UPDATED Cases of (Non)-Engagement: From Iran and Saberi to North Korea and Ling-Lee

UPDATE: Pointed illustrations already of the limited options, if any, that the US Government has. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's warning that the US could return North Korea to its list of states sponsoring terrorism, made only hours before the sentencing of Ling and Lee, is already looking irrelevant. Leaks to the New York Times that the US may "interdict, possibly with China’s help, North Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology" have been overtaken.


An opinion piece by The Christian Science Monitor by Allan Richarz sadly highlights the difficult situation. Richarz blusters with artificial linkages between the Saberi and Ling-Lee cases ("little more than manufactured crises designed to wrest concessions"), irrelevancies (his warning, "if the US reciprocates Tehran's gesture by releasing the three Iranian detainees held in Iraq, it will only be a matter of time before another hapless Westerner is put on trial" is a fantasy --- Iran never made
that connection in the Saberi case), and table-thumping ("the US and the West must adopt a hard line"). All of this is to cover the harsh lack of specific measures behind Richarz's general invocation, "The West must swiftly and effectively level retaliatory political and economic sanctions on the offending state."

The news that the Central Court of North Korea has jailed American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee for 12 years for illegal crossing of the Korean border prompts a "compare and contrast" with the case of Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist freed but then released earlier this year by Tehran.

The Saberi case, while tense, was ultimately easier to resolve because there were channels of communication between the US and Iran. The general Obama approach of "engagement" both bolstered and gave further impetus to the campaign first to mitigate Saberi's sentence and then to allow her to leave Iran. Had Tehran persisted with its detention, the wider possibility of a US-Iranian rapprochement might have collapsed.

Unfortunately, that foundation of engagement is not present in the Ling-Lee case. North Korea has already raised the ante of confrontation with its recent nuclear and missile tests. The jailing of the journalists now raises the price for discussion: which incentives have to be tabled to get both the release of the two women and Pyongyang's agreement to re-open talks on its nuclear future?

Of course, the case can be read as a red line drawn away from the nuclear dimension. Investigating the plight of North Koreans defecting or attempting to leave the country will not be tolerated; Pyongyang's internal affairs and treatment of its population is not subject to external scrutiny.

The point is that --- whatever North Korea's motives --- the possibilities for a humanitarian resolution are far more limited, if they exist at all, than they were in the case of Iran. That in turn is a far-from-incidental commentary on the reality as well as the rhetoric of Obama's unclenched fist.

Updates on the case can be followed via the Liberate Laura website.

Video and Transcript: Hillary Clinton on "This Week" (7 June)

This Week with George Stephanopoulos, the US political chat show, has just posted its interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, conducted in Cairo during President Obama's tour. It's little more than a puff piece, with Stephanopoulos (who served as an aide to President Bill Clinton) lobbing up questions such as, "The President has a very high-powered team: Vice President Biden, National Security Advisor Jones, Secretary of Defense Gates. You've got envoys for Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea. How do you fit in?" (Surprisingly, Clinton's answer was not, "I make the coffee.")

Stephanopoulos did toughen up a bit in subsequent questions. Clinton repeated Obama's Cairo aspirations on the Israel-Palestine issue, holding the US line against an expansion of Israeli settlements. She maintained the general balance of "engagement" vs. "no nukes" on Iran, and she put out the rhetorical threat, in light of North Korea's recent nuclear and missile testing, that the US might return Pyongyang to its list of states sponsoring terror.

Still, the fact that the best headline that This Week could cobble together was "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Obama Has Passed '3 A.M. Test'" (rather than saying, for example, "My campaign charge was right: the President is a callow youth who wets his pants at the first sign of crisis) is testimony to the light weight of this interview.

Watch the interview  (in two parts) ....

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: Madam Secretary, thanks very much for doing this.

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm glad to see you, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, we were just talking about Cairo, did you ever imagine you'd be here as secretary of state?

