Obama's Middle East moment of truth »

Trying to figure out what Barack Obama intends to do in the Middle East is like trying to read the leaves in a cup of tea stirred by Jackson Pollock. For every signal Obama has given that he intends to break decisively with Bush's failed approach to the Middle East, he has given another that indicates he plans to simply give the same policies a fresh coat of paint.

Obama took what many regarded as a backwards step even before assuming office by appointing Hillary Clinton, who supported the Iraq war and as senator toed the establishment line on Israel, as secretary of state. But then he gave his first presidential interview to the Arabic-language station al-Arabiya and announced that his administration would approach the Arab-Muslim world with a spirit of respect and willingness to listen....

Not surprisingly, Obama's most contradictory messages concern the most important, and politically radioactive, issue of all: the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. .... Obama is still refusing to deal with Iran and the militant groups, hoping they can be marginalized. But they cannot be marginalized unless the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. Obama can fiddle around the edges all he wants, make all the right noises, but unless he is willing to deal with the real problem, his Middle East policy will go nowhere.

The fact that all the Arab states have adopted a uniform position on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, demanding that it be resolved along the lines of the 2002 Arab Peace Plan, spells a death knell for Bush's attempt to use the "moderate" regimes' fear of their own Islamist radicals to sideline them on Israel-Palestine. And it puts the onus squarely on the U.S., and its client Israel, to take immediate and concrete steps towards a two-state solution.

But demanding that Israel take the steps necessary to make peace means a harsh face-off with the Netanyahu government. If the Gaza war moved the Arab states to the left, it moved Israel to the right. On Monday, it was announced that Avigdor Lieberman, a bigoted ultra-nationalist who ran an explicitly anti-Arab campaign, would be Netanyahu's Foreign Minister -- the equivalent of Obama naming George Lincoln Rockwell or David Duke to be his secretary of state. The stage is set for a major collision.

The new Middle Eastern diplomatic detente leaves Obama only one way forward. If he wants to succeed, he will have to make it clear to the far-right Israeli government that it must stop settlements, return to its 1967 borders and accept a viable, contiguous Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

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