Domestically, the fiscal storms that battered the denouement of the Bush administration have not lifted; the economic hurricane continues. The Great Recession persists with unemployment and underemployment depressingly high, consumer confidence near historic lows, GNP growing very slowly and business apparently willing to wait out the administration\u2019s intentions in tax, investment and fiscal policy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And what President Obama has accomplished in bank and auto industry bailouts and stimulus packages for housing has come at vast expense, generating gasp-producing deficits and cringe-inducing additions to national debt. These, plus his benchmark \u201cObamacare\u201d health plan, are intensely polarizing; they have infuriated partisans on the right. They have made it impossible to act on key elements desired by the left (energy and environment legislation, immigration reform, gay rights). And they have left independents disconcerted that the relentlessly partisan atmosphere has not mitigated, as the US government remains far from any collegial approach to vital social and economic issues. The sneer from the right is \u201cHow do you like the \u2018hopey changey’ thing now?\u201d The riposte from the left is \u201cYou do not go back to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The truism remains that \u201cit’s the economy, stupid,\u201d for US electoral success or failure. Domestic affairs trump foreign affairs. Thus by definition, the forthcoming November midterm elections will disconcert Democrats; it is a historical reality that a president’s party virtually always loses seats in the midterm election after his first election. The question will be how many seats will be lost, but predictions of congressional catastrophe are probably overblown.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, it is useful to examine foreign affairs against the backdrop of what President Obama sought to achieve. The \u201cshort\u201d story is that his lack of success has been more noteworthy than his success; however, before \u201cburying\u201d the president, it is instructive to \u201cpraise\u201d him.<\/p>\n
Keeping the Team of Rivals pulling together. At the beginning of the administration, enough \u201csecretaries of state\u201d were named to suggest daunting problems controlling foreign policy. the Vice-President (Joe Biden), the National Security Adviser (General James Jones, the Defence Secretary (Robert Gates), the UN Ambassador (Susan Rice) and assorted special envoys (Richard Holbrooke \u2014 South Asia and George Mitchell \u2014 Middle East) all had the credentials to be secretary of state. Indeed, the individual with the weakest pure foreign policy resum\u00e9\u0081 was the one holding the position: Hillary Clinton. But instead of a bloodbath over who would spin the wheel at the helm of the foreign policy dreadnought, they have sorted themselves out reasonably well. The intelligence community, if not sorted out, is at least quiet. Rice at the UN has been invisible; Mitchell and Holbrooke might as well be. Jones at the National Security Council has focused on coordinating rather than attempting to run foreign policy; Biden’s misadventures have had little consequence.<\/p>\n
And the cooperative collegiality between Clinton and Gates, both personally and institutionally, has been breathtakingly positive. They have ignored media nattering of \u201cmilitarization of foreign policy\u201d and focused on advancing US government foreign policy objectives. They testify jointly before Congress; Gates repeatedly urges Congress to fund the State Department more generously; they agree that State should have (and should take) a stronger role in managing the politico-military challenges that Third World failed or failing states frequently epitomize. Whether such comity persists following the departure of either (or both) will be defining regarding US approaches to post-Cold War foreign policy. Adroitly, the President has left them alone to do their own things, and each has been vocally loyal.<\/p>\n
And the cooperative collegiality between Clinton and Gates, both personally and institutionally, has been breathtakingly positive. They have ignored media nattering of \u201cmilitarization of foreign policy\u201d and focused on advancing US government foreign policy objectives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That reset button clich\u00e9. George W. Bush had many virtues, but long before the end of his presidency, he was loathed by friends and enemies alike. If there were times when US prestige around the world was at lower ebb, they escaped memory. Indeed, one had the impression that substantial numbers would have happily diced him into small portions and roasted the remnants over an open fire. It is not that being loved is necessary for effective foreign policy, but being actively loathed or despised makes even minimalist proposals difficult to implement and anything complex and\/or controversial becomes de facto impossible.<\/p>\n
President Obama has escaped this tar pit. With a series of speeches before and after his election, from Berlin to Cairo, the President combined apologies for US error with commitments to do better this time around. The most obvious \u201creset button\u201d was to be with the Russians \u2014 to move away from implicit confrontation over the Russian’s actions in the former Soviet Union, particularly Georgia, and work toward agreement in areas such as arms control.<\/p>\n
The downside to \u201creset\u201d has been the slow deflation of overinflated expectations, especially in the Middle East. Nevertheless, the President has remained remarkably popular overseas \u2014 considerably more so than in the United States. We can assume that the White House might quietly wish that non-Americans (particularly Canadians) could vote in the November elections.<\/p>\n
