For all the good that was supposedly done during the “Arab Spring” protests and revolutions, a state of peace in the Middle East is far from becoming the present condition.

The Israel-Hamas conflict has been ongoing for some time. This latest “war” is simply the newest chapter in the cycle.

Interestingly, the “Arab Spring” hardly touched Israel in a manner requiring diplomatic intervention like the truce just crafted by Egypt and Turkey over Gaza.

I find it laughable that Egypt holds enough diplomatic weight at this point to be one of the end-all voices on Israel and Palestine, especially since their president Mohammed Morsi declared judicial checks and balances over his presidential decisions to be non-existent.

The declaration has obviously garnered criticism from Egyptians (some have labeled Morsi a “dictator”) as well as from our own State Department, but it highlights what The Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin calls the “benign neglect” of the Obama administration’s foreign policy approach in the Middle East.

To head off an argumentative comeback, no one wants to immediately jump into another war in the Middle East. That part of President Obama’s foreign policy has been obvious enough.

But the presence and weight of Iran and the turmoil caused by the “Arab Spring” make the United States’ interest and approach to the Middle East even more important than if our military was waging war.

While Morsi’s power grab is self-labeled as a necessary gesture that will be resolved once Egypt’s democratic crisis is over, those in Egypt criticizing Morsi have probably heard of such promises before from the likes of Hosni Mubarak and Anwar Sadat.

Given the fact that the United States has held considerable foreign policy weight during those time periods as well, our next move should be to prevent another disguised but obvious dictatorship from taking hold in Egypt.

Anything less could possibly leave us with another case of the Egyptian government in upheaval; or at worst another Libya catastrophe where our own embassies and consulates are at risk of attack from Islamic terrorist-friendly extremists (if not terrorists themselves).

As a world power, the United States cannot enforce immutable will and influence upon the Middle East, but our mission to promote democracy can at least be used as weight to maintain internally positive democratic conditions amongst who we count as our allies.

President Obama famously declared during the Iranian post-election protests of 2009-2010 that he would allow them to sort out their own problems, and made similar declarations about the “Arab Spring” due to his desire to give America a less heavy-handed reputation in the Middle East.

But in heading toward his second term, Obama must ensure America’s enemies gain no ground in establishing themselves within a country or in cooperation with Iran.

As little rest as Israel gets from its enemies like Hamas, imagine how little rest America would get at the hands of a whole region of enemies. That future isn’t certain, but the past of the Middle East doesn’t give me much optimism.

Greg Sainer is a senior communication studies major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].