I won’t supply a long list here but instead will talk about the latest one. Let’s take it step by step to see what a mess is being created.

Background: Israel announced in 1993, at the time of the Oslo agreement with the PLO, that it did not view construction on existing settlements as a violation. The Palestinians, during the ensuing 16 years, never made this a big issue. The U.S. government, while it can say it technically opposed this, was pretty quiet about it, never did anything.

Then President Barack Obama came to office and made the construction issue the centerpiece of his Middle East policy, sometimes it has appeared to be the keystone of his whole foreign policy. It may seem like an exaggeration but often it seems as if the administration believes that if Israel stopped building 3000 apartments all the region’s problems would go away.

So far, the Administration has wasted almost ten months in this pursuit. First, it shouted at Israel as if it were some servant to do it fast or else. Then when Israel didn’t, the Administration realized that perhaps Israel should get something in exchange for the concession. So it went to Arab states and asked—presuming, wrongly, that they are desperate for a peace agreement—for some compromise but got nothing.

Now it had destroyed its own policy since the Palestinian Authority (PA) refused to come to negotiations until there was a complete freeze. How could it be less hardline than the president?

But there was a solution, sort of. Israel agreed to stop all construction once the apartments currently being built are finished. And naturally, Israel said, this didn’t apply to east Jerusalem.

The United States accepted the deal, with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton exulting about what a huge concession Israel was making. Aside from everything else, the U.S. government knew how big a risk Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was taking with his coalition.

Ok. Sorry to give you all this background but it is necessary to understand how the Administration loves to jump in the quicksand.

So what happened? The PA couldn’t stand to see Israel being praised and doesn’t want to negotiate peace any way. So it threw a temper tantrum: riots in Jerusalem, threats by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas to resign, refusal to go to negotiations with Israel, and a clamor for a unilateral declaration of independence.

The hubbub about a unilateral declaration of independence was almost universally described in the media as arising from Palestinian frustration. Not at all. It is based on their own position: Why make a compromise peace with Israel when you can just claim everything you want, ensuring the door be kept open for a future struggle to wipe Israel off the map entirely?

What did the Administration do? It backed down on everything except the independence bid! Having made a deal with Israel, having gotten Netanyahu to take an enormous risk, it then pulled the rug out from under him. Now it said: Well, maybe it wasn’t such a great deal after all.

Those who always advocate Israeli concessions as the solution should take note. Once again, we’ve seen that a concession doesn’t lead to a concession by the other side or progress. It just produces a demand for more concessions without giving any real credit to the last one.

This kind of thing is expected from the PA but one can only say: Et tu Obama? (William Shakespeare’s line for Julius Caesar after his supposed friend, Brutus, stabbed him in the back.) Mind you, the Administration doesn’t mean any harm—after all, it may end up the biggest loser—it just has no idea of what it’s doing.

The latest act in the drama is that after an announcement that Israel would some day build apartments in the Gilo section of Jerusalem—which is quite within the U.S.-Israel deal and, by the way, is not in east Jerusalem—the Administration complained bitterly, showing not only that it wouldn’t respect agreements others made with predecessors but it wouldn’t even respect the agreements it made itself.

Obama said that the Gilo construction complicates administration efforts to relaunch peace talks, makes it harder to achieve peace and embitters the Palestinians.

Funny, he never said this about: PA incitement to terrorism; failure to punish terrorists; negotiations with Hamas despite its hardline positions, genocidal goals, antisemitic views, and terrorist acts; refusal to return to talks with Israel despite Obama's express request to do so; breaking its promise on not to be a sponsor of using the Goldstone report to punish Israel; and other such actions. Each of these individually is more dangerous than the Gilo construction.

Now here’s another point you probably won’t see anywhere except here:

Having sabotaged negotiations by escalating the construction-on-settlements issue, the Administration has now escalated even higher: no construction in Jerusalem is the minimum demand. Of course, Arab states and the PA will echo this, refusing all talks unless that happens. And since Israel won’t stop building in Jerusalem and the Arab side won’t—unlike the Administration—back down—Obama has just guaranteed a dead peace process for his entire four-year term in office. In fact, he’s probably ensured no comprehensive negotiations will take place, much less succeed.

Talk about painting yourself into a corner, and the Administration keeps making that corner smaller!