CLINTON: Never. (LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: Never crossed my mind. And what an extraordinary honor to be here, especially for this speech today.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The president has a very high-powered team, Vice President Biden, General Jones, Secretary Gates. You've got envoys for Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea. How do you fit in?

(LAUGHTER) CLINTON: Well, I…

STEPHANOPOULOS: What is your role, exactly?

CLINTON: Well, my role is as the chief diplomat for the United States of America. And, you know, when I agreed to do this job, I made it very clear to the president that I would be able to run the State Department and USAID, and that we would have to forge a team that I think we've done very well. And that I wanted special envoys, because we were inheriting so many hotspot problems that I knew you could never have one person possibly address all of that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It also gives you the ability to get out of the crisis management and carve out areas where you're really going to take initiative. What are those?

CLINTON: Well, I'm having to do both. I mean, I spend a lot of my time on the problems that you would imagine, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Middle East, Iran. But I'm also working to create a strategic set of priorities that will guide our efforts.

So for example, there are specific regional and country-based endeavors that we are teeing up. We are going to work really hard on our relationships with, for example, Indonesia and Turkey and India.

We have a strategic and economic dialogue that will start the last week in July with China that Secretary Geithner and I are going to co-lead. I mean, we… (CROSSTALK) STEPHANOPOULOS: Plenty of work to go around.

CLINTON: There is plenty of work to go around. But then there are transnational problems. I mean, the president asked me to lead the effort on food security. The president also wants us to focus on Haiti. And ironically the United Nations…

STEPHANOPOULOS: The -- you know, President Clinton…

CLINTON: … secretary-general asked Bill to be the special envoy. So we're really going to have a united effort by our government and by the international community. Those are just some of the, you know, very specific and more general challenges that we are taking on and managing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You're also developing a reputation for blunt talk as secretary. You talked about Pakistan abdicating its responsibilities, about the idea that we get into negotiation with North Korea is implausible. And especially on this issue of settlements with Israel, you were very strong last week, so was the president. And I don't know if you've seen the headlines in Israel, headlines talking about the American threat. Publicly the prime minister is saying that this is just unreasonable, these demands from the United States. And privately he was reported to have said, and this is a quote: "What the hell do they want from me?"

CLINTON: Well, George, I think it's very clear, as you heard in the speech from the president here in Cairo, that he wants to focus from the very beginning of his term in office on doing everything he can to try to bring the Israelis and the Palestinians together. We were very close in 2000. And it's heartbreaking to see where we are today. And we can't just stand by and expect time to work its magic. So that means, as the president said in his speech, and as he has said on several other occasions prior to it, that we have to do our very best to reassure Israel, to demonstrate our commitment to Israel's security, that the bonds we have are unshakeable and durable. But we do have a view about Israel's security. We see historical, demographic, political, technological trends that are very troubling as to Israel's future. At the same time, there is a legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people that needs to be addressed.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Not only Elliot Abrams? You wrote about that.

CLINTON: Nobody in a position of authority at the time that the Obama administration came into office said anything about it. And in fact, there is also a record that President Bush contradicted even that oral agreement.

But, the fact is that the road map which was agreed to officially, adopted by the Israeli government said something very clear about settlements.

So, I think that what the president is doing is saying, look, everybody should comply with the obligations you've already committed to. And for the Palestinians, let's not forget. They must end incitement against Israel. They must demonstrate an ability to provide security.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's what I wanted to ask you about. Abbas was in Washington, last week, He had an interview in the "Washington Post" where he sure seemed to suggest that he doesn't have to do anything right now.

CLINTON: Well, I think you're seeing public positions taken, which is understandable in a process like this. But, we've made it very clear to President Abbas, what we expect from him, as well.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about Iran? You reported in the papers back in March, when you met with the Foreign Minister of the UAE that you were skeptical of the possibility that diplomacy would work to stall or stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. Are you still that doubtful?

