The Biden administration can make a difference in the Middle East

But only if it abides by these four principles when putting together its foreign policy towards the region.

The floodgates of unsolicited foreign policy advice for the Biden administration are now wide open. Some sensible individuals offer useful suggestions. However, much of the advice is coming from former US government officials who participated in creating the very foreign quagmires they now audaciously propose to fix. Their policy prescriptions often reflect a serious lack of understanding of international issues that prioritises agendas pushed by domestic and foreign lobbies and narrow US goals over effective diplomacy. I prefer to stay out of the policy advice game, and instead, only highlight a few enduring principles that might be useful in strengthening any major power’s foreign policy. This applies mostly to governments whose aggressive policies in the Middle East, defined by militarism, threats, sanctions, muscle-flexing, and self-congratulatory delusions of divinely sanctioned exceptionalism, have proven to be counterproductive and even dangerous. Keeping in mind the history of American and European colonial powers’ domination of the region, I suggest four principles that would allow US foreign policy to make a difference and help resolve some of the crises the region faces.