Europe's Obama Euphoria Wanes (GERMANY)

Anne-Marie Slaughter, the new director of policy planning at the US State Department, was sitting on the stage at a conference on trans-Atlantic relations in Brussels. "Europe has a phone number," she said, and there was a satisfied murmuring of approval among her mainly European audience. Everyone remembers the famous remark by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who complained in the 1970s that he didn't know who to call when he wanted to talk to Europe.

But when the moderator asked Slaughter if she had that number on her, she was evidently caught off guard. "I have three," she replied. The hall erupted into loud laughter.

Slaughter quickly corrected herself, explaining that Europe was simply organized differently, with an EU "troika" representing the bloc on foreign policy issues, but that the EU was still able to conduct an effective foreign policy. Nevertheless, the exchange reflected a degree of uncertainty in relations with Europe ahead of US President Barack Obama's first major foreign trip.

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US Tries to Defuse a Ticking Timebomb (UK)

All eyes will be on Barack Obama at the G20 summit this week. Among the great and good, the dull and dreary, in London’s Docklands he will be the only superstar. But the young president knows that what is decided inside a gleaming tower block in Tel Aviv will have more bearing on whether his presidency is accounted a success or failure than this talking shop.

High in the defence ministry building Major-General Amos Gilad points to a photograph on his wall of three Israeli F-15 jets flying over the site of Auschwitz. “I put it here to remind us of what happened and what may happen,” says the old fire-eater. The press claims he has been the real leader of the state for the past six months while the politicians have been out wooing the voters.

On his shelves one book holds pride of place. It is a story written in childhood by Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped almost three years ago by Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza strip. As Israel’s security and foreign policy chief, Gilad has been negotiating for Shalit’s release. He is prepared to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to secure the return of one soldier. The Hollywood myth of Saving Private Ryan is national policy here.

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A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

By Barack Obama

Good morning. Today, I am announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review that I ordered as soon as I took office. My Administration has heard from our military commanders and diplomats. We have consulted with the Afghan and Pakistani governments; with our partners and NATO allies; and with other donors and international organizations. And we have also worked closely with members of Congress here at home. Now, I'd like to speak clearly and candidly to the American people.

The situation is increasingly perilous. It has been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks against our troops, our NATO allies, and the Afghan government have risen steadily. Most painfully, 2008 was the deadliest year of the war for American forces.

Many people in the United States - and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much - have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan? After so many years, they ask, why do our men and women still fight and die there? They deserve a straightforward answer.

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Obama's Afghan Spaghetti Western (HONG KONG)

As the Barack Obama administration releases the details of its strategic review of Afghanistan's "good war", an acronym-plagued global public opinion is confronted with a semantic dilemma: what in the world is happening to George W Bush's "global war on terror" (GWOT), then slyly rebranded by the Pentagon as "The Long War" (TLW)?

It all started when a mid-level bureaucrat in the Obama administration's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent an e-mail to the Pentagon stressing the White House was finally axing GWOT and giving birth to the delightfully Orwellian Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).

As it happens, no Taliban will be OCOed - at least for the moment. The White House and the Pentagon still rely on GWOT. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell was adamant: "I've never received such a directive." Asked by a reporter what nomenclature he would prefer, Morrell took no prisoners: "Another way to refer to it would be, you know, a campaign against extremists who wish to do us harm." So exit GWOT, enter CAEWWTDUH.

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Obama Hosting a National Talk Show (UK)

Barack Obama has become a regular fixture on US television. The President knows that he still has enough novelty value and star power to get the networks to clear their airtime and he's grabbing every chance to dominate the agenda from the bully pulpit.

It is a class act. Although at official events Mr Obama's message is usually scripted and read from teleprompter screens, he can talk his way out of trouble. I was moved to see the President win over US Marines at Camp Lejeune, although he opposed the Iraq war in which 4,000 of their comrades-in-arms lost their lives.

For now, his talk is invariably about the economy. Mr Obama is the most visible new president - not only because he's a great communicator, but because Europe is blaming America for the global economic crisis and looking to Mr Obama to lead the way out it. The President's ubiquity is designed to tell the US that it is in control of its own destiny. He must win this argument if his presidency is to succeed.

Even when the Administration doesn't have the best arguments, or gets badly mauled, the checks and balances of the US Constitution ensure that the country's options are debated at length; considered decisions emerge by a process of attrition.

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Pakistan's Major Threat: U.S. Ignorance (UAE)

U.S. ignorance regarding the ground realities of Pakistan is a source of major threat to Pakistan, both in terms of its internal dynamics and external security concerns. Taking the internal dynamics first, there were the crude U.S. interventions during the nation's reassertion of its self in the context of the long march and the demand for the restoration of the constitutional chief justice – with members of the U.S. Administration trying to bulldoze the opposition political leaders into abandoning the march to Islamabad and into making unholy compromises with their present favorite Pakistani – President Zardari. It is a testimony to the Pakistani people that the U.S. failed in its nefarious designs and at the end of the day had to make conciliatory statements regarding the restoration of Chief Justice Chaudhry. But imperial hubris could not resist sending the CIA chief to Islamabad to coincide with the CJP's date of restoration of office.