CLINTON: Well, I am someone who's going to wait and see. I mean, I want to see what the president's engagement will bring. We have a team of people who we have tasked to work on this. I think there's an enormous amount of potential for change if the Iranians are willing to pursue that --

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, what do you think they want deep down? You know, you read some of their public declarations by their supreme leader and others saying that they consider nuclear weapons un-Islamic. Yet, they continue to pursue the nuclear program.

CLINTON: But George, one of the values of engagement is we need to have better information, and maybe about each other. Not just about a one-way street of information. The idea that we could have a diplomatic process with Iran means that for the first time, we would actually be sitting at a table across from Iranians authorized by the supreme leader to talk with us about a whole range of issues. That gives us information and insight that we don't have. Of course there's a contradiction because we don't have any really clear sense as to what it is they are seeking.

Now, one of the things that you heard the president say is, you know, we understand the legitimate right of nations to have access to peaceful, nuclear energy. If that is at the core of what they want, there are ways of accommodating that do not lead to a nuclear weapon. But, we have to test that and we have to be willing to sit and listen and evaluate without giving up what we view as a primary objective of the engagement, which is to do everything we can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your own envoy Dennis Ross has said one way to strengthen the position the United States going into these negotiations is to make it very clear that if Iran used nuclear weapons against Israel or any U.S. ally, that would be met as an attack on the United States -- full response. Now, that was your position during the campaign, as well.

Is it U.S. policy now?

CLINTON: I think it is U.S. policy to the extent that we have alliances and understandings with a number of nations. They may not be formal as it is with NATO, but, I don't think there is any doubt in anyone's mind that were Israel to suffer a nuclear attack by Iran, there would be retaliation.

STEPHANOPOULOS: By the United States?

CLINTON: Well, I think there would be retaliation. And I think part of what is clear is we want to avoid a Middle East arms race which leads to nuclear weapons being in the possession of other countries in the Middle East. And we want to make clear that there are consequences and costs. Now, let me just put it this way. If Iran is seeking security, if they believe -- and you know, you have to put yourself into the shoes of the other party when you negotiate -- if they believe that the United States might attack them the way that we did attack Iraq, for example --

STEPHANOPOULOS: Before they attack, as a first strike.

CLINTON: That's right, as a first strike. Or, they might have some other enemies that would do that to them. Part of what we have to make clear to the Iranians is that their pursuit of nuclear weapons will actually trigger greater insecurity because right now, many of the nations in the neighborhood, as you know very well --

STEPHANOPOULOS: Because Israel will strike before they can finish.

CLINTON: Well, but not only that. I mean, other countries -- other Arab countries are deeply concerned about Iran having nuclear weapons. So, does Iran want to face a battery of nuclear weapons countries -- (CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Can you get those other Arab nations to say that publically? That was part of the president's theme today.

CLINTON: Well, you know, we've been there a little over four months. And clearly a lot of what we're doing is teeing up our framework for decision making. We are aggressively pursuing diplomacy, not as an end in itself, but as a means to try to resolve some of these outstanding and very difficult problems. We are trying to make clear that the United States is of course going to pursue our interests in values. But, frankly, we believe there are ways that we can make them consonant with the issues and values that are important to others, as well.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, when I saw President Ahmadinejad last month, he said the U.S. wasn't really walking the block here and he cited the idea that President Obama never responded to his initial letter of congratulations. Why not?

CLINTON: Well, I think that President Obama has made very clear that he is going to put forth an open hand. But not as part of an electoral ploy or propaganda.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you have to let the elections play out.

CLINTON: I think just like in every country. There is a process that takes place during an election. That will be over soon. And then we're going to hope to get a positive process going.

STEPHANOPOULOS: With North Korea it seems like nothing has worked. Engagement doesn't work, isolation doesn't work. They keep on pursuing their nuclear ambitions. And the problem with North Korea is that they've tried to sell every single weapon they've ever made.

CLINTON: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, what does that mean? How do we stop them now and what happens if they try to sell nuclear material?

