President Obama Aggressively Seeks Lasting Peace in Middle East Ending Bush Stalemate

By Philip Fernando in Los Angeles for Lanka Guardian

(January 23, Los Angeles, Sri Lanka Guardian) Just three days in office, U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to "actively and aggressively" seek a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, while also warning "difficult days lie ahead" in Afghanistan. His comments came moments after new Secretary of State welcomed him to the State Department. He also named two foreign policy veterans, George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke, as special envoys for the Middle East and Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is in stark contrast to George W Bush who started his tenure trying to be aloof from Middle East politics.

Many believe that Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader who helped secure a peace deal in Northern Ireland in the Bill Clinton administration, would be a good choice to try to revive the stalled Arab-Israeli peace talks. He will leave for the region almost immediately. There is a slight lull in the Gaza-Israel conflict now.

Weighing in on the Israel-Hamas conflict for the first time following his inauguration, Obama called on Hamas to end rocket fire at Israel, and for Israel to complete its pullout of forces from Gaza. Obama said he's "deeply concerned" by the loss of life among both Israelis and Palestinians, and by the suffering taking place in Gaza. During the election campaign Obama vowed the United States will always defend Israel's right to defend itself.

Recently Obama said that Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, must meet the demands of the so-called Mideast Quartet to recognize Israel, renounce violence and honor past agreements, The quartet comprises the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. He stated the borders to Gaza must be opened to allow the flow of aid and commerce under the watch of an "appropriate" monitoring regime with international community and the Palestinian Authority participating to provide a "credible" system of ending weapons smuggling into Gaza.

Currently, the Palestinian Authority is controlled by West-Bank based President Mahmoud Abbas, who has held no authority in Gaza since June 2007, when Hamas defeated forces loyal to him in the coastal territory. Mitchell said he'll be facing a "volatile, complex and dangerous" conflict —one that has become so entrenched; it's seen by many as unchangeable.

Israel launched its bruising attack against Hamas militants in the Palestinian territory on Dec. 27 with the dual aims of halting rocket attacks into southern Israeli towns and ending weapons-smuggling into the territory. Before the ceasefire took hold last weekend, the conflict killed about 1,300 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, according to Gaza and United Nations officials. Thirteen Israelis have also died, including four soldiers killed.

Obama said, represent the "central front" in what he dubbed America's "enduring struggle" against terrorism and extremism, a phrase the new administration has offered in recent days instead of the Bush administration's "war on terror." "There, as in the Middle East, we must understand that we cannot deal with our problems in isolation," Obama said. "There will be no lasting peace unless we expand the spheres.

The envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan is former US Ambassador to the UN Holbrooke. Obama said that he is "one of the most talented diplomats of his generation." Holbrooke, 67, was the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia.

With Hillary Clinton as the new head of the State department, the promise of keeping diplomacy as the central ploy of the Obama administration may actually bring about much needed easing of tensions, many analysts commented.- Sri Lanka Guardian