Word: syria
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...raising troop levels, but less to vanquish the Taliban than to gain the leverage to effectively negotiate with them - in hopes of isolating alQaeda from its Afghan allies. He's boosting America's means but narrowing its ends. The same logic underlies his outreach to Iran and Syria and his rhetoric about groups like Hizballah and Hamas. Obama's not trying to end the war on terrorism, but he is trying to downsize it - so that it doesn't overwhelm the U.S.'s capacities and crowd out his other priorities. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...
...even as it works to remove Iran from the U.S.'s post-9/11 enemies list, the Obama Administration is trying something similar with another traditional Middle Eastern irritant, Syria. Under George W. Bush, Syria got the cold-war treatment as well: rhetorical belligerence, veiled military threats, a withdrawal of the U.S. ambassador. Under Obama, by contrast, Middle East envoy George Mitchell has been to Damascus, the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister has been to Washington, and the rhetoric has become noticeably less hostile...
...with the Soviet Union. This double outreach - to both Moscow and Beijing - gave Nixon more leverage over each, since each communist superpower feared that the U.S. would favor the other, leaving it geopolitically isolated. On a smaller scale, that's what Obama is trying to do with Iran and Syria today. By reaching out to both regimes simultaneously, he's making each anxious that the U.S. will cut a deal with the other, leaving it out in the cold. It's too soon to know whether Obama's game of divide and conquer will work, but by narrowing the post...
...Gaining Leverage Lurking behind Obama's different view of Iran and Syria is a different view of the terrorist movements they support: Hizballah and Hamas. For Bush, the only distinction among Hizballah, Hamas and al-Qaeda was that the first two terrorized Israelis, not Americans, and since Israel was the U.S.'s close ally, that was no difference at all. But the Obama Administration has hinted at a different perspective: a recognition that unlike al-Qaeda, Hizballah and Hamas are nationalist movements with deep roots in their particular societies. That means that unlike al-Qaeda, they can't simply...
...government's caving in to Hizballah and Syria will have its consequences: most importantly it's a message to those in Lebanon - and the wider Middle East - who put their trust in the U.S. and political reform that guns are still more powerful than votes. Watching the Syrian-backed opposition hamstring the investigation into his father's murder will have been a bitter pill for Hariri and his followers to swallow. When the time comes to settle scores, they may be more likely to choose bullets rather than ballots...