CLINTON: One of the positive developments, George, in the face of what has been very provocative and belligerent behavior by the North Koreans is that it has actually brought the members of -- six-party process -- Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, the United States, much closer together in how we view --

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that process isn't going anywhere, is there?

CLINTON: Well, but I think what is going somewhere is additional sanctions in the United Nations. Arms embargo, other measures taken against North Korea with the full support of China and Russia.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Including enforcing past resolutions which gives the U.N. the ability to board North Korean ships?

CLINTON: Well, we are working very hard to create a mechanism where we can interdict North Korean shipments. Obviously some countries -- not just the ones I named -- but others have some legitimate concerns about setting precedent and alike. But, we are working very hard. I've personally talked with all the foreign ministers. Some of them many more times than just a couple. We've been in very close communication. Obviously we're working closely with our team in New York. We think we're going to come out of this with a very strong resolution with teeth that will have consequences for the North Korean regime.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And what are the consequences if they try to ship nuclear material elsewhere?

CLINTON: We will do everything we can to both interdict it and prevent it and shut off their flow of money. If we do not take significant and effective action against the North Koreans now, we'll spark an arms race in Northeast Asia. I don't think anybody wants to see that. And so part of what we're doing is again, sharing with other countries our calculus of the risks and the dangers that would lie ahead if we don't take very strong action.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Several senators wrote the president a letter just the other day that North Korea should go back on list of the states who sponsor terrorism. Will you do that?

CLINTON: Well, we're going to look at it. There's a process for it. Obviously we would want to see recent evidence of their support for international terrorism.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you have any?

CLINTON: Well, we're just beginning to look at it. I don't have an answer for you right now.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Because the senators say they never stopped with these actions.

CLINTON: Well, we -- you know, we take it very seriously. I mean, obviously they were taken off of the list for a purpose and that purpose is being thwarted by their actions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One other issue on North Korea. The trial has begun for the American journalists.

CLINTON: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And the families of the journalists have come out very clearly and said, the only way this is going to be solved is if the United States government gets involved directly. Have you been involved directly in any way?

CLINTON: I have been. I have been involved directly in working with our team as they have made approaches and requests for information through the channels we use with North Korea. The Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang is taking care of our interests there. He has visited both young women I think, now three times, if I'm not mistaken. I've met with the families. We have made it clear through statements, both public and private that we view this as a humanitarian issue --

STEPHANOPOULOS: We were told that you sent a letter saying that the girls didn't mean -- the women didn't mean to go into North Korea, and asking for their release.

CLINTON: I have taken every action that we thought would produce the result we're looking for. We think that the charges against these young women are absolutely without merit or foundation. We hope the trial ends quickly, it's resolved and they're sent home.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Have you gotten any hopeful signs back?

CLINTON: We have gotten some responses but we're not sure exactly who's going to be making this decision and what the reasons for the eventual decision are. So, we've been very careful in what we've said because clearly we don't want this pulled into the political issues that we have with North Korea, or the concerns that are being expressed in the United Nations Security Council. This is separate. It is a humanitarian issue and the girls should be let go.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It's an interesting point: you don't know who is going to make this decision. Do you believe these reports that Kim Jong-il has tapped his youngest son as his successor?

CLINTON: We obviously are following this very closely. We don't yet know what the outcome of that decision… (CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: What would that mean?

CLINTON: We don't know. I mean, we would have to wait and evaluate it, the time of it, who might be essentially, you know, put in place to supervise him, if he were the choice. We have to evaluate all of that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: This week is also the anniversary of -- the 20th anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square. And you put out a very strong statement on that anniversary. Yet when you went to China earlier this year, you basically said the Chinese know what we think about human rights.

And I guess what I'm trying to get at is, how do you approach that issue? When do public statements make a difference? When should diplomacy be conducted privately? And who is your real audience with these statements?

