Multiple foreign crises await Obama

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Add the Mideast crisis to the list of foreign policy issues awaiting U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's attention when he takes office, observers say.

Israel's airstrikes on Gaza are now piled atop other international matters vying for Obama's attention once he takes office Jan. 20, even as he and his advisers try to focus on the U.S. economic woes, The New York Times reported Monday.

Other issues include Indian and Pakistani troop movements raising fears of a military confrontation after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, North Korea foiling a denuclearization verification agreement, Iran's continued work on its nuclear programs, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"You can ignore it, you can put it on the back burner, but it will always come up to bite you," said Ghaith al-Omari, a former Palestinian peace negotiator, said of tensions in the Middle East and elsewhere.

One option would be for Obama to respond much more harshly to Israel's policies, observers told the Times. Other options available include pressuring the international community to lean on Hamas to stop rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel, or cultivating a peace between Israel and Palestine wide enough to include Hamas.

"What (the Israeli campaign) does is present the incoming administration with the urgency of a crisis without the capacity to do much about it," said Aaron Miller, a scholar and author of "The Much Too Promised Land," a history of the Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. "That's the worst outcome of what's happening right now."