Iraq \u2014 the closet success. On August 31, the President announced withdrawal of the last tranche of US combat troops, leaving 50,000 in country to continue training, support and assistance to Iraqi armed forces. The result of the long, brutal, expensive and divisive operation is a success that, so far as Democrats are concerned, dare not speak its name. But when more people are killed in Caracas than in Baghdad (and more in Venezuela than in Iraq), we have at least a qualified victory. To be sure, it could all go south: an excess of democracy that has left the country without a functioning government five months after elections; unresolved economic and cultural tensions between<\/p>\n
Kurds and the rest of Iraq; resurgent religious fighting that could bring the country again to its knees. But it remains galling for Democrats, who had invested heavily in US failure in Iraq \u2014 from opposing the war to begin to opposing Bush’s double-down \u201csurge\u201d of troop increases \u2014 to find that the US has bumbled and\/or lucked through the muck. We eliminated an egregiously vicious dictator and have given Iraqi society an opportunity it could not have contemplated in 2003.<\/p>\n
Afghanistan \u2014 still too close to call. In contrast to Iraq, Afghanistan was supposed to be the \u201cgood war.\u201d That is, there was a reason for US forces to be in Afghanistan \u2014 the sanctuary and training ground for al-Qaeda terrorists who perpetrated 9\/11. The US also has a \u201cnever again\u201d mantra \u2014 never again will we permit Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorists. It would be nice to have young women fearlessly seeking education and political self-fulfillment in bikinis; it would be delightful if little boys could fly their kites; it would be gratifying if wheat crops could replace opium production. But the bottom line remains: the US wants a country unable to export terrorists.<\/p>\n
In many aspects, this objective is relatively simple: sit on our bayonets, regardless of the discomfort, and pay the costs to maintain such a bottom line. Coalition combat losses have been societally trivial (fewer than 1,000 US combat deaths in nine years \u2014 when we suffered more than 4,000 dead in Iraq and 2,500 dead on D-Day alone in 1944). But we are now a \u201cshort-haul\u201d society; no longer are we doing long-term commitments. Thus the problem comes when the US moves beyond the minimal into \u201cnation building,\u201d which is its current endeavour. After excruciating decision delay, Obama reinforced America’s commitment. The US has again \u201csurged\u201d some of its finest combat units and has defenestrated a combat commander who spoke unfortunately blunt opinions about the powerful, replacing him with an even more technically proficient officer, General David Petraeus, architect of the successful Iraqi surge, who will also speak truth about the powerful but will do so sotto voce. The US should be able to accomplish its Afghan objectives \u2014 but not if it holds to the semi-commitment to begin removing surged forces in July 2011.<\/p>\n
For some the administration is blameless; inability to resolve generation-long problems in 18 months isn’t necessarily failure. Lamentably, however, in contrast to the Hippocratic oath of \u201cFirst do no harm,\u201d the administration has worsened several traditional problems. Security and the Gitmo problem. The US has been lucky with the incompetence of terrorists: the 2009 Christmas \u201cpanty bomber\u201d was thwarted by alert passengers, rather than security procedures, from exploding Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Ontario. A gormless homeland security czar has hardly reassured citizenry. And the bombastic commitment to close Guantanamo’s security facility in a year was aborted when nobody would accept the worst cases \u2014 not even US maximum-security prisons. Middle East mess. For a generation, nobody has lost money betting against peace in the Middle East. And no observer should mistake motion for movement. Thus the new round of discussions in Washington between Israelis and Palestinians raises hopes for success but could be doomed to failure. Essentially, the absence of the third party in the equation (Hamas) dooms discussions to circularity at best. Neither Palestinian nor Israeli leadership has the political strength for hard compromises necessary for agreement.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, early in his administration, the President’s rhetoric raised regional expectations in his Cairo speech. The effort led nowhere and, worst of all, was followed by avoidable contretemps with Israel over tertiary issues. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never been a favourite of liberal Democrats (exemplified by former president Clinton), but the disrespect President Obama demonstrated by visiting Egypt and Turkey (but not Israel or Greece) and a holding-his-nose meeting in Washington did not make Netanyahu more flexible. Surprised? Instead, by creating at least the impression of conflict, the administration emboldened Hamas\/Hezbollah and other hostile regional actors to refuse serious engagement with Israel. In fairness, it must be said that the body language between Obama and Netanyahu, at the White House rollout of the new round of peace talks in September, was much more positive.<\/p>\n
Resetting Russia. Moscow’s and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s objectives are transparent: resumed hegemony over the shards of the former USSR. In hopes of gaining Russian support against the Iranian nuclear program, the administration sacrificed a legitimate missile defence system that Poland and the Czech Republic desired. No payback on Tehran’s nukes, but a strategic arms agreement (New START) that despite the assurances of the administration leaves skeptical senators unconvinced. There are always opponents to arms control with Russia; however, the Obama administration may end up with \u201cthe worst of both worlds\u201d \u2014 a rejected (or long-delayed) treaty or a treaty leaving unresolved doubts over verification and potential constraints on US antimissile defence.<\/p>\n
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