Michael Doran on America’s Middle East Strategy

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2017

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Civil war in Syria, the rise of Islamic State, a strengthened Iran—these are a part of the Obama Administration’s Middle East legacy. Elected with a mandate to begin “nation-building at home,” President Obama was content to see Iran and Russia fill the vacuum created by American retrenchment and become leading players in the region. How can the Trump Administration avoid the mistakes of the last decade and strengthen America’s strategic posture?

In “What America Should Do Next in the Middle East,” published in Mosaic in September 2017, two of America’s leading foreign policy experts seek to chart a course for American policy. Michael Doran and Peter Rough argue that if America is to protect its vital interests, it must have a clear and coherent plan to advance its strategic goals on multiple fronts, all the while being wary of the wishful thinking that has led past administrations to failure.

In this podcast, Michael Doran joins Jonathan Silver to discuss the essay and the deeper issues it raises. In their wide-ranging conversation, Doran and Silver explore the thinking behind the Obama Administration’s Middle East policy, the errors the Trump Administration must seek to avoid, and the various motivations of the region’s key players. Though Doran makes clear that there are no easy answers, he helps us think through how American policymakers can begin the process of charting a new course the United States in the Middle East.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble, as well as Ich Grolle Nicht, by Ron Meixsell and Wahneta Meixsell.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tikva podcast and great Jewish essays and ideas. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
0:12.9	If you like listening to our podcast, I invite you to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher, where you can leave us a rating and a review.
0:19.3	If you'd like to learn more about our work at
0:21.3	Tikva, you can visit our website, tikvafund.org, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. I'm joined
0:27.1	today by Michael Duran, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, former senior director at the
0:31.5	National Security Council at the White House, and author most recently of Ike's Gamble, America's
0:36.9	rise to dominance in the Middle East.
0:39.4	Along with his co-author, Hudson Institute colleague Peter Rao, Mike recently published an essay in Mosaic
0:44.7	that asks what America should do next in the Middle East. In the essay, Mike and Peter assess
0:49.6	the Obama administration's Middle East legacy, from Syria and Iran to Iraq, Egypt, and Israel, and analyze
0:55.9	the strategic options available for a new approach to regional stability. As Mike and Peter
1:00.8	see it, the Trump administration's challenge is to reassert American power and to help bring
1:05.7	about a peaceful regional order without the United States going to war. Mike, welcome to the Tikva podcast.
1:11.9	Hi, thanks for having me.
1:13.5	So the premise of this essay is really that the legacies of one presidential administration
1:19.0	cast a long shadow.
1:21.3	And just as President Obama is rightly seen as a reaction, as he understood it, to President
1:26.9	Bush's legacy.
1:28.7	You tee up the question in this essay of how President Trump should think about the Obama years
1:33.2	and its ramifications in the Middle East.
1:36.5	Why don't you set the scene for us by just helping us understand the legacy that President
1:40.0	Obama left?
	...

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