In his book Resurrecting Empire, published soon after the American invasion of Iraq, the Palestinian-American scholar Rashid Khalidi bemoaned that what “seems so painful to those with any real knowledge” of the Middle East is Washington’s unwillingness to accept that it is stepping into the boots of past imperial powers, and that “this cannot under any circumstances be a good thing and cannot possibly be ‘done right’.”
You have to wonder whether Mr Khalidi feels the same way today, now that his friend from the Chicago days, Barack Obama, is the president of the United States. Given the recent news that the US administration has been putting pressure on Israel to suspend all settlement building in occupied Palestinian territories, surely the Columbia University professor might accept that there are some circumstances in which imperial power might be a good thing. And yet, Mr Obama’s most forceful justification for advancing peace between Palestinians and Israelis is that “it is in the US national interest”, to quote his regional envoy George Mitchell. In other words, it is crucial because it enhances American power.
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