Obama’s Challenges Overseas
It’s likely that historians will view the 2008 election as a moment when America turned inward and looked hard at what was going on inside the country. Many recently-elected presidents have taken office with a decidedly strong pre-occupation with foreign affairs: Richard Nixon was one, and George H. W. Bush another. Both men, incidentally, accomplished major things in foreign affairs but were tripped up by American domestic developments.
President-elect Barack Obama, however, is preeminently a domestic affairs president. One reason is clearly his lack of experience in foreign policy and his dovish instincts about the application of American hard power overseas. But more importantly, perhaps, Obama campaigned on a platform stressing “hope” and “change” in America’s domestic affairs—vague concepts, to be sure, but concepts that obviously appealed strongly to a majority of American voters. Even before he takes office January 20, 2009, it is clear that domestic affairs, above all the economy, will be the dominating preoccupation of his first months in office. All Americans, regardless of whether or not they voted for him, will wish him well in this endeavor.
The world, however, will not go away. Vice President Joseph Biden incautiously predicted a major foreign policy test for Obama in his first months in office. Though tactless, Biden was certainly right. The world is watching to see how Obama handles himself in the Oval Office and whether he will strongly defend American interests when he is challenged about them.
It’s entirely possible that a foreign policy crisis could emerge from some area of the world to which few people have been paying much attention. Yet those parts of the world about which foreign policy analysts have for a long time been thinking hard will continue to provide headaches for the White House and might themselves develop into real crises. Here are the current most important foreign policy issues:
1. Fighting Islamist radicalism.
Iraq. Thanks to the “surge” implemented by General David Petraeus, Obama will encounter an Iraq better equipped to become a “normal,” indeed a democratic nation than at any time since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. Enhanced American forces, led by General Petraeus, in the past 18 months beat back both remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime and Islamist foreign fighters to give Iraq for the first time a sporting chance at sustaining a democratic order for its citizenry. If the politicians in Baghdad don’t make any rash decisions and if Iraqi security forces can strengthen their control over the dwindling, but still worrisome insurgents, U.S. forces should be able to leave with Obama’s proclaimed schedule of 16 months after he takes office.
Afghanistan. After the initial success of the allied coalition in overthrowing the Taliban at the end of 2002, this theater of combat against Islamist dictatorship seemed to have been neglected. The result: a re-organized, re-equipped, and resurgent Taliban taking advantage of a power vacuum in the tribal borderlands of adjacent Pakistan. What might be called “the Islamist international brigade” of fighters gravitating to Afghanistan from across the Islamic world poses a new threat in this conflict. Despite the skill and determination of President Karzai to render Afghanistan also “normal,” the centuries-old factionalism of its tribes and ethnic groups would pose a challenge for any Kabul regime, with or without military assistance from NATO. To watch: whether a beefed-up NATO military presence can reduce to the level of nuisance the attacks of main-force Taliban units across the country.
2. Iran. During his election campaign, President-elect Obama made waves by appearing to be willing to sit down with leaders of several countries who are adversaries of the U.S., including, presumably, Iran. But he also made it clear that he was not departing from the Bush administration policy that acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran was “unacceptable.” Iran has weathered three rounds of UN economic sanctions for its insistence on continuing to develop uranium enrichment, a key process for producing nuclear weapons. Iran today is actually more vulnerable than before to further international economic sanctions. Oil prices have dropped 30 percent, unemployment is at about 25 percent and inflation is close to 30 percent.
An Obama administration is probably less likely than the current White House to initiate military hostilities against Iran. Encouragingly, American officers in Iraq report that the quantity of Iranian-supplied projectiles used in road-side bombs in Iraq has dropped significantly in recent months. Either the Iraqi government has persuaded Iran to lower its Iraqi presence, or Iran itself is in a better mood to talk to the U.S. than before. Either way, Iran seems to pose less of a threat to the U.S. than a few months ago.
3. Russia. Putin’s consolidation of power in Russia through his surrogate, Dmitry Medvedev, seems complete. Under him a conservative ideology of nationalism has taken root that colors Russian analysis of world affairs with a deep tint of paranoia, especially about American intentions. On the other hand, Medvedev and Obama have apparently spoken by phone, and since then the harshness of Russian commentaries on U.S. foreign policy have been softened. Russia has not repeated its threats to place short-range missiles in its eastern European territory of Kaliningrad.
The danger is that Putin, both a martial arts expert and—like all Russians—a chess player, may be tempted to try to extend Russian power in former Soviet space by a perception that Obama is too preoccupied with domestic issues. He could threaten Ukraine or the Baltic republics, and so test NATO’s willingness to defend its newer members. It will be important for Obama to sustain American interest in NATO and support for the alliance.
4. Central and South America. The fall in global oil prices and domestic economic mismanagement in Venezuela have lowered the volume of Hugo Chavez’s anti-American bluster. But while a renewed long-term Russian presence in the region is unlikely given Russia’s sudden economic weakness, Chavez and his close ally Cuba could continue to stir up trouble for the U.S., perhaps in conjunction with the left-leaning regime of Evo Morales in Bolivia. Military conflict of any variety is unlikely, but U.S. allies like Colombia are vulnerable to the meddling of Chavez. American patience may be the best policy as the Venezuela public increasingly turns against its populist leader.
5. North Korea. This is really the joker in the pack of foreign policy cards that are being handed to Obama. The American five-year effort to engage North Korea multilaterally to end its nuclear program collapsed recently when North Korea refused to make a written commitment to reveal its nuclear assets. Washington removed North Korea from its list of countries supporting international terrorism after North Korea orally agreed to allow tough international inspections. Pyongyang’s latest display of intransigence is worrying because the secretive Communist regime may be preparing for a transition of political power with the recent illness and absence from public life of “Dear Leader” Kim Chong-il. Power vacuums are notoriously dangerous in dictatorial regimes. North Korea recently threatened, yet again, to engulf the South in a rain of fire. With the world’s fourth largest army and its artillery just a few miles from Seoul, it could readily do so.
6. Middle East. Many observers predicted that the Bush/Rice commitment to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement by the end of 2008 was unlikely to be kept. The most obvious reason is that the Palestinians do not speak with one voice. The West Bank is ruled by the relatively secular and moderate Palestinian National Authority, and Gaza is ruled by the militant Islamic group Hamas. The latter is unwilling even to accept the existence of Israel. While most Israelis are willing to accept the existence of an independent Palestinian state adjacent to them, they deeply mistrust the current Palestinian Authority leadership and they doubt the possibility of any workable agreement with Hamas.
Israel, meanwhile, could find itself at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon again. Despite UN Security Council commitments after the 2006 war to prevent Hezbollah from resupplying its positions in South Lebanon, Hezbollah succeeded in doing so. Another source of worry is that, if persuaded that Iran will irrevocably acquire nuclear weaponry imminently, Israel attacks that country without warning, unleashing a dangerous new war in the region. There is also a nagging worry that Obama might direct U.S. policy to “force” Israel to agree to a peace agreement with the Palestinians that would dangerously weaken its defensive capability.
To cope with these possibly dangerous challenges, Obama has wisely chosen a security and foreign policy team that is politically centrist and has considerable experience. The retention of Robert Gates as Defense Secretary is particularly commendable, because it sends a clear signal of policy continuity to the U.S. armed forces. With the American economy continuing to fall into a sink-hole, continuity of any kind is a virtue.
Dr. Aikman, a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum, was for many years senior correspondent for Time.
Columns, David Aikman, Global Culture, Leadership, War and Peace, Tue 23 Dec 2008
