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President Barack Obama has signalled that he will waste no time addressing the foreign policy challenges in the Middle East. Drawing a road map for his first 100 days is easy: he should reverse almost every policy of the team of George W Bush and Condoleezza Rice, a perpetual disaster machine for the US and almost everyone in the Middle East.
Addressing several specific conflicts and cross-cutting issues should top Obama's to-do list, starting with the Arab-Israeli conflict and relations with Iran, problems that resonate sharply throughout the region and are structurally linked in many ways. They also have spurred a streak of radicalisation that now involves a clear majority of Arabs, Iranians and Turks opposing - and often resisting - the US and Israel as well as conservative Arab regimes.
Related matters the US should address through sensible, realistic policies include: promoting less corrupt, more accountable and participatory governance systems (‘democracy' if you wish); contributing to more equitable and sustainable economic growth; and, through these vectors and the Arab-Israeli and Iranian lenses, addressing the root causes of terrorism and political violence that plague the region.
Other key challenges facing the region include the role of women, improving the educational system and finding a rightful place for science and technology. This vast menu can be collapsed into four basic principles that should drive US policies in the region, all of which were absent during the Bush-Rice years: legitimacy, efficacy, consistency and equity.
Legitimacy: secretary of state Hillary Clinton's early and repeated calls for a foreign policy that stresses "diplomacy and development" is a good sign that the Obama administration may discard the Bush-Rice emphasis on guns and fear as drivers of American foreign policy. Obama needs to acknowledge that diplomacy succeeds only when it embraces locally legitimate political leaders with the credibility and impact needed to achieve the peace and progress that all the people of the Middle East yearn for.
This means bringing groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas into peace negotiations, and ending the failed legacy of taking sides in domestic Arab ideological disputes by sending money and arms to so-called moderates - in Lebanon and Palestine, for example - who end up being overrun and often discredited by much stronger Islamist and nationalist groups.
George Mitchell's first challenge as Mideast envoy will be to engage with all legitimate actors in a process that ends violence and moves toward negotiated peace and power-sharing agreements. He must quickly work with the Palestinians to help move them toward a renewed national unity government that comprises Fatah, Hamas and smaller factions.
Mitchell could work with such a credible, legitimate and peace-seeking Palestinian government to craft a mechanism similar to the one that succeeded in Northern Ireland - one that includes all the main players who are committed to non-violence.
Israel and the US will have to adjust and soften their policies of ostracising resistance movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah, which they see as purely "terrorist" groups - just as London and the Irish Protestants sat down with the Irish Republican Army and ultimately achieved a peaceful resolution of that conflict. Progress here will help push advances in the other three regional challenges.
Efficacy: Washington should support and work closely with Middle Eastern partners who promote clean, participatory, accountable governance that also reflects indigenous cultural and religious values - and cutting ties with those who persist in perpetual corrupt rule. The example of a few states that flourish and prosper within their dynamic Arab or Islamic identities and are partners and friends with the US, will prod democracy around the region faster than any speeding bullet from an American Marine.
Equity: the Obama administration should deal with the challenges of the Middle East on the basis that every country, individual and political or social movement deserves to enjoy equal rights and opportunities. Arabs and Israelis must feel they both have the same simultaneous right to statehood and security, rather than continuing the failed approach that demands guaranteed security for Israel before the Palestinians and other Arabs can hope to achieve their rights.
Consistency: the US should apply its policies, United Nations resolutions or international law and conventions across the region without the severe, often whimsical, discrimination that defined the Bush-Rice years.
Whether in promoting democracy, fighting corruption, resisting occupation, protecting human rights, investigating war crimes allegations, or implementing nuclear non-proliferation regimes, the Obama administration will enjoy much support in the Middle East if it implements consistent policies that promote efficacy and equity around the region.
If Obama carries through on his inaugural pledge to reshape American foreign policy so that it reflects the country's core values, he would find that the world would embrace change in its views of the US as much as the American people voted for change in November.
Rami G Khouri is director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
