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In response to concerns within the Arab World that the US will abandon the Middle East, a view which was sparked by the Obama Administration’s announcement of its new foreign policy to “pivot to Asia”, US officials participating in the Doha Forum affirmed yesterday that the speculation had no solid ground and that America was here to stay.
The ‘pivot to Asia’ is meant to be a strategic rebalancing of the US focus from Europe and the Middle East towards East Asia.
“There is a prevailing view among Arab diplomats, leaders and officials that the US is in the process of extricating itself from the region [due to] a divided political system in Washington, the economic crisis, new domestic natural gas production and strides in developing clean energy which has the US less reliant on imports from the Middle East… That we have lost hope that the Arab Spring is going to bring better days to the region,” said former chair of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs and senior adviser to Covington & Burling LLP Howard Berman. “This is wrong. The US can’t and won’t leave the ME.”
Berman insisted that America “doesn’t turn its back on its allies” and that the security of Israel and a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue is important for the US, adding that the “tragedies that have happened in the Middle East in the recent past push us to assume leadership responsibility to solve the issues”.
Meanwhile, former senior director to the US National Security Council and current executive and corresponding director to the International Institute for Strategic Studies on the US and Middle East Steve Simon stated that the question being asked today is ‘how durable is US commitment to the Middle East?’
“This feeling among the ME sharpened once Obama announced about a year-and-a-half ago to ‘pivot to Asia’. (Militarily speaking) The US has 283 warships with 100 at sea at any one time; 52 are currently deployed to the Indian and Pacific oceans and there is a shift to pull out of Indian Ocean and Gulf by Pentagon over the next 7 years,” he revealed. “The Americans that are campaigning for withdrawals and want to see troops deployed here return home don’t want to see them in Asia. And our intention isn’t to provoke rivals in economy.”
In terms of energy independence, Simon said, the US interests are inextricably bound to the Middle East, adding that the US is a “big factor of democratisation of this part of the world but it’s too costly for us and we can’t go on when our economy is hurting at home”.
“However, neighbouring states can contribute to the process,” he recommended.
Czech Ambassador to Israel Tomas Pojar expressed his views which held that Western focus on the Middle East would not disappear, but it would be less involved.
“We will still be there for Israel,” he said. “The EU and Europe will be more focused on domestic issues and I can imagine the same thing for the US. (In that sense) I don’t think that’s bad news but it depends on the people in the Middle East as to what their future will be.”
He predicted that the Middle East would be divided into two parts with “years of instability and internal fights” but dispelled Western responsibility to support developmental operations and civil society in the region.
“The responsibility will be on this richer side of the Middle East to support peace and development,” Pojar said. “As far as supporting Middle Eastern youth and their job market, don’t expect the cash to come from Europe or the US – we don’t have it. But there is plenty of money here.”