10:19 AM
andie
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Thursday’s speech by President Obama on the upheaval in the Middle East is aimed at a global audience. But it will also play out in a domestic and political — context as Mr. Obama seeks a second term in the White House.
Since taking office, Mr. Obama has sought to strike a balance between reaching out to the Muslim world while also combating terrorism and pushing for progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The as-yet unfulfilled promise of that approach, which he described in a speech in Cairo in 2009, helped win him the Nobel Peace Prize early in his presidency.
But the effort to construct a cohesive narrative for American voters about his administration’s efforts in the region has proved more difficult. The peace process has been largely halted. The move away from Bush-era terrorism policies has gone more slowly than expected. And the uprisings in the Arab world have forced case-by-case decisions that sometimes appear contradictory.
“They need to make the case for why all of this stuff matters to Americans and give some narrative that makes sense for all the different things we are doing,” said Marc Lynch, the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University.
Mr. Obama’s decision to launch the raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin laden has clearly helped to define for Americans a new Obama story in the region. Thursday’s speech will give the president the opportunity to put those actions in a broader context, Mr. Lynch said.
Jewish voters are a small but critical Democratic constituency in terms of both votes and fund-raising; Mr. Obama, a Democrat, won nearly 80 percent of the Jewish vote in the 2008 election. That support will be particularly important Mr. Obama, who has been viewed with suspicion by some Jewish voters because of his early efforts to put pressure on Israel to stop settlement construction.
“Pivoting into presidential campaign season, they are going to want to have in place a robust story to tell,” said Mr. Lynch, who writes the Middle East blog for Foreign Policy magazine. “The more that they can choose a few clear themes that fit together into a clear story, the better.”
Thursday’s speech at the State Department is designed to be the first in a series of rhetorical opportunities for the president. On Friday, he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a conversation that will be closely watched by the Jewish community in the United States.
And this weekend, Mr. Obama will address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest pro-Israel lobby in the United States. Together, the post-speech events will give the president a chance to assert his support for Israel early in the 2012 campaign cycle.
White House aides who previewed the speech for reporters Wednesday said that the president would use the opportunity to speak about the Middle East and North Africa region as a whole and how its challenges relate to the United States.
“Now, having wound down the Iraq war and continuing to do so, and having taken out Osama bin Laden, we are beginning to turn the page to a more positive and hopeful future for U.S. policy in the region,” a senior administration official said. “The president will have the opportunity to speak broadly about the change in the Middle East and North Africa, the implications for U.S. policy, and some concrete proposals for American policy going forward.”
Whom will he be speaking to? Leaders and citizens in the Middle East, of course. But several different American audiences will also be listening carefully to what he says. Here are some of them:
* His 2012 rivals: Before Bin Laden was killed, the Republican candidates for president had begun attacking Mr. Obama as a weak, feckless leader with no backbone. That argument is more difficult to make now.
But Mr. Obama’s rivals for the White House are not going to back away entirely from their criticisms of his foreign policy. They will be listening to his speech on Thursday for ways to criticize his policies toward Iran and his outreach to the Arab world.
They will also be watching closely for any evidence that Mr. Obama is being critical of Israel in the hopes they could use that as an electoral advantage.
* Liberals: Mr. Obama’s base has been frustrated at times by his willingness to continue anti-terrorism policies put in place by his predecessor. The terrorist detention facility at Guantánamo Bay — which remains open despite Mr. Obama’s promise to close it — is a constant reminder of their dissatisfaction.
The speech gives Mr. Obama a chance to describe how his approach to the region fulfills his campaign promises and to claim that his policies have worked better than Mr. Bush’s. That could help energize his base — a crucial part of the path toward getting reelected.
* American Jews: The president’s early decision to press Israel to end settlements was done in the hope that it might kick-start peace talks with the Palestinians. In fact, after the Israelis balked, the policy has so far failed to move the peace process along. The administration’s top negotiator, former senator George Mitchell, quit last week.
But in the process, the tough-love approach to Israel caused friction between Mr. Obama and some Jewish voters. That could be particularly important in certain swing states.
* Congress: The debates in the House and Senate during the next 18 months are likely to focus primarily on the domestic economy. But with the House under Republican control, leaders there may be looking for ways to question Mr. Obama’s handling of foreign policy, especially in the volatile Middle East.
Republicans struggled at the height of the Middle East uprisings earlier this year, first criticizing the president’s lack of action in Libya and then later criticizing the aggressive use of force in ways that Mr. Obama said would halt the slaughter of those leading the uprising.
Democratic lawmakers, too, will be watching the speech for clues to the defense they may have to mount to Republican criticism. Last year’s extended debate over a nuclear treaty with Russia showed how differences over foreign policy can sometimes play out in the halls of Congress. (NYTimes.com)