Here's another problem: By blaming Israel repeatedly for every failure, the Administration is not only signalling the PA and Arab states that they can do anything and pay no cost, it is also unintentionally encouraging them to sabotage any progress. Why? Because the worse and slower things go the more they can blame Israel and expect the United States and Europe to do so also. The Administration is making its own failure far more likely.

One final point: The same loss of U.S. credibility and reliability that affects Israel also hits the relatively moderate Arab states in the Administration's dealings with them. The Obama Administration is doing the same thing to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, and other Arab regimes. See here for details on that factor.

No doubt we will soon be hearing that if Israel stopped building apartments in Gilo there would be Arab-Israeli peace, no terrorism, Iran would give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and Obama would get the Nobel Peace Prize. Oops, that last event has already happened. How about giving him the Nobel Peace-Destroying Prize.

The Daled Amos blog has a terrific evaluation of how much the Obama Administration has accomplished (not) on Arab-Israeli issues. The story begins with a hysterically funny State Department press briefing where a spokesguy claims Obama has done more in nine months than the previous president did in eight years.

Then, the claim quickly--and embarrassingly--collapses when a reporter who knows something on the subject asks a few questions. The spokesman insists that the Obama Administration succeeded in getting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a two-state solution. But, asks the reporter, didn't that happen under the Bush Administration? (Actually, it took place in 1996 under the Clinton Administration).

Within a few minutes, the spokesman backs down entirely. Even he cannot think of a credible achievement for the Obama Administration. It reminds one of the famous essay about the snakes of Ireland whose whole text reads: There aren't any. In this case, the progress--to use the euphemistic language of Washington government--has been all in a backward direction.  The exchange is also a great metaphor for the gap between what the Administration has done and what it gets away with claiming on lots of issues.

[PS: Within minutes of finishing the writing of this piece I started spotting media reactions claiming that Israel is “defying” the United States, that Gilo is a “new settlement” built on “Palestinian land,” that it is on the West Bank, etc. I don’t recall seeing headlines about the PA defying the United States on any of the points discussed above. As anyone who has been in Gilo knows, it’s a neighborhood in Jerusalem with 40,000 people, mostly in pre-1967 Israel, the land beyond that border was purchased by Jews before 1948, and  the idea of building 900 more apartments there is in a years-long approval process and no construction whatsoever is imminent.]

Western observers were shaken up when at a debate in Qatar, the relatively moderate Arab audience split almost down the middle between those cheering and those jeering the idea of Iranian nuclear weapons.

One member of the audience said:

“Why in the first place should Iran seek the trust of anyone? Iran is an independent, sovereign country, and it has every single right to defend itself. If it wants a bomb, definitely it should have one."

The audience cheered.

Another man said:

"There is something called balance of power. As long as there is Israel, we need a nuclear bomb."

A serious analysis would have to include three main points in explaining this seeming suicidal desire of many Arabs that the real worst enemy of the current Arab order become really, really powerful:

First, fear. Iran is strong, aggressive, close, and represents an ideology that appeals to some of their people. To stand up to Iran’s growing strength could incur costly hostility, pressure and subversion now. And once Tehran gets nuclear weapons, it will remember and take revenge on those who have tried to thwart it.

Second, there is the Middle Eastern version of Political Correctness which, unlike its Western version, has very sharp teeth. All good Muslims are supposed to love each other, hate Israel, and hate America. Much the same can be said of all good Arabs, though Iran of course does not benefit directly from that paradigm.

Consequently, if Iran can become a nuclear-armed Muslim state which views America, the West, and Israel as its enemies, then that must be good for Muslims and even Arabs too, right? How proud they all can be that one of them has made good! That will sure show the West that Muslims can have the ultimate weapon. Certainly, many of their people will be enthusiastic and so the rulers—even in dictatorships—rush to get to the head of the crowd lest it turn on them.

Third, their behavior is based on hopeful thinking, a sort of more likely version of wishful thinking. Surely, they wish, the United States or Israel will solve the problem without their having to do anything. Incidentally, this is similar to their position on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

And, of course, this is a test of U.S. power and will power. After all, if America can’t deal with Iran for them that proves the United States cannot protect them against Tehran. So they are better off keeping their mouths shut now and the option  open of appeasing Iran.

In general, Arab states are content to wait it out. Some movements--Hizballah, Hamas, Iraqi clients of Tehran—and Syria are already on the Iranian team. Qatar and non-Arab Turkey are moving in that direction. Lebanon has been Finlandized, that is, forced into a posture of not doing anything Tehran doesn't like because of the power of Hizballah and other Iranian clients inside the country.

