TWO recent events in Washington have epitomized the waning American power: The US about-face on Syria and the federal government shutdown. They may have caused incalculable damage to the effectiveness of the US policy in the Middle East and the Gulf.

The two events may foretell what the rest of President Obama’s presidency would look like, from our region.

First came the volte-face on how to respond to the Syrian regime’s gassing of over 1,400 civilians in the Damascus suburbs of Ghouta, on Aug. 21. Initially, President Obama indignantly threatened to use force unilaterally, with or without congressional approval. Certainly, his advisers indicated, he was not going to wait for the UN Security Council to approve such a move, as the Council had become paralyzed by repeated Russian vetoes. Then just as suddenly, the president decided to refer the matter to the Congress. As Congress began deliberating the administration’s request for authorization, the president asked it to stop before it could vote on his request.

In the meantime, the US made another U-turn and negotiated a “framework” with Russia, meaning an understanding, on how to eliminate Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons and delivery systems. The Security Council eventually passed a resolution on Sept. 27 approving the US-Russian framework. While the resolution was based on Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, as the US had asked, it was rendered ineffectual nevertheless, as Russia had wanted, because it required that any further action be referred back to the Council. In other words, any further action on Syria’s chemical weapons would have to face another Russian veto.

There was no more talk about accountability or international justice for the perpetrators. Nor was there talk about the 100,000 civilians killed by the regime’s conventional weapons.

The US-Russian deal, and the subsequent toothless UNSC resolution, made matters worse for the United States’ image in the region: They made the US appear as an inconsistent and unreliable ally and friend.

One of the consequences of the US hesitant and changing policy was that the Syrian regime interpreted it as a “defeat” for the US. The regime was emboldened and Assad himself came out from hiding to give media interviews. Incredibly, he tried to show that the US retreat was proof that he had been right all along. He also gave lectures about the dangers of terrorism, despite the fact that very few governments could rival the Syrian regime’s history of employing terrorism to further its polices inside Syria and elsewhere.

The regime may now feel that it is immune from outside intervention, so long as it refrains from using chemical weapons again. Furthermore, it has been trying anew to cast Assad as a statesman, instead of the ruthless thug that he has been over the past 30 months.

Then came the US government shutdown, which in the Middle East is being interpreted as another sign of American weakness. Most Americans probably blame the Republicans for it, because they are in the opposition and the administration arguably would not have an interest in shutting government and jeopardizing its own policies. Many Americans also believe that the Republicans’ wish to railroad Obamacare largely explains the impasse, as they held the president’s national healthcare system hostage to the shutdown impasse.

However, in the Middle East, as probably elsewhere, the shutdown is seen as another sign of presidential failure of the first order. For a decade now, pundits in the Middle East have predicted an imminent American collapse. Now they think the US government shutdown is yet another proof. Never mind that it is not the first time such a shutdown has taken place, nor the fact that eventually American politicians would reach a compromise, as they did in the past, to allow government to resume its operations, as they did before.

Obama probably fueled such doomsday scenarios when he said that this time was different and that financial markets would feel the brunt of the shutdown. He was probably trying to apply pressure on the Republicans when he told CNBC: “I think this time is different. I think they should be concerned.” However, for some Middle East pundits, his comments were not taken as political pressure, but as proof of their apocalyptic prophecy.

US officials have made it clear that much of the government activities would grind to a halt, including those related to security. A Washington Post editorial screamed this week: “Government shutdown puts US security at risk,” predicting that “Republicans are putting US embassies across the world at risk with their shutdown of the government. More broadly, they are endangering national security at a time when the US remains under threat from Al-Qaeda and affiliated groups.”

While US politicians are parceling out blame on who is behind the government shutdown in Washington, real damage is being done to the US image in the Middle East, if not its actual policy and role in the region. Unless a solution is found quickly, US effectiveness in the region may be irreversibly impaired.