Source: Politico
Did Obama Lay Out a Cohesive Middle East Policy?President Obama’s speech will disappoint audiences in the Middle East. It does not outline a policy, but a vision — that of a democratic and prosperous Middle East — which of course is not new. In the region, this will be seen as another rhetorical statement rather than as a policy.
The amount of economic assistance he offered to countries that have started a transition, Egypt in particular, will undoubtedly disappoint. It will also probably be ridiculed as totally insufficient: up to $ 1 billion in debt relief to Egypt, helpful in the long run but not in the short run. And $2 billion in investment guarantees through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation is unlikely to encourage U.S. companies to invest in an unstable country.
Nor did he set out a new policy for the Israeli-Palestinian problem. He repeated well-known U.S. positions, which Arabs will criticize as being pro-Israel, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted strongly to Obama’s statements that the borders of a Palestinian state should be those of 1967, with negotiated modification.
The speech was not a winner.