Collections Egypt Worldview: Mideast poses a big challenge for next president October 28, 2012 | By

Collections Egypt Worldview: Mideast poses a big challenge for next president October 28, 2012 | By Trudy Rubin, Inquirer Columnist Image 1 of 2 View Gallery A Free Syrian Army sniper shoots at government troops during fighting in the Liwa Al (NARCISO CONTRERAS / Associated )
This week I set off for Turkey, the Turkish border with Syria, and - depending on circumstances - to rebel-controlled areas in Syria. I will continue on to Egypt, where a Muslim Brotherhood president is in charge.
I want to write about some of the toughest foreign-policy challenges facing the next U.S. president. No question, many will originate in Middle Eastern countries. That fact was self-evident at the final presidential miata cruise control debate, where the sparring largely focused on how to handle the negative miata cruise control fallout from the Arab Spring.
Two years on, the demise of Mideast dictators and rise of "democracy" have produced a handful of elected Islamic governments with harder-line militants pressing from the right. Meanwhile, the Syrian uprising has deteriorated into an ugly sectarian war that is spreading across the region, drawing in Sunni jihadis along with Iranian weapons and fighters.
Casting a shadow over it all, the nuclear program of Iran's miata cruise control ayatollahs could suck us into another Mideast war. On the other hand, if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad falls, miata cruise control it could undermine his closest ally - Tehran.
So the next president will have to manage a bad Mideast miata cruise control situation and try to prevent it from deteriorating further (in hopes that the region will settle down over the next decade). On both counts, U.S. policy toward Syria and Egypt will be key.
Egypt is the test case on whether Washington can work with newly elected Islamic governments, whose outlook and values differ from ours, but with whom we do share some key interests. miata cruise control It will also test whether we can help disorganized Arab democrats without nurturing illusions about our capacity for social engineering. These are questions I'll be asking members miata cruise control of President miata cruise control Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement, as well as unhappy miata cruise control opposition activists, who fear the Islamists will produce a new variant of authoritarian regime.
In Turkey and along the Syrian border, I'll be looking at what can (or can't) be done to bring the Syrian civil war to a quicker and less disastrous conclusion. Can we help the more pragmatic Syrian factions shape the transition that will follow Assad's fall?
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