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Obama's Exit Strategy for Afghanistan (PAKISTAN)

Talking to CBS TV, US President Barack Obama has said: “What we can’t do is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is going to be able to solve our problems. So what we’re looking for is a comprehensive strategy. And there’s got to be an exit strategy...there’s got to be a sense that this is not perpetual drift”. This remark has immediately given rise to media headings like “US wants out of Afghanistan”. Yet there are other aspects of what Mr Obama has set on foot as his strategy in Afghanistan that point to the other extreme, like reinforcing the American troops there and not stopping the drone attacks.

What the remark clearly represents is President Obama’s sense of the “middle ground”. He is opposed to the intellectual foundations of the strategy that brought on the Iraq war and thus forced Washington to ignore Afghanistan. He wants to avoid the impression that if the Bush Administration was reluctant to take on the Taliban, he is willing to bring a tougher war to Afghanistan. Another impression of military assertion he wants to avoid is linked to the tough envoy Mr Richard Holbrooke whose challenge to the Serbia of Milosevic resulted in the destruction of that recalcitrant state.

Mr Obama’s intellectual repugnance of the neo-con philosophy that underpinned the American adventure in the Middle East and caused a rift with America’s European allies was expressed in his recent comment of admiration for Reinhold Niebuhr’s book The Irony of American History (1952).

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Smart Democracy for the U.S. (LEBANON)

There are several levels of discussion when it comes to democracy promotion in the Middle East. On one level, there is the current debate between icons of American think tanks and policy practitioners on whether post-George W. Bush America should in fact continue supporting democracy promotion in the region, and whether such support should extend to Islamists. On another more micro level, there is the question of what to support, and how to support it.

The Obama administration has in fact inherited several foreign assistance programs to support democratic reform in the region, including the US Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) with its various pillars and programs. MEPI's small, local grants component, administered by the two regional offices in Abu Dhabi and Tunis (with limited oversight from Washington), has been a success. As opposed to the larger grants channeled to American NGOs in the region, small grants projects are led by local organizations directly funded to implement micro-projects based on ideas fleshed out cooperatively between applicants and the regional offices to meet both applicants' and MEPI's priority areas in each country.

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The Olmert Myth and Barak's Problem (ISRAEL)

Even before the tears have dried over the approaching death of Ehud Olmert's government - after a long, drawn-out period at death's door - another new myth is making the rounds: Olmert was a good prime minister.

Not just good, but excellent. Sharp. Decisive. Involved in the details and developments. This is absolutely the opposite of what his defense attorneys claim in his criminal cases. There he is never responsible, had no idea, those were only trivial matters handled by underlings such as Shula Zaken and travel agencies.

The most interesting facet of the Olmert myth, which even the bearers of the tale admit, is that reality on all its levels - security, political, economic and social - is actually quite depressing. A bad situation and a good prime minister is an Israeli miracle.

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Iran targets the US (JAPAN)

The prevention of a nuclear Iran constitutes a top US national security priority. It sheds light on a special aspect of US-Israel relationship: defiance of mutual threats.

Iran pursues nuclear capabilities to advance strategic goals, which are led by the super-goal: hegemony over the Persian Gulf and its natural resources. Those who undermine the super-goal are considered super-enemies, targeted by super-capabilities. Hence, Tehran would use its nuclear power/threat, first and foremost, to force the US and NATO out of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. It would then turn it against Iraq - its arch rival since the seventh century - and against Saudi Arabia, which is considered an apostate regime. All Gulf states are perceived by Iran as a key prize, required in order to control the flow and the price of oil and to bankroll its megalomaniac regional and global aspirations (e.g. leading Islam's drive to dominate the globe).

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Washington and Damascus (EGYPT)

In his January 20 inauguration speech and in subsequent statements, US President Barack Obama has called for establishing new relations with the Muslim world based on common interests and mutual respect. He has also advocated the settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict, notably the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, as well as the combating of terrorism. Although he has not referred specifically to Syria, there is no doubt that Obama recognizes Damascus' significant role in all these crucial issues. Unlike his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who "excommunicated" Syria's President Bashar Assad, Obama wishes to engage him.

A major concern of Obama's is nuclear Iran, its critical role in Iraq and Afghanistan, its strategic military alliance with Syria, its strong ideological links with the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah and its backing of the Palestinian Sunni Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Washington intends to engage Tehran in an attempt to reach agreement on these critical issues, wherein Damascus' role would be rather secondary. But since the prospects of an American-Iranian deal are slim, Washington should pursue an more promising alternative policy of engaging Damascus in a new, bold and visionary strategy for the Middle East.

This new strategy would have three main objectives, indeed challenges.

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Will Obama go beyond the superficial? (EGYPT)

In his first interview with an Arab television network soon after his inauguration, US President Barack Obama confirmed his intention to "engage" right away with "all the major parties" involved in the Middle East.

Such engagement, he went on, would start with "listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating."

Obama has since dispatched his personal envoy to the Middle East, Senator George Mitchell, to do just that. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Acting Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman and a number of other US officials have also been touring the region. Dialogue with Iran has been advanced as the best means to diffuse tension between Tehran and Washington, while inter-Arab reconciliation has been encouraged.

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