CLINTON: You know, George, it's such a great question. And there is no one easy answer, because I think so much of it depends upon what our objectives are. We have made very clear time and time again our concerns about religious freedom in China, treatment of Tibet, Tibetan culture. So that is -- we're on the record with that. We've had these, you know, very strong statements that we've made historically, going back years, and so of course we want everyone to know that we still feel very strongly about it. But we also would like to see if there is some way we could actually chip away at Chinese resistance to providing some more, at least cultural and religious autonomy for Tibetans. So we -- it's a constant weighing process. You know, I think a lot of times the public statements can turn out to be counterproductive. They can harden positions. Yet at the same time, the public statements can hearten those who are the dissidents. So trying to keep that in balance so that we don't ever turn our backs on those who are struggling for the very rights that we believe in so strongly and that we think are universal rights, and yet looking for ways that we can actually get results, not just score debating points or, you know, have somebody say, good for you, you made a strong statement.

So what we're trying to do, and I think you hear it from what the president and I have been saying over the last four months is to really focus in on where we can make progress.

STEPHANOPOULOS: A year ago, you bowed out of the presidential campaign, very graceful speech. It was a bitter campaign. And I'm just wondering, how did president Obama convince you to come on his team?

(LAUGHTER) CLINTON: Well, you know, George, I never had any -- any dream, let alone inkling that I would end up in President Obama's cabinet. When I left the presidential race after getting some sleep and taking some deep breaths, I immediately went to work for him in the general election. I, you know, traveled the country. I worked hard on my supporters. I made the case, which I believed strongly in making sure that we elected him our president. And I was looking forward to going back to the Senate and, frankly, going back to my life and representing New York, which I love. And I had no idea that he had a different plan in mind. So when…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Since the primaries.

CLINTON: Well, but I had -- I mean, that was certainly never expected. And after the election, I started seeing little, you know, tidbits in the press, I thought it was absurd. I thought, you know, this is the kind of silly stuff that ends up in the press. And then when he called and asked me to come see him, and we had our first conversation, I said, you know, I really don't think I'm the person to do this, I want to go back to my life. I really feel like I owe it to the people of New York. And I gave him a bunch of other names of people who I thought would be great secretaries of state. But he was quite persistent and very persuasive. And, you know, ultimately it came down to my feeling that, number one, when your president asks you to do something for your country, you really need a good reason not to do it. Number two, if I had won and I had asked him to please help me serve our country, I would have hoped he would say yes. And finally, I looked around our world and I thought, you know, we are in just so many deep holes that everybody had better grab a shovel and start digging out.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Final question. The Economist magazine said this week that the question you raised in that famous "3 a.m." ad is right back in the center of American politics.

Has the president answered it for you?

CLINTON: Absolutely. And, you know, the president in his public actions and demeanor, and certainly in private with me and with the national security team, has been strong, thoughtful, decisive, I think he is doing a terrific job. And it's an honor to serve with him.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Madam Secretary, thank you very much.

CLINTON: Thanks. Good to talk to you.

UPDATED After the Obama Speech: Israel Re-Positions on Settlements, Two-State Solution

Related Post: Jerusalem - Obama the Pragmatist Puts A Challenge to Israel
Related Post: After the Obama Speech - Hamas Asks, "Is He Ready to Walk the Way He Talks?"

UPDATE: Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, to seize the initiative or to fend off US pressure, declared at the start of today's Cabinet meeting that he would deliver "a major speech" next week on Israeli foreign policy: ""We want to achieve peace with the Palestinians and with the countries of the Arab world, while attempting to reach maximum understanding with the U.S. and our friends around the world."

Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports, "Senior U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy George Mitchell, say they might propose immediate talks on setting Israel's border along the West Bank." This is a clever counter to Israel's position that it should not halt the construction of settlements, as "those blocs will remain in Israel under a final-status agreement". Washington has thus upped the ante, forcing Tel Aviv to consider a border (and thus a two-state) resolution.

It may be less than 48 hours since President Obama's speech in Cairo, but the US and Israel are already manoeuvring --- and testing each other --- over Palestine.

