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“Today, the United States is perceived by the Arab public as increasingly irrelevant to the issues Arabs care about,” argues Marwan Muasher, former deputy prime minister of Jordan, in his op-ed for the New York Times. The U.S. must adapt its old policies to provide support for “a new Middle East where citizens are increasingly aware of their own power and of the gaps between U.S. policies and American values.”
Muasher writes that the U.S. seems “unwilling” to lead on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian peace, which “has created a situation where most people in the region have given up on Washington in this regard.” America’s weakened economy and the failure to leave behind a “functioning democracy” after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq have also contributed to waning influence in the region.
Muasher says that “to revive American relevance,” America must “embrace” a leadership role in mediating an Arab-Israeli peace agreement. Secondly, the U.S. must also embrace the “political transformation” and “development of a pluralistic culture” sweeping across the region “by supporting the democratic process and the building of new institutions.”
Lastly, for the U.S. to regain its influence, the U.S. “needs to recognize that political Islam is not the enemy” and “embrace a policy that rewards performance over ideology.”
While Muasher argues that the U.S. must strengthen and change its efforts in the Middle East, he acknowledges “that the process is largely a responsibility the region must assume for itself.”
