Taking steps to undo Bush's policies

Anxious to put as much blue water between himself and his predecessor, US President Barack Obama has spent the first week of his administration attempting to dismantle a number of his predecessor, George W. Bush's policies.

In some cases, these attempts amount to no more than political trompe l'oeil. One is a demand for the preparation of a report on a faster withdrawal from Iraq. Another is the study ordered into the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. In other cases, such as restoring US aid to non-governmental organisations that teach abortion in the developing world, the new president is throwing a message to radicals angered by the centrist profile of the team he has assembled. Obama's decision to lift the ban on the public funding of stem cell research reinforces that message.

None of the above moves is likely to have a major impact on overall US policy.When it comes to the Middle East, however, Obama's actions could substantially alter US strategy for better or worse.

The first move in this context is the appointment of former senator George Mitchell as special peace envoy to the Middle East, a position that he held briefly in 2000.

The move means two things.

The first is that the new president is not interested in the so-called Quartet created by the Bush administration. The Quartet, the result of an exercise in multilateral diplomacy, consisted of the US, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. Its dismantling could give the US greater control over future peace talks. But it could also leave the US solely responsible for possible failure.

By appointing Mitchell without informing, let alone consulting, the Quartet partners, Obama has done something else. In effect, he has called for the resignation of the Quartet's peace envoy, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Obama camp dislikes Blair because he sided with the US in toppling Saddam Hussain.

The move also means a greater readiness by Obama to take risks in dealing with a problem that has eluded a solution for more than six decades. Obama clearly thinks that he can succeed where 10 American presidents before him have failed.

Obama's second move is the appointment of a special envoy for dialogue with Iran. The envoy, believed to be Dennis Ross, a seasoned diplomat, has the task of opening a channel to Tehran as soon as possible. According to unconfirmed reports, the first informal contacts between the administration and Iran have already taken place through two Iranian-American intermediaries in contact with Tehran's legation at the UN in New York.

Here, too, Obama is dismantling a multilateral scheme developed by his predecessor. Obama's move also means the effective dissolution of the so-called 5+1 Group, created three years ago to deal with Iran. Apart from the US, the group includes the four other veto-holding members of the Security Council, Russia, China, Britain and France, plus Germany.

By deciding to seek talks even with Ahmadinejad, Obama has distanced himself from European leaders such as France's President Nicolas Sarkozy who has stated he would never shake hands with "a man who denies the Holocaust".

Once again, Obama is clearly counting on the "audacity of hope", not to mention his own charisma, to succeed where all US presidents since Jimmy Carter have failed.

Obama is also abandoning the multilateral approach of his predecessor on a third issue: Afghanistan. By naming Richard Holbrook as special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the new president has, in effect, killed the idea of appointing a coordinator backed by the entire North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) in Kabul. Both Britain and France that had put forward names for the position would be disappointed that Obama has scrapped the policy without even consulting Nato.

By seeking direct and exclusive control of the issue, the new administration may turn Afghanistan into a purely American responsibility, something that Washington had tried to avoid since 2001.

In both Europe and the Middle East, response to Obama's appointments has been mixed. In Arab countries, Mitchell is hailed as a good choice because of his close ties with Saudi Arabia and his understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Obama's gesture towards Iran, however, has met with mixed reaction. Some Europeans, especially Germans, are happy that they are no longer required to be in the frontline in a diplomatic war against Tehran. Others, especially the French, however, fear Iran could use talks with the US as a delaying tactic to buy time to complete its nuclear project.

Holbrook's appointment has received an even cooler response in Afghanistan and Pakistan where he is seen as the man who rubber-stamped Serbian territorial gains, secured through ethnic cleansing and the massacre of Muslims, in Bosnia-Herzegovina in exchange for a piece of paper signed at Dayton, Ohio.

The Europeans, on the other hand, hope that Holbrook would succeed in bringing Afghanistan and Pakistan together in a joint strategy against terrorism.

Overall, within the first 72 hours of his presidency, Obama has tried to underline the fact that he is not Bush, at least on Middle Eastern issues. Whether not being Bush in this context is a good or a bad thing, only time would tell.

Amir Taheri's new book 'The Persian Night: Iran Under The Khomeinist revolution' is published by Encounter Books, in New York and London.