The Netanyahu Government appears to be giving some ground in the face of Obama's strong line for a two-state solution and a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israel Radio reports that "officials in Jerusalem assessed that Israel will eventually have no other option but to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state".

The move is tactical, conceding on the general, long-term aim so Israel can hold the line on immediate objectives: "If Netanyahu agrees to adopt the road map peace plan, he will prevent Obama's administration from pressuring Israel into accepting the establishment of a Palestinian state in different circumstances." Specifically, "[Israeli] senior diplomats involved in preparing US envoy George Mitchell's upcoming visit to Israel reportedly said that Netanyahu will insist on continued settlement construction to accommodate natural growth".

And, beyond Netanyahu, there were other signs of Israelis digging in on the settlements question. Hours after Obama's speech, settlers and activists rebuilt an illegal outpost dismantled the previous day by security forces. On Friday morning, settlers constructed a new outpost, complete with a synagogue a wooden structure called an "Obama Hut". An activist declared:

[Obama is] an Arab Muslim and a gentile, he is fighting against the Jewish people and has declared that he will continue to do so. We already stated our intention to continue to build, no matter who is fighting us - Egypt, Germany or the US."

In response, Washington sent out get-tough signals. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared at a Friday news conference, "I do not recall any agreement between Israel and George Bush's… previous government, according to which Israel will be authorized to extend the construction of settlements in the West Bank." Following up Clinton's statement, American officials told Israeli counterparts that the US would delay moving its Embassy form Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for six months.

Jerusalem: Obama the Pragmatist Puts A Challenge to Israel

Related Post: After the Obama Speech - Hamas Asks, “Is He Ready to Walk the Way He Talks?”
Related Post: After the Obama Speech: Israel Re-Positions on Settlements, Two-State Solution

On Friday, the Obama Administration announced that it was delaying the decision on moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for another six months.

The decision is significant in two ways. First, it separates Obama the President from Obama the Presidential candidate. Last spring, when he was still not quite the Democratic nominee for President, Obama declared to the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

Second, the delay is a gesture of goodwill to Arab states, hoping that they in return will make some symbolic step of reconciliation with Israel. Leaders of these states would prefer a longer-term US suspension of the move to Jerusalem but will weclome this as an initial signal from Washington in the start-up of the peace process.

With this decision, Obama the "pragmatist" has again come to the fore, rebuffing the declaration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 21 May that “Jerusalem would be the capital of Israel forever”. On the same day, Obama outlined this pragmatism in an  interview with C-SPAN:

SCULLY: Your Senior Advisor David Axelrod describes you as a pragmatist, what does that mean?

OBAMA: Well, I think what it means is that I don’t approach problems by asking myself, is this a conservative – is there a conservative approach to this or a liberal approach to this, is there a Democratic or Republican approach to this. I come at it and say, what’s the way to solve the problem, what’s the way to achieve an outcome where the American people have jobs or their health care quality has improved or our schools are producing well educated workforce of the 21st century.

And I am willing to tinker and borrow and steal ideas from just about anybody if I think they might work. And we try to base most of our decisions on what are the facts, what kind of evidence is out there, have programs or policies been thought through.

I spend a lot of time sitting with my advisors and just going through a range of options. And if they are only bringing me options that have been dusted off the shelf, that are the usual stale ideas, then a lot of times I ask them, well, what do our critics say, do they have ideas that maybe we haven’t thought of.

Now that issue of pragmatism crosses to Israel. Given the Friday decision and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's guarantee that East Jerusalem would be the capital of the Palestinian state, how does Netanyahu --- facing a difficult position in his Cabinet and with Israeli public opinion --- respond?

Obama's Strategy in the Middle East: Resetting with Rhetoric One More Time

One useful way of considering tomorrow's grand Middle Eastern speech by President Obama is to recall that it was supposed to be delivered three or four months ago. Soon after the election, Obama's advisors briefed the press that the new President, within weeks of the Inauguration, would be addressing the world from Cairo. His high hopes for a new region, with the vision that long-term enemies could live and progress together, would be followed by talks fostered by US representatives.

