security. But the
two-state solution is likely to remain too hard to achieve but too important to
abandon. Persident Obama will probably not be earning his Nobel peace prize --
yet.
Arab spring/winter:
This is going to be a long movie. After all, it took the United States a
century and half and bloody civil war to even begin to reconcile the promise of
equality contained wiithin the Declaration of Independence with the
legitimization of slavery contained in the Constitution, and we're still not
there yet.
Still, nowhere in the Arab world do the trend lines look that hopeful. Neither
in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, let alone Syria, do the Arabs have the three
elements required to set their experiment with democratization and pluralism in
the right direction: leaders who put the nation before their own political and
religious parties' interests, institutions that are seen as inclusive and
legitimate, and a mechanism to ensure that polarization doesn't spill out into
the streets in violence.
Bottom line -- Buckle your seatbelts. No immediate convulsions and
catastrophes. But in the new Arab world with Islamists rising, the political
space for the United States is going to get a whole lot smaller and the dangers
to our diplomats much greater. The key question is at what point the bell will
begin to toll for the kings and emirs in Jordan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, too.
The good news:
But all isn't totally gloomy. We're out of or getting out of the two longest
wars in our history, we're reducing our dependence on Arab oil, al Qaeda has
been weakened, and while we're not safe we're certainly safer here at home --
at least from foreign terrorists.
Bottom line -- With the notable exception of killing Osama bin Laden, President
Obama hasn't had any spectacular successes in foreign policy, but more
important, he has avoided spectacular failures. If he can continue to keep us
out of trouble, particularly at a time when we need to be focused on repairing
America's broken house rather than chasing around the lands of Araby trying to
fix everybody else's, he'll have done pretty well. And who knows, if he's
patient, maybe he'll even be able to turn one of those Middle Eastern migraines
and root canals into an opportunity or two.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Aaron David
Miller.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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