A rough draft of this post was accidentally published before it was final. Sorry for the confusion.
Since Obama took office, he has taken a very different policy standpoint on four major countries that have poor relations with the US —North Korea, Iran, Burma, and Venezuela. Obama has offered to wipe the slate clean—end sanctions, begin friendly talks, shake hands in public, whatever the thug in power wants. While it’s naturally too early to draw final conclusions, the initial result of Obama’s “sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy” (whatever that means) has been just as much a failure as a student of International Relations 101 would expect. Peace through strength is still important, and human nature still applies in the 21st century.
The liberal blog Firedoglake has mocked conservative criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy by ironically writing that “only Republicans can shake hands with dictators.” This cheap joke is great for a blog, or for the short attention span of the mass media, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. Nixon made his career on being a fierce anti-communist but was the president who opened relations with Communist China; Reagan only made a raprochment with the USSR after it selected a leader who wanted to defrost relations with the US. Yet another big difference between Nixon shaking hands with Mao and Obama shaking hands with Chavez is that in the case of the former, a new era in bilateral relations had already been created behind the scenes. In the case of the later, it was a peculiar gamble that only became a PR opportunity for an anti-democratic thug. Obama should remember the old Vulcan saying quoted by Spock in Star Trek VI: “Only Nixon could go to China.”
Obama is no Nixon.
Let’s have a quick review of how relations with the four rogue nations have changed after four months of Obama’s “sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy.”
- North Korea: Pyongyang has become more prickly and unpredictable as ever, launching rockets and testing its second nuclear device, and has refused to return to six party talks.
- Burma: Obama is moving towards engagement of the Myanmar junta and even proposed stopping sanctions, which has been met in response by the show trial of the country’s democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
- Venezuela: Nationalization of industries continues, Obama’s handshake with the thug of Caracas continues to be a great publicity move for Chavez, but this still doesn’t stop Venezuela’s president from criticizing Obama at every chance he gets.
- Iran: Iran is the only glimmer of positive news, although perhaps mostly because a presidential election looms on the horizon, and even those inside the cabinet are making friendly noises in Obama’s direction. That being said, the country has still firmly denied that it will give up its nuclear program, and even writers at Time wonder if Obama is dragging us along a path that will result in war with Iran.
This is all componded by the irony that as Obama gets chummy with America’s foes, he’s speaking being tough on Israel to oppose any expansion of Israeli settlements. Someone’s forgotten the many failures of Jimmy Carter.
The evidence speaks for itself. And I think the dictator-hugging, it will continue in this general direction. Which is why I’ve written on several occasions that Obama’s foreign policy scares me.
UPDATE: Thanks to Eddie for this one—turns out that it isn’t just the Israelis, but the British as well, who are getting snubbed by Obama.
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Comments to this entry
Chirol
May 28, 2009
2:15 pm
Aceface
May 28, 2009
3:22 pm
Handing Beijing the control stick was the very mistakes from the beginning.
Ofcourse they won't be serious about forcing Pyongyang to drop the nuke.There's no motivation!
America totally lacks power,purpose and principle in dealing North Korean nuclear crisis.It gets worse as the time gets.
jim
May 28, 2009
4:32 pm
Eddie
May 29, 2009
2:56 am
The Israelis are in a far right coalition that is locked into self-isolating behavior (even the promising talks with Syria now seem to be dead in the water) because of the sheer extremism of some of its coalition partners (though it has to be noted that FM Lieberman, for all his ethnic chauvinism, appears to be a realist in many senses of the word). Whether or not they attack Iran later this year or early next seems increasingly an academic exercise of how many Iranian civilian casualties and what damage to America's interests, not to mention the Saudi oil platforms in Iran's target sights after that attack. Bush's foreign policy towards the Palestinians was a miserable failure, as amply documented by the absurd call for freedom and democracy and then a condemnation of the Palestinians for voting for the only non-crooks on the ballot, Hamas.
America's Burma policy has failed as well, held hostage by do-gooders who think if we just isolate ourselves enough from everyone else in the world making money there, sucking up valuable resources and gaining influence in Burma, we can pressure the regime into coming in from the cold. Its not going to work, and HRC was wise to read the writing on the wall.
Venezuela is held hostage by an idiot running it into the ground who now has near dictatorial powers granted to him by a voting majority (most of whom are taking straight cash payments from his regime in the form of subsidies and community investments). Obama shaking his hand does nothing for the US or Venezuela but does give Latin Americans a clear signal that the US is no longer playing "he said, she said" with Chavez that demeaned the US and did little to promote its interests in the region (all of our allies save Columbia do extensive business with him anyway).
North Korea is another failed bipartisan policy. What we've done the last 60 odd years hasn't worked. Do we have anything else in the cupboard? Probably not. We may yet get to curse Jimmy Carter for his interference in 94 that doomed us to fight a second Korean War later this year. That will not be Obama's fault, given the US has almost nothing to work with there aside from allegedly unthinkable options (like pushing for a nuclear Japan) that may be untenable nevertheless.
