Analysis: Obama pledges engagement in Mideast

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., right, arrive at Marka Airport in Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, July 22, 2008. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

WASHINGTON—Is there anything new a presidential candidate can say about the absence of peace in the fragile Middle East?

Anything beyond a promise to work at it hard?

Barack Obama is not offering a sure-to-work formula to bring Israel and its Arab neighbors together.

The Democratic candidate for president is speaking of the security needs of Israel and the economic hardships of the Palestinians.

But the bottom line is, and will always be, it is up to the parties and not the American president to make peace.

"It's unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace in this region," Obama said.

If the Jewish vote, assuming there is such a thing, weren't valued especially in what could be a tight race, Obama might have left it at that. His Republican opponent, John McCain, isn't offering anything new yet. He appears to be relying on stating clearly his commitment to Israel and its security.

At least to some observers, Obama appeared to be saying something new in a speech last month to pro-Israel lobbyists at a dinner in Washington.

He spoke in one breath of Jerusalem remaining undivided and Israel's capital.

It turned out, though, that he wasn't exactly saying all of Jerusalem should be Israel's capital.

The Palestinians want at least the part of the city Israeli troops captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war, and Obama was not ruling out that possibility.

If the Illinois senator is signaling a change it is his promise to be active from the get-go, insinuating that President Bush sat on his hands too long and opportunities may have been lost.

"What I think can change is the ability of the United States government and a United States president to be actively engaged with the peace process," Obama said.

It is debatable whether a sleeves-rolled-up Bush could have been any more successful than Bill Clinton was in playing a direct role in trying to drive Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and Syria into peace agreements.

On the other hand, President Jimmy Carter kept Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin from quitting the Camp David talks in 1978 and drove them to a treaty the next year.

At this point, Iran appears to be overtaking peacemaking as the primary topic in the region.

"Iran has become the biggest issue for Israelis," said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "It is making peacemaking harder with its support for rejectionist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and that will be a daunting challenge for any president."

And Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. negotiator, in a separate interview said "reassuring the Palestinians and the world that he is going to take the Arab-Israeli conflict seriously" is important.

And Miller, author of "A Much Too Promised Land" added that assuring the pro-Israeli community of his commitment to Israel's security is important as well.

However, Miller said, the more important reassurance is that "while Obama may engage the Iranians he is irrevocably committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Barry Schweid has covered U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East for The Associated Press since 1973.