3. Too few successes.
The world's most compelling ideology isn't nationalism, democracy, or capitalism -- it's success. Why? Because success generates constituents, prestige, and power. Failure produces the opposite. Success creates street cred -- very important currency in the rough-and-tumble neighborhood where small powers have a history of manipulating and frustrating great ones.
I'd argue that over the past 20 years, the United States hasn't been succeeding in matters of war-making or peacemaking, or in the battle for hearts and minds. Unlike the first Gulf War, which positioned the United States to take advantage of peacemaking and boosted America's street cred, the second Iraq war left America's image and credibility in tatters. The same proved true in U.S. efforts on Arab-Israeli peacemaking: America has fooled itself that there really was a chance to make peace (Bill Clinton), tried to fool others when there really wasn't (George W. Bush), and sometimes just acted without thinking clearly (Barack Obama). These failures have created a truly unique situation where the United States isn't respected by anybody.
Obama, after a year or so of rosy-eyed idealism, finally got the message that discretion was the better part of valor. He hasn't achieved any spectacular successes -- save killing Osama -- but he also hasn't triggered any catastrophic failures, at least not yet. America could use a significant success to boost its street cred, but all I see now for the White House is more Middle East migraines and root canals.
4. The locals really don't like U.S. policies.
It should be self-evident by now that U.S. interests and values are out of sync with one another. At times, they are diametrically opposed.
For the great power with many different interests to protect both at home and abroad, a certain amount of discordance is inevitable. Indeed, it's part of the job description of the great power to behave in often contradictory or even hypocritical fashion. Is the United States going to support Arab Springs everywhere, setting loose political upheaval in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain that could undermine U.S. energy interests and attempt to isolate Iran? Is America going to reduce or cut its aid to the Egyptian military because the generals aren't democrats -- or to Israel because of settlement expansion in the West Bank? If the freedom of Arab peoples is so important, why didn't the United States intervene in Syria the way it did in Libya? And why does America hammer Iran over its nuclear program, but give the Indians, Pakistanis, and the Israelis a free pass?
I could give you logical answers to all these questions, but they just don't play well out East. The conspiracy theories and lapses in logic regarding Western perfidy that pervade this region run deep. The sources of anger at the United States -- support for Israel, backing of regional despots, expansive military deployments, and, yes, for some, the country's promiscuous lifestyle -- are not going away.
Even though America isn't the regional hegemon it's cracked up to be, it'll manage. The Middle East was never a land of opportunity. The United States can probably live without spectacular successes if it can avoid spectacular failures. The current administration has been much more careful and cautious than its predecessor in these matters, and that's a good thing. It may also have learned a thing or two from its own failures.
But sooner or later, some new crisis is bound to shatter this newfound caution. Even now, the Middle East is burning. As John Buchan wrote in his classic novel Greenmantle, "There is a dry wind blowing through the East, and the parched grasses wait the spark."
I'm betting it's the Iranian nuclear issue that blows things up -- by year's end or probably early next. When it comes, the only question will be how America responds and whether its stock of influence in the Middle East will have swelled or shrunk when the smoke has cleared.
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