What Not To Do (Foreign Edition)
In foreign policy what-not-to-dos, this Newsweek article suggests … anything. Stay the course, await developments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea … hey, almost makes it sound like the Bush administration’s been doing something right. Re Iran … there be dragons. And Newsweek reluctantly acknowledges, a first-do-no-harm policy may even include the hated Crusader Gulag at Guantanamo. Sounds like expectations the Messiah’s ascension was going to save the world are being gently lowered:
Iraq. Obama has pledged to withdraw U.S. troops. But that’s already getting under way …
Afghanistan. Obama will have input from two policy reviews: one the White House is wrapping up now, and a wider-ranging one that the new boss of Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, aims to complete by February. Fresh troops will be flowing into Afghanistan by then. Until the Taliban surge has been beaten back … any notion of negotiating with them, at anything except the micro-local level, is just happy talk.
Pakistan. Realistically, there is no option but to continue support for a fledgling civilian government, which is proving to be both more resolute and more competent than many had predicted …
Iran. Obama has talked about talks. But a failed negotiation, early in his tenure, would squander his international standing and limit his options on Iran thereafter …
Korea. Heroic efforts by Condi Rice and negotiator Chris Hill have come tantalizingly close to a settlement on North Korea’s nuclear program. What’s needed now is not some U.S. “initiative” but rather patient work stitching together the last pieces of the deal.
Israel and the Palestinians. … Israel won’t have a government able to commit to anything until well after next February’s elections … Nor do the Palestinians have a leadership that unites its warring factions. Obama is off the hook for months—time enough to decide if he really wants to embroil the U.S. in this quagmire yet again.
Yeah, well for all the lefty “Palestine first” theories of solving Middle East problems, that’s usually an end-of-term legacy favorite. Unless the Obama administration plans to govern to the Wright on that issue.
Russia. President Dmitry Medvedev, in brusquely threatening to deploy medium-range missiles in Kaliningrad unless the new administration abandons plans for missile defenses in central Europe, has just done Obama a huge favor. No American president could possibly back down in the face of so crude a threat …
Venezuela. President Chavez would bask in the status conferred by some “initiative” by the new administration. But the United States wants nothing from Chavez that he is remotely likely to deliver …
Guantánamo … Obama has pledged to close the detention camp. Certainly that would be the single most potent symbol of a “fresh start” by a new administration. Yet even here Obama will face problems. The Bush administration has been quietly cutting the numbers at Gitmo for a couple of years. A sizeable fraction of those still held are, on the available evidence, seriously determined Al Qaeda members. If Gitmo closes, what should be done with them?
That would be quite a picture, if Obama ends up wearing a Bush hand-me-down foreign policy. Maybe they’ll hate it less on him. Only problem is, that’s the kind of dress you need to wear like you don’t give a damn whether they like it or not …
And Newsweek forgot Cuba, where a lifting of the embargo and new relations … with or without meaningful reforms by Castro’s kid brother, who has been tinkering around the edges, changing the drapes … is probably one of the first orders of business. As for Venezuela, who says you need to get anything back into order to suck up?
Which seems like a good place to introduce NY Post’s Ralph Peters, who doesn’t see nearly so benign a world when you take the Bush out of the Bush policies:
THE American people have spoken, and whatever our personal preferences, our duty as citizens is to support our next president. And he’s going to need support: The international vultures are already circling.
Immediately upon his inauguration, President Obama will have to demonstrate to allies and enemies alike that he won’t be a pushover. Justified or not, the international perception of Obama is that he’ll be both passive and a pacifist.
…
Our enemies haven’t wasted any time. The day after our election, President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia, speaking for Vladimir Putin, gave a Gucci-loafer version of Premier Nikita Krushchev’s shoe-heel-on-the-podium rant of a half-century ago …
A day later, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran played good cop to the Russian bad cop, inviting the new US administration to enter direct talks with Tehran … the Iranians view our election results as reflecting a greatly weakened American will.
They assess Obama as the perfect patsy, a man who believes in his own powers of persuasion.
…
By the end of last week, even the Iraqis had swooped down for a bite of roadkill …
One key demand of radical Iraqis is the right to try our troops in Iraqi courts for alleged crimes. Given the present politicized state of the Iraqi legal system, accepting such terms would betray our soldiers.
As a candidate, Obama praised our troops. Will he stand up for them now? Or was his praise pure hypocrisy?
There’s much more to come. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez and the Castro regime in Cuba have welcomed the election results, anticipating an American retreat from the fight for freedom.
…
May we hope that the Obama administration, indebted to an extreme left-wing base, will have the audacity to do what is necessary and upgrade our nuclear weapons so that our deterrent remains dependable? The grim paradox of the last 60 years is that humankind’s worst weapons were all that prevented another world war.
Peters correctly points out that we all have an interest in seeing Obama succeed in the world … as long as he doesn’t actually do anything he said he would. Here are Peters’ short term suggestions:
What could he do to help himself? Three things:
* First, make it clear to all that while America is willing to talk with serious counterparts, we’ll expect results, not endless obfuscation.
* Second, beg Secretary Gates to stay on at the Pentagon for at least the first year of transition.
* Third, Obama should nominate that brilliant thug, Richard Holbrooke, as secretary of State. Holbrooke may be the most arrogant man ever to serve in our diplomatic corps (where arrogance has long substituted for competence). But he’s also tough, superbly capable and the savviest star in the Democratic constellation when it comes to global affairs.
If Obama wants to project an idealist’s image to the world, he’s going to need a realist at Foggy Bottom. And someone’s going to have to clean up Vice President Joe Biden’s inevitable messes. The next four years are going to be interesting.
Meanwhile, Norm Geras with a view from across the pond. It was an election, not a revolution. Wake up and smell the political realities. American democracy never went away and neither have our political divides. Oh yeah, and we’re not a bunch of bigots. Thanks for noticing, Norm! He’s channeling Sarah Baxter in the Sunday Times. “Welcome Back, America!” No, it’s not the Obamadorational Bush-bash it starts out sounding like it’s going to be, but a look at how Obama got elected and some of the complex realities of America and the Bush administration:
… America feels good about itself and its future again. Its moral standing in the eyes of the world rose overnight. Feizel Mamdoo, my brother-in-law, texted me from Johannesburg: “You’d think South Africa was voting! There are allnight election parties here.”
Feizel and I haven’t always agreed about politics recently. He thought President George George W Bush was a fool and a bully; I thought it was worth trying to make America safer by bringing democracy to some of the world’s most wretched tyrannies.
I believe that America is a remarkable force for good. Obama’s achievement is that a world that has been blinkered by Bush Derangement Syndrome can again see America for what it actually is.
Belmont Club’s Fernandez: Pakistan, nearly bankrupt, looks to the West. Notes that while economic woes may breed terrorism, terrorism breeds economic woes faster. Here’s a thought. Economic aid as an incentive for Pakistan to show a little more enthusiasm for fighting terrorism.
Art above from a Malkin commenter via leading Malay neocon Scott Hong, who last June helpfully rounded up a long list of foreign FObs … Friends of Obama.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:28 am on Monday, November 10, 2008
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