Middle East Let Down?

Everyone agrees that Obama is great with fancy rhetoric, but initial reaction to his 'Arab Spring' speech isn't exactly positive.

U.S. President Barack Obama's speech this afternoon on the future of the Middle East laid out his administration's plans to foster economic and democratic growth in Egypt and Tunisia, issued an ultimatum to Syria, condemned Iran, and made an official commitment to seeing Israel return to its pre-1967 borders to make way for a Palestinian state – an awful lot of territory to cover in 5,400 words.

The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl notes that Obama showed “some real steel” in his speech, enunciating both specific policy measures in Egypt and Tunisia, while not mincing words with both rivals such as Iran nor long-time allies such as Israel and Bahrain. But he felt Syria's Bashar al-Assad got off lightly. “Assad, he said, 'has a choice: He can lead that transition [to democracy] or get out of the way.,'” writes Diehl. “Plenty of Syrians will wonder why a dictator who has used tanks and artillery to gun down hundreds of unarmed civilians should still be regarded as the potential leader of democratic reforms.”

The Independent's eminent Robert Fisk, speaking with Al Jazeera, was thoroughly unimpressed: “It was the same old story ... Israel cannot be deligitimised ... No peace can be imposed on either party ... It was a boring speech - very boring with lots of rhetoric about Arab revolutions, which of course he did nothing to help.”

Salon's Justin Elliot couldn't find one iota of significant policy announcements beyond economic aid to Egypt and Tunisia, and felt that any mention of Saudi Arabia was conspicuously absent from a speech meant to address human rights in the Middle East. “In short, Obama felt he needed to play the role of world leader by delivering a big response to the popular Arab protests, but he doesn't want to actually do much.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu certainly wasn't too keen on Obama's support of the pre-1967 borders. A flurry of tweets sent by his media director and aggregated by ABC's Jake Tapper suggest Obama and Netanyahu might soon be at loggerheads over the border and the rights of Palestinian refugees. Netanyahu's office says a 2004 agreement between the U.S. and Israel committed the latter from “not having to withdraw to the 1967 lines, which are both indefensible and which would leave major Israeli population centers in Judea and Samaria beyond those lines.” As well, they tweeted that “without a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem outside the borders of Israel, no territorial concession will bring peace.”