Font ResizeAs he spoke of his surprise award in the White House Rose Garden, President Barack Obama called the Nobel Peace Prize "a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century."
But of the scores of ongoing conflicts in the world, Obama zeroed in on one as essential to the cause of peace. He pledged "an unwavering commitment that finally realizes the rights of all Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security in nations of their own."
If Obama wishes his presidency to vindicate the Nobel committee's controversial decision, he must press for a solution in the Middle East, several experts on the region agree. But, they add, if the award is to be "earned" in the eyes of history, Obama will have to find successes elsewhere as well -- because the present circumstances in Israel and its occupied territories are simply not conducive to historic accords.
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Worthy successes, future challenges » From the perspective of international relations professor Michael Stathis, Obama doesn't have to do anything further to prove his worthiness of the Nobel Prize.
By the end of President George Bush's eight years in office, the United States had little standing in the world to take a leadership role in peacemaking, said Stathis, who lectures at Southern Utah University. Obama's election changed everything, he said.
"Now, it's really quite incredible," Stathis explained. "We have a different standing
Still, Stathis doubts the new president will be able to broker lasting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. The timing, he said, simply isn't right.
"The downer here is that it seems like every couple of years, when we look at the players in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the reality is that one-third of the equation is so out of kilter that it just can't work."
For years, Stathis said, the problem was Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat -- "not the most brilliant of statesmen in the world." More recently, Bush simply didn't have the eminence required of an American peace broker. Today, Stathis lamented, the problem is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state, but only on the condition that it be fully disarmed, give up its quest to resettle Palestinians in homes now owned by Jews, reject its claim on Jerusalem as a capitol and concede to some continued Israeli settlement of the West Bank.
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The many-state solution » Even if Netanyahu could be convinced to make more substantial concessions, the solution might not involve players from two parties anymore. "What he might be facing is a three-state solution," Stathis said, noting that Hamas, an organization dedicated to Israel's destruction, is the democratically-elected representative of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
As if that wasn't challenge enough, Bahman Baktiari, the director of the University of Utah's Middle East Center, believes Obama won't be able to make crucial inroads anywhere in the Middle East until he deals with Tehran.
"I think the whole issue of peace in the Middle East is tied to U.S.-Iran relations," Baktiari said. "One aspect that absolutely needs to be acknowledged is whether the U.S. and Iran can arrive at a normalization of relations."
That would mean convincing Iran -- whose Holocaust-denying president once infamously called for Israel to be wiped off the map -- to cooperate fully with the world community as it develops nuclear technologies. And doing that, Baktiari said, will require Obama to get cooperation of Russia and China on a strict sanctions regimen against Iran. But Russian officials told Secretary of State Hilary Clinton last week that it was doubtful that they would go along because they didn't believe that sanctions would be an effective strategy against Iran.
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An impossible task? » The hurdles that stand in the way of Obama's ability to move the Israelis and the Palestinians toward an accord might be insurmountable, said national security expert Amos Guiora, a former Israeli Army officer who teaches at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney School of Law.
"The president has an extraordinarily full plate," said Guiora, noting that Obama still has to deal with his nation's planned withdrawal in Iraq and the ever-more-volatile war in Afghanistan, which is increasingly being fought along the nebulous border region with Pakistan.
"I think that this has got to be where the president's main focus is," Guiora said.
Egyptian Ambassador to the United States Sameh Shoukry isn't giving into pessimism yet. After all, the last U.S. president to win a Nobel Peace Prize, Jimmy Carter, did so in large measure due to an agreement he helped broker between Israel and Egypt, which many considered impossible at the time. It has resulted in 30 years of peace between the once-warring states.
And no matter the obstacles, Shoukry said, Obama has a moral imperative to try to bring an end to the conflict.
"It is inconceivable in the 21st century that a people should live under foreign occupation," said Shoukry, who was in Utah this week to speak at Brigham Young University.
He said the Nobel committee recognized in Obama the very qualities that could help end the long and violent conflict. "The only way to resolve this issue is through negotiation," Shoukry said. "In this world, we must resolve our conflicts through dialogue and cooperation rather than violence and armed conflict."
But Shoukry also conceded the enormity of the obstacles that stand in the way -- joking that the Middle East was just one of many problems that the world expects Obama to solve in his first term.
"He can be more forceful in resolving all the difficulties in the world," Shoukry laughed. "And we look forward to that."
