AP Photo

President Barack Obama is continuing to reorient U.S. foreign policy in general, and in the Middle East in particular, along the lines of the internationalist/neo-realist approach pursued in the pre-9/11 years of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Obama’s televised address marking the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, coupled with his earlier decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and this week’s start of a new round of U.S.-orchestrated Israeli-Palestinian talks in Washington, fits very much into a familiar pattern – a policy based on the assumption that Washington will continue setting the agenda and determining the policy outcomes in the Broader Middle...