Several critical issues of unfinished business in the Middle East face President Barack Obama as he begins his second term. Washington must become more engaged come January because these issues will directly impact regional stability and security and U.S. interests and personnel in the region.

The issues include the Syrian uprising and increasing atrocities by extremist elements within the uprising, the Arab Spring and the future of democratic transitions, the growing influence of radical Salafi “jihadism” across the Arab world, Bahrain, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, Pakistan, and Guantanamo and global terrorism.

The Obama administration’s engagement in these issues in the past year has been marginal and uneven, influenced largely by domestic politics and to some degree the ghost of Libya. Washington’s public support for democracy following the start of the Arab Spring was welcomed in the region, especially as dictators in Tunisia and Egypt fell precipitously.

The U.S. image became more tarnished, however, as repression escalated in Bahrain against the Shia majority and as Assad’s killing machine became more vicious, and Syria descended into a civil war.

Washington’s benign response to repression and torture in Bahrain, according to advocates of this policy, is justified by the presence of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and the special relationship with Saudi Arabia. Yet, the U.S. and its Western allies have not used their significant leverage in either country to advance democracy. Nor has the Fleet deterred the Al Khalifa regime from repressing the pro-democracy movement.

The ghost of Libya and the U.S. presidential election also drove Obama’s hesitancy to act against the Syrian dictator. During the foreign policy presidential debate before the U.S. elections, President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney argued lamely that Syria was different from Libya, and therefore the U.S. military even under the NATO umbrella should not be used against Assad.

The fate of emerging Arab democracies and the legitimate aspirations of millions of Arab youth, which the U.S. and many countries worldwide have endorsed, should not be held hostage to political expediency or become a casualty of electoral politics.

U.S. prestige and Obama’s credibility at home and abroad will be tested by whether Washington stands with the peoples of the region against their entrenched dictators, regardless of the so-called Libyan model. Calls for justice and dignity in the Arab uprisings signaled a historic moment that resonated across the globe. The U.S. should embrace this moment and place itself on the right side of history.

President Obama was hailed across the Arab Muslim world in June 2009 when he called for engaging credible indigenous communities on the basis of common interests and mutual respect. A retreat from those ideals would be disastrous for the U.S. and its allies, especially as regime remnants and radical Salafis endeavour to derail the democratic process.

An autocratic tribal ruler in Manama, who has just revoked the citizenship of 31 Bahraini nationals, or a brutal dictator in Damascus should not turn the clock back on the moral inroads that Washington made in the region in the post-Bush era.

The unfolding of events at a dizzying speed and increasing threats to U.S. interests and personnel demand serious attempts to address theses critical issues. In his second-term, President Obama cannot remain oblivious to rising sectarianism, growing Salafi extremism, continued repression, and suppression of minorities and women.

On day one after taking office, the president must turn his full attention to Syria.

Assad must be forced out, and soon. Over 25,000 Syrians have been killed since the uprising began in early 2011, and equal numbers have been “disappeared” by the regime. Hundreds of thousands have become refugees. Atrocities committed by the regime and by some of the rebels are inflicting untold suffering on innocent civilians in Syria.

The Syrian uprising, like those in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, started peacefully. Regime intransigence and repression, however, forced the uprising to become violent. Lawlessness and the porous borders have opened Syria to radical “jihadists” from neighbouring Arab countries.

Whereas, the uprising was initially non-ideological and non-religious, the incoming “jihadists” are Sunni Salafis bent on fighting a religious war against an “infidel” dictator. These “jihadists” have exploited the factionalism of the opposition for their intolerant religious extremism.

They also gained acceptance by the poorly armed rebels because they brought in weapons and money from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and elsewhere. The rise of violent “jihadism” in Syria had been a direct consequence of continued regime intransigence.

A prolonged proxy war between Iran, which supports Assad, and Saudi Arabia, which supports the uprising, over Syria and a resurgent radical Salafi “jihad” within the insurgency cannot be good for regional stability and for the international community.

How to speed up Assad’s exit? Short of putting boots on the ground, Washington and its NATO allies, especially the UK, France, and Turkey, should declare a no-fly zone and provide the Free Syrian Army with adequate anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to fight the regime’s military machine. NATO should seek the consent of Arab and Asian countries for the Syria initiative, including patrolling the no-fly zone.

Media reports reveal that Turkey, with U.S. approval, has deployed Patriot missiles close to the Syrian border. This action seems to signal Turkey’s intention to create and possibly defend a no-fly zone. President Obama and other NATO leaders should vigorously push this action forward.

Syrian refugees cannot spend another winter in tents and under intolerable conditions.

NATO partners also should help streamline the opposition groups and recognise whatever group emerges as a legitimate political representative of Syria. Admittedly, factionalism among the rebel groups on the ground and within the Syrian National Council outside the country is a major impediment to diplomatic recognition and international action.

Once a unified leadership emerges, NATO should provide it with logistics, intelligence, and command and control training. Furthermore, Washington and London should put the Assad regime on notice that attacking Syria’s neighbours or using chemical and biological weapons in any form against any target will result in a massive military response.