Israel's invasion of Gaza ruined that plan, so the Obama White House went to Plan B. Obama's special envoy, George Mitchell, and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made high-profile trips to the region; there were specific missions by diplomats, such as Jeffrey Feltman's and Daniel Shapiro's trip to Damascus. Middle Eastern leaders --- Abdullah of Jordan, Netanyahu of Israel, Abbas of the Palestinian Authority --- came to Washington.

The only hitch is that, after all the travel and photo opportunities, there has been no notable advance. Israel, now led by the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, has not only balked at any prospect of talks that would lead to a Palestinian state or a headline measure such as a freeze on settlement expansion in Jerusalem and the West Bank. And, with Tel Aviv making no movement, Arab governments have pulled away from the symbolic advance of "recognition", for example, by allowing overflights of their countries by Israeli commercial planes.

So Obama takes the podium in Cairo, after talks in Saudi Arabia today, empty-handed. Speaking to the Israeli Parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly slapped down the American demand on settlements --- his Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, is in the US offering the "compromise" of "dismantling unauthorized settlement outposts", which does nothing to address the American concern about legally-authorized construction. Obama, rather weakly, told the BBC that he would look to Arab States to offer some measures for a regional peace process, knowing (I suspect) that there is no prospect of that. Saudi Arabia wants some signal from Tel Aviv that the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, launched by Riyadh, is a starting platform. Damascus, with Israel not even creeping towards a resumption of indirect talks, plays a waiting game.

What, oh what, can this President do? Well, he will do what he has done best so far. He will by-pass the specific difficulties with the clarion call to engagement based on mutual respect and interests. It worked in his Inaugural Speech, it worked in the Al-Arabiya television interview in January, and it worked in his address in Ankara (which is now our #1 story in the last eight months and continues to be in the Top 5 on most days). Obama's rhetoric may be derided by some domestic critics for its refusal to situate Islam as subservient to "American values" and for his "apologies" for past actions in US foreign policy, but it has succeeded with many overseas listeners precisely because it recognises those listeners, rather than demanding adherence first to an American position.

That is why, in recent days, Obama and his advisors have shifted from discussion of particular elements in a "peace process" to the general statement, repeated on two occasions by the President in his interview with National Public Radio on Monday, that it is "early in the process". The President will undoubtedly mention (according to McClatchy Newspapers, "forcefully endorse") a Palestinian state, but he will set out no timetable or specific steps towards that state. He will cite "areas of mutual interest" with Arab and Islamic countries but will be more concrete in his suggestions on defeating "violent extremism" than on negotiations toward political and economic agreements.

One could argue, of course, that is still quite an achievement after 4+ months in office, especially as every US President since Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 has pursued an Arab-Israeli settlement and none --- with the notable exception of Jimmy Carter --- has had a lasting success. And it looks like Obama will wow his observers in the American media (with the exception, of course, of ardently pro-Israeli outlets and of Bush Administration supporters who cling to the fiction that "democracy promotion" was the primary aim of that President's eight years in office). The working consensus is "a brave and possibly historic effort" with "an evenhanded approach", and Obama's rhetorical power is likely to sustain that praise.

(Beyond well-meaning support for the President, there are the more troubling hurrahs of self-serving sycophancy. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, after preening that he told Obama a joke during their 20 minutes of phone time, offers without further awareness or reflection: "The president has no illusions that one speech will make lambs lie down with lions. Rather, he sees it as part of his broader diplomatic approach that says: If you go right into peoples’ living rooms, don’t be afraid to hold up a mirror to everything they are doing, but also engage them in a way that says ‘I know and respect who you are.’ You end up — if nothing else — creating a little more space for U.S. diplomacy. And you never know when that can help.")

