Strategic Assessment

A review of his first two years in office shows that some popular and populist ideas notwithstanding, President Obama’s policies are generally consistent with the major thrust of American policies of the past several decades. Nonetheless, the potential for future tension and conflict in USIsrael relations cannot be precluded. If that potential is realized, it will certainly be due at least in part to the belief occasionally framed by the administration that everything important in the Middle East is linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that the major onus for removing that irritant falls on Israel. But it will also be due to a perception in the critical center of the American body politic that Israel is not doing what can reasonably be expected of it.