"Events" Force Obama to Turn to Plan B...

NYTimes/ here

" ... The administration can point to successes: it has marshaled worldwide support for the campaign to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. And it has put relations with Russia on a firmer footing, with a decision to revamp a missile-defense system that may have paid extra dividends in helping to win Russian support for tougher sanctions against Tehran.

Those bright spots, however, come amid a host of troubling developments ...

That revelation (Iran) came days after the White House’s midcourse correction in its push for peace talks in the Middle East, and the leaked, ominous warnings of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, about the direction of the war there...

The debate over Afghanistan policy may be the most intense and far-reaching. But the administration also pivoted in its strategy for the Middle East, after it became clear that Mr. Obama would not succeed in one of his other early goals, persuading Israel to agree to a complete freeze in the construction of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

Like all new presidents, Mr. Obama has also learned that many events are outside his control. Afghanistan and Iran held deeply flawed elections that produced leaders  .... In Israel, a right-wing government took power, dealing a blow to Mr. Obama’s hopes 

Officials said Mr. Obama’s activist diplomacy has paid off in other ways, like the recent United Nations resolution on nuclear nonproliferation, and with Pakistan, where aggressive prodding by the United States pushed the government to confront the threat of Taliban insurgents near its capital.....

“The Obama administration doesn’t have the luxury of shunning contact with Iran,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Yet at the same time they don’t want to do anything that could demoralize a popularly driven opposition movement whose success could help change the Middle East.”

Mr. Obama’s conviction that events in the Middle East are linked helps explain his determination to rekindle peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Settling that conflict, administration officials say, would hinder Iran’s campaign to project its influence through the region..."