In watching President Obama deal with the cascading uprisings in the Middle East , it seems every week has brought a new decision: he supported Hosni Mubarak until it was clear that Egypt’s own army would not. He tried to shield friends in Bahrain, while blasting barriers away from an old foe in Libya. The leaders of Yemen and Syria refuse to go with the flow, as Washington points both toward the falls.

The contradictory approaches have startled some of America’s allies. Even White House officials were at pains to explain why Saudi forces rolling into Bahrain merited a mild news release, but Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces in Libya were bombed. “Pragmatism is a great thing,” a senior aide to Mr. Obama said over lunch in April. “But somewhere in all this we have to lay out some principles.”

On May 19, Mr. Obama tried to do just that - arguing that he is now ready to assert traditional American values as the “top priority” of American foreign policy.

Even in the hardest cases, he said in a speech at the State Department, “there must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity.”

He added: “After decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be.”

It was lofty stuff, echoing George W. Bush, whose call for America to fight for individual liberty worldwide was rejected in much of the world as a rationale for the invasion of Iraq.

So which American president is Obama going to be? The hard-headed pragmatist who bombed Benghazi to prevent a massacre and then violated Pakistan’s sovereignty to kill Osama bin Laden? Or the former law professor who has now promised 400 million people that “if you take the risks that reform entails, you will have the full support of the United States”?

“This is only part of a doctrine,” said Vali Nasr, who left the State Department recently . “It explains the ideal, but he has to couple it with an implementation,” he said. “In the end, the president is going to have to hold Bahrain to the same standard as Libya or Syria.”

Mr. Obama’s bet is that half a doctrine is all he needs right now, at a moment when American policy needs coherence, even as he insists a consistent set of tactics is impossible.

Many Arabs have labeled him an opportunist who used some uprisings to his advantage, and ignored them when they threatened to interfere with oil markets or upend America’s strategy to contain Iran.

“It was necessary for him to step back and say that not only does he support the aspirations of the people we have seen in the streets, but supporting them is in our long-term interest,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser.

After Mr. Obama’s speech, every future action is bound to be scrutinized.

If the royal family in Bahrain continues to listen to neighboring Saudi Arabia ? which sent troops into Bahrain ? does the president split with the Saudis?

That seems highly unlikely, with a growing threat from Iran.

If the newly empowered Egyptians give an opening to the Muslim Brotherhood, and threaten Egypt’s peace accord with Israel, does the president go forward with his promise of debt relief and loans?

“We think there’s a ‘Muslim Brotherhood exception’ to the aid package,” an Obama strategist said.

In talks with Mr. Obama’s staff, it was clear he believes that by embracing a long-term goal of self-determination, he is allowing himself room to maneuver.

“There will be times when our shortterm interests don’t align perfectly with our long-term vision,” he said in the speech, without suggesting how he would handle those conflicts.

In his first two years in office, Mr. Obama said little about democratic transformations as a core goal.

“The last decade was defined by Bin Laden and the war in Iraq,” Mr. Rhodes said. “The fact that the war is winding down and Bin Laden is gone creates an opportunity.”

But even seemingly democratic revolutions create power vacuums, and the governments that arise can be unpredictable.

Egypt’s popular uprising may produce an elected government subservient to the military. And the Bush administration pressed for elections in the Palestinian territories and was astounded when Hamas won.

Mr. Obama clearly has faith that showering Egypt and Tunisia with aid and offering to integrate them into Western economies will create a powerful example for other states. But Saudi Arabia and Israel believe that strong authoritarians in the region are better than weak democrats.

That is the new doctrinal struggle as the Arab Spring slips into a long, hot summer.


By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON