Analysis Of The Obama Adminisation’s Middle East Strategy

Barack Obama succeeded George W Bush in 2008. His government applies "smart power", which has features of multilateralism,practicability and flexibility, to guide its global strategy in order to change the prevalence of unilateralism and conservatism during the Bush-era. The global strategy of Obama administration mainly aims at European, the Middle East and the Asian-Pacific region. Above three regions, issues in the Middle East are the toughest and most difficult to solve in the global strategy implementation.In terms of the general situation of the Middle East strategy of Obama administration, this essay divides its strategy into two stages. In spite of disparities in focus and specific strategy in those two stages, they share the same goal – to maintain America’s maximum interests in the Middle East. The focus of the first stage is "contraction". Its specific strategies include strategic contraction in the Middle East, withdrawal of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in batches, pressing ahead with Palestine-Israel peace talks, supporting the Syrian opposition, easing hostility with Iran and encouraging the people in the Middle East to strive for "democracy" and "freedom". The focus of second stage is "anti-terrorism". After the full-blown of Arab Spring in the Middle East in 2011, ISIS came to power, replacing al-Qaeda, which significantly interfere with Obama administration’s Middle East strategy. Therefore, American government was forced to adjust its strategy, including seeking for multilateral cooperation, supporting anti-terrorism forces in the Middle East,la u n c h i n g ai r at t a c k s co or d i n a t e d wi t h Sp e c i a l Fo r c e.During the eight years of Obama administration, there has been progress in easing the Middle East conflicts, solving the Iran’s nuclear issue and fighting against terrorism in certain areas. However, Middle East strategy has not been effective in general. This strategy is limited by internal restriction, external restriction from the Middle East and other international factors. As a result, America’s dominance in the Middle Eastis diluted. Moreover, there are many other problems in the Middle East,such as the unbalance of political power, slow economic development,impact on existing social structures and the spread of terrorism as well as unconventional safety problems. To conclude, these issues may bring great challenge to the next government of the United States.