The issue, however, is whether Obama's audience in the Middle East and beyond will settle for feel-good but abstract advances. US supporters of the President are exalting his forthright stance on Israeli settlements, but the fact remains that Tel Aviv has been equally forthright so far in rebuffing Obama. If that intransigence continues, Washington's Plan B is vague, limited so far to talk of not guaranteeing an American veto in defence of Israel in the United Nations Security Council (and not even mentioning, as the George H.W. Bush Administration did, withholding of US economic and military aid).

And, of course, the settlements are only Tel Aviv's first line of defence against an attack for a two-state Israel-Palestine resolution. If Washington gets its way, there will then be the issue of the Israeli wall cutting across the West Bank, and then the issue of the status of Jerusalem, and then the Palestinian civilian "right of return" to the lands they lost in 1948, and then the Israeli military's "right of return" to the West Bank if it perceives a security threat, and then the small matter of a place called Gaza.

One might respond that Israel-Palestine is only one issue in the complexities of the region. True, but it is a touchstone issue (rather than, for example, Israel's preferred option of Iran). Symbolically, the failure to get a resolution that accords not respect but a meaningful economic and political status for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza will be held up by others, whether for the benevolent reason that they see it as an essential case of justice and rights or for the less-than-benevolent reason that they want to divert attention from issues in their own communities and countries or the very malevolent reason that they want to justify hostile and often violent action against perceived enemies.

But, for those who want a context beyond Israel and Palestine (or, rather, Israel and the West Bank of the Palestinian Authority), Obama has set himself even bigger problems. There are the questions of how Obama can walk the tight-rope between support for political freedom and US alliances, powerfully demonstrated by the location of the President's speech, with far-from-democratic regimes. A less noted but just as significant difficulty with "local" politics emerged in a question from National Public Radio:

You’ve mentioned the — many times, the importance of reaching out to Iran with an open hand; trying to engage that country. Are you also willing to try to engage with Hezbollah or Hamas?

Obama responded with a pretty firm "they can just shove off":

Iran is a huge, significant nation-state that has — you know, has, I think, across the international community been recognized as such. Hezbollah and Hamas are not. And I don’t think that we have to approach those entities in the same way.

The President might as well have said "illegitimate". When the NPR questioner persisted, "Does that change with [Hezbollah's] electoral gains?", Obama refused to grant the political party --- which is likely to be a significant, if not dominant, entity in Lebanon's ruling coalition after this month's elections --- any status:

If — at some point — Lebanon is a member of the United Nations. If at some point they are elected as a head of state, or a head of state is elected in Lebanon, that is a member of that organization, then that would raise these issues. That hasn’t happened yet.

There was a bit more flexibility --- but only a bit --- with Hamas, as Obama said "the discussions...could potentially proceed" if Hamas accepted the conditions of the US-UK-EU-Russia Quartet.

The danger for the President is that, for all his talk of respect and equality, many will see him continuing rather than renouncing the US priority of getting the "right" governments. Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Beirut in the midst of the electoral campaign did not go unnoticed by Lebanese observers. There are suspicions, after a West Bank firefight that killed two leading commanders of Hamas' military wing, that the US is supporting (and possibly prompting) the Palestinian Authority's crackdown on its rival for power. Maybe, in the context of a grand speech, these are just troubling and tangential details. In the absence of an American strategy that offers concrete measures as well as rhetoric, however, the details can take on significance.

I'm not sure that I want to share Robert Fisk's dark vision of tomorrow's events: "I haven't met an Arab in Egypt – or an Arab in Lebanon, for that matter – who really thinks that Obama's 'outreach' lecture in Cairo on Thursday is going to make much difference." On the other hand, I am just as unsettled by talk from the White House that they are "re-setting" the Middle East.

Because, as any gamer knows, you don't hit the Reset button when you are doing well. And while that might bring a change in fortunes, if you keep hitting Reset (the Inaugural Speech, the Al-Arabiya talk, Ankara, now Cairo), an observer may begin to think that no one ever wins.