But for most—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the remaining small Gulf states—the risk is too great of changing sides. After all, they genuinely don’t trust Iran and really don’t want it to change the strategic balance in its favor.

Yet on the other hand, their fear that Iran might become a hegemonic power in the Middle East and subvert these states a factor that should make them vigorously oppose Tehran getting nuclear weapons. The same goes for their hatred of Iran as radical Islamist and Shia Muslim and (largely) ethnic Persian.

The first set of motives, however, outweighs the second. And so they remain silent.

Here’s an obscure story that indicates the shape of things to come. A group of Iran-backed Shia rebels, called the Houthi, in Yemen are waging a guerrilla war to try to take over the country. The Saudis, who view themselves as the guardians of Yemen and don’t want another pro-Tehran state on their border, have been bombing them.

Two top-ranking Iranians have denounced the Saudi action as “Wahhabi terrorism” and openly threatened Saudi Arabia. The language they used indicated the ideological nature of the war, since the Saudis’ Wahhabi version of Islam is very anti-Shia. The Iranians said the war is a U.S.-backed effort to divide Arabs.

And for those who think that Iran’s current internal conflicts will take care of its external aggression, the identity of these two Iranians is significant. One of them is Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, introducing a military threat. But the other is Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, a leading “moderate” member of the radical ruling group who opposes President Ahmadinejad. In other words, Tehran’s ambitions have a wide base of support across faction.

Now, the way things are supposed to work, the United States should support the Saudis, signaling Riyadh that America is a reliable ally (so don’t be afraid of Iran having nuclear weapons) and Tehran that Washington won’t tolerate Iranian aggression (so be afraid and slow down or abandon nuclear weapon development).

Of course, the Obama Administration won’t say a word. Why? Specifically:

--It views normal power politics as neo-imperialistic.

--It fears that Iran will present the Yemen issue as one showing American intervention. Guess what? The Iranians already are doing so.

--It worries that such action will endanger U.S. engagement with Iran over nuclear weapons. Guess what? That’s already dead any way. And showing you are weak doesn’t give you leverage in negotiations.
But this is the pattern, isn’t it?

--The Obama Administration has not backed Iraq’s denunciations of Syria’s involvement in cross-border terrorism. (To be fair, U.S. envoys have asked Syria to stop but there aren’t any teeth behind this request.)

--The Administration isn’t giving strong backing to Israel. Indeed, after Israel agreed to a U.S. request for a freeze on construction inside settlements with the exception of Jerusalem, the Arabs complained and the Administration backed down on its own deal.

--Despite some verbal support the Administration hasn’t taken a tough position backing Lebanese moderates (March 14 coalition) against pressure from Iran- and Syria-backed Hizballah to give the radicals a bigger share of government. Indeed, the U.S. effort was so feeble that the Saudis gave up their own efforts to pressure Syria to ease off on the Lebanese.

--The U.S. government barely gave a squeak in support of the Iranian economic opposition.

--In Afghanistan the government is hanging around waiting for the United States to make up its mind whether to defend or virtually abandon the country. The indecision is not such as to promote confidence in Kabul or trembling among the Taliban.

So here's the question of the era. You are an Arab or a non-Arab Muslim (or an Israeli). You don't want your country to be taken over by Islamists who are likely to shoot you, seize your property, and force you to change your lifestyle to that of Taliban Afghanistan.

You don't ask yourself: Is President Barack Obama nice to Muslims, sympathetic, and apologizes for America being tough in the past.

Rather, you ask yourself: Can I depend on America under the Obama Administration to protect me now and in the future? Would the United States attack Iran if necessary to deter Tehran? Would it even threaten the use of nuclear weapons to shield me against any Iranian attack? Would it send troops if I decided I wanted them?

Ok, what's your answer? And if it is "no" then what alternative to appeasement is possible?

At the debate in Qatar, an Iraqi woman in the audience tried to have it both ways, pointing out that even from a perspective that thinks Israel makes the devil look like a nice guy there are good reasons to oppose Iran having nukes. Note that she didn't mention the United States at all as the solution:

"We're going to [be] between two powerful countries, Iran and Israel, with nuclear weapons. Where will this region be?"

Answer: Up the Gulf without a paddle.

By the way, if you want to get an idea of what Middle East politics is really like, watch this 32-second film about a day in the life of a railroad track inspector. And remember you can't always expect to get this lucky.