WHAT NEXT FOR THE ARAB WORLD?

As things seem to look good for the ouster of Gaddafi, a more sobering view may be in order, an overview that takes into account future U.S. foreign policy prospects in the Middle East and the Arab world.

While I am a supporter of President Obama and a lot of his works, there is one area where Obama's policy efforts seem to be crashing in flames. That is, or was, his policy of engagement. Two major targets of that policy were Iran and Syria. Departing from the Bush policy of having no relations with the two countries, Obama held the view that it is necessary to engage the two countries in a kind of step-by-step dialogue in order to eventually resolve some major issues and restore normal relations.

For Iran that engagement policy was directed at persuading it to give up any nuclear ambitions that would lead to weaponizing its nuclear capabilities. But Iran has rejected, with a tone of finality, various international efforts to halt its uranium enrichment program neeeded to reach the weapons development stage.

In Syria's case Bush ended our relations when that country was implicated in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri in 2005. (Those relations were already strained for several reasons including Syria's opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Syria was seen as the haven for foreign fighters entering Iraq.) Following the assassination of Hariri our ambassador was pulled out of Damascus and not replaced until earlier this year. In the case of Syria, Obama's engagement policy was , among other things, aimed at encouraging President Assad to liberalize his control of the country and to try to wean him away from his close ties to Iran's President Ahmadinejad. And it was hoped that Syria would become a stabilizing country in the Middle East rather than a source of support, like Iran, of terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

When the anti-Assad street demonstrations for political liberalization began, the U.S. walked softly in its attitude toward Assad despite his bloody suppression of the demonstrations, secretly aided by Iran. It wasn't until last week that the U.S. finally called for Assad's ouster, thus ending whatever was left of Obama's Syrian engagement policy. So instead of succeeding in driving a wedge between Syria and Iran, the end result seems to be strengthened ties between the two neighbors.

Returning to the situation in Libya, the U.S. from the outset left it to NATO to take the lead in supporting the anti-Gaddafi rebels while we took a secondary role of providing intelligence and weapons support. More recently, as the rebels closed in on Gaddafi's stronghold in Tripoli, the U.S. began to give more direct air support to the effort. If this is the end of Gaddafi, the question becomes -- what then? The rebels are not a single unified force, but rather a collection of historically competing tribes, a problem which may or may not be easily resolved with victory. Further, there were questions early in the rebellion about the role and linkages of al-Qaeda to the rebels. In short, we did not know what we were buying into in supporting the rebels.

All of this comes at a time when U.S. leadership and image in the Arab world was already greatly diminished, beginning with the Arab Spring and the ouster of one- time regional ally President Mubarak of Egypt. In that case the U.S. waffled for several weeks before finally saying Mubarak must go. And in saying so, our standing with another strong regional ally, Saudi Arabia, was weakened as we were perceived by the authoritarian Saudi monarchy as less than a reliable source of support.

To sum up, our already weakened position in the Middle East and the Arab world was further diminished this week. Our call for the ouster of Assad sounded like the final tolling of the bell for the Obama engagement policy. And, assuming for now the ouster of Ghadaffi, we are left supporting successful rebels about whom there are many questiions of who they are and in what direction they are heading.