Lakhdar Brahimi’s U.N.-Arab mission to Syria has failed to persuade Assad to stop the killing, and any talk of a temporary ceasefire is no more than wishful thinking. Russian and Chinese obduracy in the U.N. Security Council on Syria justifies an immediate and more robust NATO action against the regime. The Syrian dictator has already rejected British Prime Minister David Cameron’s offer for a safe passage out of Syria.

It’s morally reprehensible for the international community to remain insensitive to the continued atrocities against the Syrian people, whether by the regime or the opposition. Moral platitudes no longer cut it.

Once the regime is toppled, the international community should help the post-Assad government with economic recovery and empower the Syrian business community and entrepreneurial civil society to start creating jobs. When that happens, the “Arab Spring” would rightfully claim its fifth trophy.

*Emile Nakhleh is former director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at CIA and author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim world.

The Israeli attack seems imminent. Israeli blogger Richard Silverstein circulates a leaked “shock and awe” strategy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak hard zionism to decapitate, paralyze Iran, and New York University professor Alon Ben-Meir warns against believing that Israel is bluffing.

Johan Galtung

Israel may prefer doing so with the U.S. Some believe the nuclear bomb story, others believe that the purpose is Israel as a Jewish state from the Nile to the Euphrates, the Stern Gang charter also promoted by Netanyahu’s late father. The two stories do not exclude each other.

Iran is a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) observer. An attack may trigger responses from the core members, Russia and China. What Israel may gain in Saudi Arabia Sunni support they may lose in considerably more important parts of the world in diplomatic and economic relations. SCO is huge. There is also the real danger of a world war of NATO against SCO.

Iranian devastating responses will come before decapitation is effective, and, maybe those heads are well protected and have alternate systems? Israelis are clever at destructive work, but may also underestimate their enemies.

An old Jewish proverb says, “The best way to get rid of your enemies is to make them your friends.” Bombing Iran would win Israel no true friends, it would only ignite Iran’s desire to develop nuclear weapons, with full understanding from most of the world.

To prove its claim of purely peaceful uses of nuclear energy, Iran should open its nuclear facilities to unimpeded inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But Israel should do the same. The double-standard, “we have a right to possess nuclear weapons, you don’t” is untenable.

Uri Avnery, in “A Putsch Against War: Generals and secret police chiefs get together for an attack on the politicians,” writes: “In our country we are now seeing a verbal uprising against the elected politicians by a group of current and former army generals who condemn the government’s threat to start a war against Iran, and some of them condemning the government’s failure to negotiate with the Palestinians for peace.”

Some call anyone who criticizes Israeli policies an “anti-Semite” or a “self-hating Jew”. But who is a better friend, when someone walks blindfolded towards an abyss: who says, “go right ahead, you are on the right track”, or who says, “stop, turn around, you are in grave danger”? Do not try to turn attention away from Israel’s real crises, described by Peter Beinart in “The Crisis of Zionism” and Gershom Gorenberg in “The Unmaking of Israel” (2011).

The solution is a Middle East nuclear-free zone including Iran and Israel. 64 percent of Israelis are in favor, the same in Iran, provided Israel participates. Negotiate such an agreement, and there would be a sigh of relief all over–and both countries would be embraced.

The West is now paying for the 1953 CIA-MI6 coup ousting Iran’s democratically elected president Muhammad Mossadegh and bringing in 25 years of Shah dictatorship. Apologies might carry us far toward solving the “nuclear crisis” which will get worse unless a miracle happens: the U.S./U.K. choose rationality, mediation and conciliation rather than violence and escalation.

Such miracles do occur: Margaret Thatcher sent British troops to Northern Ireland, refusing to talk with “terrorists”, letting hunger strikers die. Tony Blair chose a different course from what he practised with regard to Muslims: he began a dialogue with Sinn Fein, and started withdrawing the British army. Since then no more IRA bombs have exploded in England. Netanyahu=Thatcher.

Is Anglo-America strong enough to admit past mistakes? Or are they still so addicted to belligerence that they prefer another major mistake?

Or, could it be that the whole nuclear issue is only a pretext to pave the way for the dream, Israel between Nile and Euphrates?

That will never work. Israel can attain lasting security only through peace with its neighbours, like in a Middle East Community of Israel with its five Arab neighbours, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine, recognized according to international law, 1967 borders with some exchanges, Israeli cantons on the West bank and Palestinian cantons in northwest Israel. A community modeled after the six-state European Economic Community of 1958, one of the most successful peace projects in history, ending centuries of war between many of the member states.

Decisions would have to be by consensus. Start slowly with free flow of goods, persons, services, ideas; settlement and investment later. Build confidence. Change a relation badly broken by naqba into a peaceful, evolving relation.

Add an open-ended Conference on Security and Cooperation in West Asia, where all parties are at the table and all issues on the table, modeled after the 1972-75 Helsinki Conference, which prepared the end of the Cold War. It can lead to an Organization for Security and Cooperation in West Asia, similar to the OSCE. Entirely feasible, with some will. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

* Johan Galtung, a professor of Peace Studies, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University. He is author of many books on peace and related issues, including “50 Years – 100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives”.