http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/2011919102245537768.htmlfull article at the link
The preparations for such encounters are, again, highly impressive. Huge briefing books requiring hundreds of man-hours are drawn up. They contain scene-setters, and backgrounders, and elaborate policy justifications, backed up with legal briefs organised under alphabeticised tabs, followed by detailed talking points designed to turn the president into a virtual ventriloquist's dummy. And then the whole lot is coordinated and cleared up through the system, through the secretary of state, and the National Security Council, to the president himself.
And so it was here. But in this case, at the very end, having carefully studied all this codified nonsense, this monument to bureaucratic inertia, and just before walking in to meet with Bhutto, when he would have to look the Pakistani prime minister in the eye and defend the patently indefensible, Clinton did something no one - but no one - in the bureaucracy would ever have anticipated.
With simple, clear-eyed common sense and the innate sense of justice with which God has endowed most five-year-old children, he said, simply, "but this is not fair". And then, wonder of wonders, he walked in and said just that to Bhutto.
Here are Clinton's words recorded moments later, when the two leaders emerged to speak before the press: "I have already made it clear to you, and I don't think any American president has ever said this before, I don't think it's right for us to keep the money and the equipment. That is not right. And I am going to try to find a resolution to it."
President Obama knows this very well. He understands the Israeli-Palestinian issue backwards and forwards. He knows the peace process is at a dead end.
Early in his administration, he tried to revive negotiations by mandating a complete West Bank settlement freeze, only to be forced embarrassingly by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to back down. When this past May he had the temerity to publicly tell the Israelis that their current policy towards the Palestinians is untenable and unsustainable, and to modestly suggest a negotiating formula to break the impasse, he was publicly chastised by Netanyahu and had to submit to the humiliation of seeing the Congressional leaders of his own party repudiate him in favour of the Israeli prime minister.
In response, though he cannot admit it, Obama has washed his hands of the Palestinian issue. He knows he can do nothing more. And yet, the issue will not go away.
Now, once again, he is being forced to publicly support an Israeli policy position fundamentally opposed to his own. He knows fully well that Netanyahu has no intention of permitting formation of a viable Palestinian state, and that the Palestinians have little choice but to pursue their current course at the UN.
He likewise understands that the US' lonely support for Israel and the inevitable US veto of the Palestinians' bid for full UN membership will undermine, perhaps terminally, the US position in a democratising Middle East, and will expose the US' nominal support for popular Arab rights as a fraud.
For the leader of a great nation, at certain points the public becomes personal, as it did for Bill Clinton one day in April, 1995. I do not know President Obama personally, but my sense is that this is a proud man. He does not see himself as an ordinary politician, but as a transformative leader. He has attempted self-consciously to carve out such a role for himself in the context of US relations with the Muslim world, but he has been repeatedly stymied, publicly and disgracefully.
It is one thing to have to sacrifice principle in the face of political reality. All politicians are forced to do so at various points. But it is another to do so in a highly public manner, to have to mouth patent falsehoods in one-on-one meetings with fellow world leaders, who know better and who will think less of you as a result.
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We all know that the president will do no such thing. He will suppress this urge, for to do otherwise would spell political suicide. No, the president will swallow his anger, and do what he must do. But it is worth giving some consideration, as the US again undermines its security and its global position, pointlessly and gratuitously, in blind allegiance to an ungrateful and self-destructive ally, that we will also be watching something else, something far more personal: The public mortification of Barack Hussein Obama.
The two-state solution has been the official position of the United States government and several past presidents, however when a resolution comes up that will advance this solution, the US becomes the sole obstacle to it's fruition.
This highlights something deeper about President Obama, the fact that he's been dominated by his political handlers and advisor team, and that his political ambitions seem to supercede his principles.
I was an enthusiastic supporter of the president when he was running, I went to the rallies and donated and voted in the primaries, but this same story keeps coming over and over.
He could have done something great, using the once-in-a-generation one-party government control to push through real reform by being a real leader. He could have said "it's my way or the highway" and really pushed through significant reform of the financial, health care, and foreign policy systems. He didn't. He could have said "I really want to try something different and if you don't like it, so be it", but instead he's chosen to play the milquetoast centrist card and he might get voted out anyway.
This issue with the UN is just another example. It's another heap of hay on a camel whose back broke a long time ago.
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