WASHINGTON: Many Arab-American organizations are holding their annual events this month after Ramadan. The National Council on US-Arab Relations held its 18th Annual Arab-US Policymakers conference in Washington this week.
Almost 1,000 people attended the event, which invited major policymakers, ambassadors and experts on the Middle East to explore and discuss issues and questions relating to contemporary Arab-US relations.
"The conference offered food for thought for Middle East experts, scholars, teachers, military leaders, analysts, investment strategists, specialists in public policy research institutes, and many others eager to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the state of play in Arab-US relations," Dr. John Duke Anthony, President, National Council on US-Arab Relations, told Arab News.
The two-day conference, entitled, "Fresh Visions, Old Realities, New Possibilities: The Impact of Leadership Change on Arab-US Relations," included panel discussions that focused on the Arab journalist’s perspective of hot topics in the region: Iran, Energy, Israel-Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Defense Cooperation, Education and Development, and the Obama Administration.
Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, spoke on the importance of the Saudi-US relationship at the event, which he said included counterterrorism, regional security and trade and investment.
"We need to speak to each other clearly, we consult intensely and we try to engage others in order resolve problems," Al-Jubeir said, then outlined the significant trouble spots in the region.
"When you look at the challenges we face in Pakistan, Afghanistan, with Iran's nuclear program, in Iraq and Lebanon, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in Yemen, in the Horn of Africa, in Sudan - when you look at the challenges we face involving piracy or terrorism, financial crisis, energy situations and trade and investment, I believe that the interest of our two countries to date, at this moment, are as aligned as they have never been before."
Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain, noted that she adhered to the title of the conference. Ambassador Nonoo, who is also a member of Bahrain's Majlis ash-Shura (National Advisory) Council, said: "As a Bahraini woman from a Jewish family who is now Ambassador to the United States, I stand before you as evidence of new possibilities."
Highlighting the geographical reality of Gulf security, Ambassador Nonoo said security concerned all in the region: "For Americans, Gulf security issues are largely matters of foreign policy. But for us, they are matters of survival. This is the perspective from which we view the policies of the new administration just as it was the perspective from which we viewed those of the previous administrations."
Among the many keynote speakers, Charles Freeman, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm) succeeded best at rattling the crowd with his sharp critique.
He blasted the Obama Administration for not following up on the president's outreach to the Middle East.
"The second President Bush bequeathed his successor a set of thoroughly broken policies in the Middle East and the near total estrangement of the United States from former allies and friends in the Arab and Muslim worlds," said Freeman.
"President Obama ... in his speech at Cairo clearly signaled that he recognizes the imperative of solving the Israel-Palestine conflict and repairing American relations with Arabs and Muslims if the United States is to enjoy peace abroad and tranquility at home.
"Still, to date, in the Middle East and elsewhere his administration has made only minimal changes to longstanding American policies that are conspicuous failures," said Freeman.
Acknowledging the importance that "a just and durable peace in the Holy Land that secures the state of Israel should be an end in itself for the United States," Freeman said the conflict there "enfevers and radicalizes the Islamic body politic worldwide should make the achievement of such a peace an inescapable, central task of United States strategy."
President Obama, he said, has repeatedly expressed determination to stabilize Israel's relations with its Arab neighbors through a "two-state" solution.
"The Obama Administration's initial efforts have, however, met with contemptuous rejection from Israel, feckless dithering from the Palestinians, and skepticism from other Arabs.”
Nor did Freeman mince his words when it came to Israel: "The state of Israel was established to provide the world's Jews with a homeland... But the Jewish state has become the most dangerous place on the planet for Jews to live.... The replacement of Zionist idealism, humanism, and secularism with the cynicism, racism, and religiosity of contemporary Israeli politics has precipitated a mounting moral crisis and loss of confidence among many committed to the Jewish state."
Turning to the Gulf, Freeman noted an urgent need to re-establish close ties with the Arab Gulf, left to stagnate during the eight years of the Bush Administration.
"I must not close without a brief mention of the longstanding Arab friends of the United States and the West in the Gulf and Red Sea regions. Despite welcome new activism on the part of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council have to a great extent been bystanders as a strange combination of American diplomatic default and military activism has dismantled the regional order that once protected them. Iraq no longer balances Iran. He then outlined a litany of concerns: "The United States no longer constrains Israel, which has never behaved more belligerently. Iran has acquired unprecedented prestige and influence among Arabs and Muslims. The next stage of nuclear proliferation is upon the region."
"For the first time ever, Shiism dominates the politics of Arab states traditionally ruled by Sunnis. Islamist terrorism menaces Egyptian and Gulf Arab domestic tranquility as well as that of the West. The United States, once attentive to Arab security and other concerns, is now obsessed with our own issues and objectives in the region."
Freeman called on the need for a return to a stronger US-Gulf Arab relationship, saying Gulf Arabs have the "financial resources but neither the institutions nor the will to mount the unified effort needed to cope with these challenges. They are adrift; not sailing to a new strategic strong point.
"The drift is taking them away from their traditional reliance on America and toward new partners. These are mainly the so-called BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, plus South Africa. "But Egypt and the Gulf Arab states seem destined to remain on the strategic sidelines, not in the game. They will not step forward to take the lead in addressing the disputes... Hence the need for continuing American leadership."
