by Patrick Seale

PARIS — Richard Haass, one of America's leading foreign policy specialists, has pronounced that “the American era in the Middle East… has ended.” His controversial judgement — which President George W. Bush would certainly not agree with — is to be found in the very first paragraph of an article he wrote in the November-December issue of Foreign Affairs, the prestigious journal of the New York-based Council of Foreign Relations, of which Haass is President.

Haass argues that in the Middle East's recent history, America's supremacy can be seen as the fourth period of domination by outsiders. The first period was Ottoman control up to the First World War, then British and French colonial rule between the wars, followed by the Cold War, in which Moscow and Washington competed for influence and shared out the region between them. The collapse of the Soviet Union some 16 years ago ushered in a period when America ruled supreme, enjoying what Haass calls “unprecedented influence and freedom to act”.

But now, he says, this era too is drawing to a close, and may indeed already be over. He predicts that the region is entering a phase “in which outside actors have a relatively modest impact and local forces enjoy the upper hand.”

Is Haass right? Or is he being a little hasty? Are his gloomy conclusions unduly influenced by the misjudgements, omissions and foreign policy blunders of the Bush presidency? Could America recover its authority under a new administration? These are questions of considerable interest to the region.

Perhaps the first thing to say is that, in spite of its recent failures, the United States is still not seriously challenged in the Middle East by any other external power or group of powers. The Iraq war may have all the makings of a major disaster, but what other power could afford to spend $500 billion dollars and deploy an army of 140,000 men for an indefinite period half way across the world?

The European Union, which many had hoped would serve as a counterweight to the United States, has conspicuously failed to forge a common foreign and defence policy. Its members pull in different directions. They are divided on major issues such as the war in Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict and on how best to confront the threat of Islamic militancy. On Iraq, Britain chose to side with the United States rather than with its principal European partners, splitting the EU down the middle.

Because of its spectacular economic growth, China is emerging as a strategic challenger to the United States, particularly in East Asia. It is certainly a formidable competitor in the feverish world-wide search for raw materials. It has made deep inroads into Africa, where some 500,000 Chinese are already at work, many of them on construction sites.

But China's economic partnerships and alliances have still not been translated into the sort of naked power the U.S. can project by means of its numerous deep-water fleets, its global network of military bases and its technological supremacy.

Russia's economy, in turn, has improved on the basis of oil and gas revenues, but it is still very far from recovering the considerable influence it used to have in the Middle East as an arms supplier and great power protector of several Arab states.

As for local actors, which Haass predicts will soon “enjoy the upper hand”, it is hard to see whom he has in mind. All too often at odds with each other, the Arabs are even more divided than the Europeans. Their oil wealth - their main material asset -- has still not been put to any consistent political purpose.

Iran poses a more serious challenge to American power, but its ambitions would seem to be purely local and defensive. It seeks to break out of the artificial isolation the US has imposed on it. It wants to be recognised as a major Gulf power, and as the protector of Shi'a communities everywhere. Militarily, it seeks the means to confront or deter an attack on itself - to avoid devastation such as Iraq has suffered - rather than to attack others.

As for non-state actors like Hizbullah and Hamas, they pose no credible challenge whatsoever to the United States. Their quarrel is with Israel - and with what the United States has allowed Israel to do in Lebanon and Palestine. Their ambitions are strictly limited to their own societies. If their legitimate grievances were addressed, they would cease to be any sort of a threat.