Obama's last gamble

The last act is often the best, and Barack Obama's decision to order the U.S. to abstain in UN Security Council votes might be one of the most devastating of his presidency. However, it was probably inevitable.

Israeli-U.S. relations have sunk to a new low. Apparently, Obama didn't like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the first time they met, and the feeling was mutual. Both considered each other arrogant, and there were structural differences in views on Middle East developments.

A focal point has become Netanyahu's policy of incessant encroachment and settlement building in occupied territories. There is no sane person who cannot see where such a policy is leading.

There was a time when politicians of the Israeli left opposed this policy, but their heyday in local politics is long gone. As a result, this single incident at the UN has become a cause celebre for Palestinian groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Netanyahu also suffers from a Messianic complex, and likes to regard himself as the "Savior of his people." That inevitably clouds his judgment about Iran and Palestine, and leads him on to an even more assertive foreign policy.

But, there's a deeper game being played here, and it is of a structural nature.

Over the last decade or so, Americans, as well as much of the rest of the Western world, have grown tired of the Middle East tensions. Hopes of transforming it into a region of peace have faded, as has the hope of promoting democracy. The region is beset with ancient cultural feuds, and is considered to have become a strategic hell, with ever declining importance among strategic community.

The demographics are exploding, and there is no economic growth in sight. Added to that are the uniquely regressive cultural conflicts and great power sectarian games.

The Western public is fed up with trying to solve such cultural conflicts in a faraway region with which they have little in common, other than terrorism and the hordes of refugees on the move. That is evident in hundreds of PEW surveys, where Americans and Westerners in general want their leaders to get out of Middle East. Obama, and Trump, both,have somehow tapped into this feeling.

If one notices, there is a qualitative similarity between Obama and Trump, which makes them different from McCain, Romney, Rubio or Clinton, in the sense, they are both cold-eyed and transactional. Obama, despite his humanitarian rhetoric, has perhaps been the most cynical president in recent history.

The policy he tried is called "buck-passing" in international relations, where Obama tried to let regional rivals deal with regional problems, as he calculated that, in the grand strategy of the U.S., the Middle East was of relatively low importance, a claim supported by much academic research.

However, the downside is that, in order to gamble away the Middle East's future to Iran and Russia, Obama had to turn to an appeal to Iranian hardliners that required him to be harsh to Israel.

I'm not saying that is the only cause; Israel itself is responsible for this fiasco, but it must have played on Obama's mind that Israel is not quite acting like a proper client state, given the fact that it is almost uniquely dependant on American financial and technological and diplomatic backing. It was a way of making that point clear to Netanyahu.

Such is the curse of time, that everything changes inevitably, even alliances. The importance of Israel was also tied to U.S. due to the curious geostrategic interests in the region. As that fades, slowly and steadily, the importance of Israel also fades.

Younger generations of voters, and policy makers, who were born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, fail to comprehend why the U.S. would ally itself with states who, for no reason, listen to none of the dictates of the bigger power. And if Israel cannot mend its ways and change according to the needs of the times, it stands to lose the future generosity of its American benefactors, no matter who occupies the White House.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm

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