JUST ONE QUESTION: WHERE WAS EVERYBODY WHEN JORDAN CONTROLLED JERUSALEM ET AL

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The Middle East chess game Obama needs to win

By Philip Stephens

Published: July 16 2009 20:11 | Last updated: July 16 2009 20:11

Back in my schooldays a favourite treat was being taken by my father to chess exhibition matches. Striding from board to board behind long wooden trestle tables, the chess masters and grandmasters would play perhaps a dozen games simultaneously. They had time to pause only briefly at each board, but they rarely lost. A (junior) master once offered me a draw. Decades later, I still recall the elation.

Simultaneous chess offers a useful metaphor for Barack Obama’s approach to foreign policy. The US president might have chosen to take a cautious, sequential approach to the lengthy list of global challenges: Iraq first; then Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda; Iran next; climate change, Russia and nuclear proliferation some way down the track; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict towards the end of his term.

Instead, Mr Obama has sprinted from continent to continent with the speed and confidence of a grandmaster. He has made the opening moves in almost all of the important games. In each instance, he has opted for boldness over caution, pushing out his pawns to deploy his bishops and knights at the centre of the board.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, put it well this week when she set out the principles underlying US foreign policy. Speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations, she explained that the administration had made a strategic decision to deal with “the urgent, the important and the long-term all at once”.

The president is not up against novices. He has advanced further in some games than others. In one or two – Afghanistan springs to mind – the best option may be to play for stalemate. Some contests are destined to outlast even a two-term presidency. Others he may be forced to concede.

One of the most pivotal games is being played in the Middle East – in Mr Obama’s effort to re-establish an Arab-Israeli peace process. This is the one the president most wants to win; and he can least afford to lose. It is central to what he promised in Cairo would be a “new beginning” in America’s relationship with Muslims. Some of the most critical moves will be made during the next few weeks.

Mr Obama is the first president since Jimmy Carter to put the Middle East conflict centre-stage at the outset of his presidency. George Mitchell, the former senator turned presidential envoy, has been charged with putting together the elements of a comprehensive peace agreement. If Mr Mitchell can get Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs to sign up in principle, Mr Obama wants to set out the framework by September.

In one dimension, the prospects for the resumption of serious peace negotiations look propitious. By shifting the US position from that of cipher to a supportive but even-handed ally of Israel, the US president has transformed the diplomatic dynamics in the region.

Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, emphasised the importance of the changed mood in delivering the Ditchley Foundation’s annual lecture at the weekend. The international consensus on both the shape of, and urgency for, a settlement has rarely been greater, he said. There was a strong measure of agreement also on the confidence-building steps needed to give momentum to negotiations.

By framing the potential threat from a resurgent Iran as a reason to accelerate rather than defer efforts to achieve a two-state solution, Mr Obama has at once disarmed Israeli hawks and secured more support for a settlement among Arab leaders.

Like the chess player, the US president understands how to marry tactics to strategy. Each move in the putative peace plan is calculated to advance a comprehensive settlement – underwritten by a normalisation of relations between the Arab states and Israel, as well as by the wider international community. As Washington makes overtures to, among others, Syria, the diplomacy of either/or has given way to that of both/and.

The parameters have been set out many times. The point of departure for the borders of a new Palestinian state must be 1967, with land swaps as negotiated between the two sides. Jerusalem must have a status that meets the aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians. Israel must be assured of its security – critically by recognition across the Arab world – and the new Palestinian state of its territorial integrity. Israel will have to give ground on settlements, the Palestinians on the right of return of refugees.

This, though, is the Middle East. If the international context has greatly improved, the facts on the ground are scarcely encouraging. In Benjamin Netanyahu Israel has a prime minister who has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept the principle of a Palestinian state. Mr Netanyahu has thus far refused to accept Mr Obama’s demand that he cease the expansion of Israeli settlements. A settlement freeze is the sine qua non of Palestinian and Arab engagement.

For their part, Palestinians are divided between Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Arab leaders worry about the reaction on the street to anything that looks like a concession to Israel. After talking to senior Palestinian officials during a recent visit to Ramallah, I was not left with the impression of a leadership ready to take big risks for peace.

The paradox on the Israeli side is that most people accept the logic of a two-state solution – if only because in the long term it is the only way Israel can retain its character as a Jewish and democratic state. But in voting for a government led by Mr Netanyahu, the same people have voiced profound doubts that a peace accord is possible without sacrificing security. Hamas’ control of Gaza casts a long shadow.

On the Palestinian side, everyone knows that an agreement is possible only if Hamas can be brought into negotiations. But the hostility between Fatah and Hamas colludes with the deep sense of grievance against Israel to favour inertia. Mr Obama is the best mediator the Palestinians could have hoped for. They do not seem to realise it.

Breaking the deadlock looks as impossible a task as it has proved at every attempt since the Oslo accords. Yet this is the game that most matters for the US president. In this respect, the simultaneous chess analogy is inexact. For chess masters each board represents a discrete challenge, disconnected from the next. For Mr Obama what happens in the Middle East could well tip the outcome of many other games.