I just don't get this criticism of him as projecting weakness. If anything, all of these give backing to the observation that Bush's foreign policy of the last eight years (coddling Pakistan no matter what, playing footsie with the Nokos at the 6 party talks while they gave away the store to Syria, Iran, Pakistan and God knows who else, isolating Cuba & Venezuela while they isolated us in Latin America, choosing idealism over reality in Burma and Iran) has left him with a mountain of problems he probably does not have the talent or good fortune to address satisfactorily.
Eddie
May 29, 2009
3:16 am
Admiral
May 29, 2009
3:47 am
As predicted, every single political entity that senses the weakness of President Obama, and believes it is in their interests to do so, has tested US resolve. However, far from being an oppressive presence in the world, it has generally been a humanitarian, peace-fostering force. Although Obama augurs a significant weakening in US power, and therefore the interests it has fought for mostly in the past few decades, I should also note that Bush didn't do much that would make it difficult for him to do so. For example, although Bush's initial NK policy got more results than any before or since, he abandoned it. Additionally, our decline in naval power seems unfortunate and irreversible -- whereas in the 1980s I think we had upwards of 17 aircraft carriers, we will soon have 11? When the CVN-65 USS Enterprise is decommissioned, she will not be, as was originally proposed, replaced by another vessel of that hallowed name. Instead, we're naming aircraft carriers after no-term Presidents (Ford) and one-term Presidents (Bush). Whence the Invincible, Dauntless, Avenger, Indefatigable, Victory, and, yes, Enterprise?
Now, of course, I am not saying that sea power is the future. But we're running out of options at the same time that many in the UK, such as originally David Cameron before a solid discussion with Hague and Fox, are content to rely exclusively on the US for defense by not spending money on Trident. This is not, as Thatcher might caution, the time to go wobbly. But then, there never really is a time.
And that ought to be the message to Obama, but, alas, it's too late. Far too late. No matter what signals he sends out now, he's already shown his hand as very likely to appease whoever comes before him. After all, what would you do if you were Vladimir Putin, Kim Jung-il, or anyone else who thinks they stand to gain from moving in where the US fears to tread?
IJ
May 29, 2009
3:58 pm
At Nato. In his speech this week to the Nato Parliamentary Assembly the S-G said But I do worry that some national governments are not maximising their contribution to NATO - they are still wasting resources on procurement of capabilities for hypothetical scenarios.
At the US Department of Defense. Gates Is Optimistic that Weapons Cuts Will Weather Opposition. Mr. Gates, who believes that future wars will involve conflicts more like those in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than taking on superpowers such as China or Russia, is using one of his most potent weapons—the annual budget—to quickly bring about changes in how the Pentagon arms for conflict. He is taking aim at some of the most entrenched forces in Washington..
Bob Harrison
May 30, 2009
1:23 am
" in the 1980s I think we had upwards of 17 aircraft carriers, we will soon have 11?" And how many carriers do other countries have? If you combined all the navies of the world you'd still have fewer carriers than the USA (not to mention most of those navies belong to our allies).
I may be overly-optimistic but I believe it will take more than one naive president to ruin American power.
Jesus Reyes
May 30, 2009
6:08 am
UNRR
May 30, 2009
11:51 am
Alfred Russel Wallace
May 31, 2009
1:36 am
NO wonder the Queen is miffed!!
Bob Harrison
May 31, 2009
9:46 pm
Here I was thinking there would be a new triple-entente of the US, France, and the UK against Russia and Germany.
Jason
June 1, 2009
1:44 pm
You're being overly dramatic. Having a president who believes that engagement with another country is something other than the active use of military weapon systems is not a bad thing. This is his FIRST YEAR in office, he barely has five months on the job, and you're bemoaning his policies. Give diplomacy some chance to work, at the least he can say "well I offered my hand, now we play rough." As for Israel, that country is way beyond the pale of normal civilized behavoir and needs an urgent wake-up call. We give Israel $3 billion a year in assistance and all we get back is more unrest, more distablization in that region. Something has to change, and certainly the issue of settlements is a logical starting point.
Obama And Israel: Be Careful What You Wish For « Hidden Unities
June 1, 2009
4:58 pm
M. Nut
June 19, 2009
6:13 pm
N. Korea started launching missiles during the Bush administratio, so why is it that them continuing to do so is because of bad policy by Obama? Was it not Bush who removed N. Korea from the list of countries who support terrorists?
Venezuela. Could it be that Obama is going to "speak softly and carry a big stick". You see that Obama had the audacity to shake hands with Chavez means that he's being "soft." Others, like the "radically leftist" Bill O'Reilly, say that Obama "scolded" Chavez in that meeting and may be getting frustrated so he's lashing out.
Iran. According to another "radical leftist" Pat Buchanan (in CNSNews.com) Obama's policy is spot on. In not overly engaging Iranian protesters we are avoiding aiding the current government in painting the whole thing as a U.S. conspiracy.
Burma, really Burma? That's the best you could come up with for a fourth mistake? That are dozens of regimes that are worse than those in Burma. Are we supposed to change every nation all at once?