AT contributor and Middle East scholar Dr. Barry Rubin has an interesting take on the future of US-Israeli relations as well as some intelligent speculation on how American policy in the region will evolve.Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. The good news, he says, is that US-Israeli relations are on "firm footing." But peering into the future, Rubin sees US policy evolving in "two acts:"The first act, which will take up the rest of this year and perhaps the early part of next year, will see a continuation of the effort at engagement which has had overtones of appeasement. But it will fail.The heroes in this drama, by forcing Obama to shift in spite of himself, are Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Palestinian Authority, with supporting roles for Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and a number of Arab...(Read Full Post)