Next U.S. president will need new ideas for Iraq and Palestine

Endy M. Bayuni , The Jakarta Post , Doha | Wed, 02/20/2008 1:18 PM | Headlines

Whoever wins the November presidential election in the United States will be likely take a less unilateralist approach to the war in Iraq, and will also immediately get down to push for a settlement in the Israel-Palestine conflict, American foreign policy pundits say.

Iraq and Palestine are two major foreign policy issues that are likely to determine the future of relations between the United States and the Islamic world, and panelists speaking at a forum cosponsored by the Brookings Institution here on Monday agreed that the prospect for improved ties looked much better than under the current George W. Bush administration.

But while these experts concurred that there would be a quick change of policy on Iraq, anyone who moves into the White House will not have many new initiatives when it comes to Israel and Palestine, except that he or she would probably move quickly to try to tackle the problem.

Whether Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama, or the Republican presumed nominee John McCain, they have all indicated plans to take a new approach to Iraq, the pundits said in the three-day U.S.-Islamic World forum which wound up on Monday.

Sen. Evan Bayh III (D-Indiana) told the meeting that the new Iraq policy would be less ideological and more practical, less military and more diplomatic and partnership-based.

"America is not so rich or powerful. We need allies and partners," said Bayh, who himself has been rumored to be a potential vice presidential candidate for either candidate.

The new president will also be constrained by economic realities, and would likely be preoccupied with cutting back on the huge budget deficit, he added.

Both Obama and Clinton have indicated that they would be going for a quick but phased withdrawal of combat troops, leaving behind troops with the mission of protecting U.S. interests in Iraq, helping counter-terrorism efforts, and training Iraqi soldiers, according to Susan Rice, senior fellow at the Brooking Institute, who followed closely the two Democratic candidates.

A Democratic president would have been elected on a mandate to withdraw American troops, she said, pointing out that the majority of Americans now believed that it was a mistake for the U.S. to have gone into Iraq in the first place.

While McCain had at one time indicated he was prepared to keep the U.S. troops in Iraq for another 100 years if they were needed there, the Republican senator has always had a strong commitment to alliances which differentiated him from Bush, said Peter Rodman, another senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.

Rodman said that in spite of the economic constraints, McCain would continue to pursue the objective of making America strong, stressing that a strong America was good for the rest of the world. "The world has a lot more to fear from a weak America than a strong America."

On the Israel-Palestine conflict, Samuel Berger, former national security advisor to President Bill Clinton, said any Democrat president would make the issue a priority from day one.

"It would not be left in some parking lot for seven years," Berger said in a veiled criticism of Bush, who only took up the issue in 2007 by holding the Annapolis international conference.

Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the Israel-Palestine issue would likely remain a bipartisan task, and concurred that now after the Annapolis peace process was underway, the issue would remain on the front burner of the new administration next year.

The more important question, according to Haas, was what the new administration would be prepared to do to push for a final agreement, and whether it was willing to put in the necessary resources.

Berger said that looking at the history of past efforts, he felt pessimistic. "Yet, we need to keep trying."

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