Daniel Widome

« Afghan action | Main | Nuclear blast »

April 21, 2010

The Art of Diplomacy

A common critique of Barack Obama's foreign policy is that it consistently takes a back seat to domestic affairs. Just this month, Obama canceled a trip to Indonesia and Australia to stay in Washington DC to shepherd health care legislation through Congress. This may have been an extraordinary situation, but it only reinforced the notion that foreign policy just isn't a priority for this president. If correct, the consequences could be profound. If they suspected that the U.S. president had his attention elsewhere, other countries could feel empowered to extract concessions from the United States, or even to treat the U.S. agenda with outright disrespect. Recent weeks have witnessed several potential examples of this behavior. But instead of demonstrating Obama's indifference to foreign policy, these episodes actually are indicative of his willingness to push policy in difficult but needed directions.

The U.S. relationship with Israel is simultaneously one of the country's most important and one of its most troubled. From the Israeli perspective, Obama entered office under a degree of suspicion. Republican presidents traditionally have been seen as more amenable to the Israeli security concerns, and Obama's professed desire to reach out to the Muslim world struck many Israeli observers as naïve at best and as dangerous at worst. Obama has yet to visit Israel as president, so the recent visit by Vice President Joe Biden assumed a great deal of symbolic value. But in the midst of Biden's visit, and shortly after the resumption of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians had been announced, Israel's Interior Minister revealed plans to construct 1600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, which has been under Israeli control since the 1967 war. An unquestionably inflammatory move, the announcement undermined the tenuous trust between Israelis, Palestinians, and the U.S. officials who hoped to bring them back to the negotiating table. The timing of the announcement was too pointed to be coincidental. The most plausible explanation was that the announcement was timed if not to embarrass Biden (and Obama, by extension), then at least to demonstrate Israeli independence.

Obama is also facing greater resistance on another complex issue. Last year, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia expired. Negotiators from both countries had been working feverishly to produce a follow-on treaty before START expired, and failing that, they resumed negotiations early this year. Many of the key parameters of a follow-on treaty had been decided, and it was hoped that a formal treaty would not take long to finalize (for more, see The Water's Edge, January 2010). But no treaty has emerged. In large part, this is due to challenges that have been inherent in the process since the beginning. Although both sides have reached a rough understanding on the number of warheads and delivery vehicles a new treaty would permit, Russian concerns about verification procedures persist. Russia also appears increasingly insistent on linking U.S. missile defense plans in Europe with the START follow-on treaty. In February, Romania announced that it had agreed to serve as a base for the U.S. missile defense system in Europe. This would have bothered Russia under any scenario, but the Romanian announcement came before U.S. officials could privately inform their Russian counterparts. This miscue in timing may have spurred Russia's intransigence and its willingness to delay a key component of Obama's nonproliferation agenda.

Are Israel and Russia disrespecting Obama or taking advantage of his supposed distraction from foreign policy? Or do recent reactions to U.S. policies say something deeper about Obama's priorities? The Israeli announcement of housing construction succeeded in raising the ire of the Obama administration. Biden said the announcement ran “counter to the constructive discussions” he had been having in Israel, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the timing of the announcement “insulting.” Although the episode certainly seemed to be a deliberate affront to U.S. efforts to restart the peace process, the underlying reality complicates that picture. Netanyahu leads a coalition government with several far-right parties that unequivocally oppose the peace process, and the Interior Minister happens to lead one of those parties. It is likely that the announcement was made during Biden's visit without Netanyahu's knowledge, and instead of being designed to embarrass the Obama administration, it may have been targeted at Netanyahu's. Nevertheless, Netanyahu left Washington this week after meetings with Obama that failed to produce even the standard joint statement, leaving U.S.-Israel relations in no better shape than they were upon the Israeli Prime Minister's arrival.

The delay in finalizing a START follow-on treaty was, in a certain sense, inevitable. Arms control treaties are uniquely sensitive and time consuming, and this is especially true for Russia, which sees its nuclear arsenal as central to its post-Cold War influence and prestige. The timing of the Romanian missile defense announcement was clearly botched, but it could not have been a great surprise to Russia. Last year, Obama announced a complete reconfiguration of U.S. missile defense plans in which greater emphasis would be placed on smaller interceptor missiles that would pose less of a threat to Russia's arsenal (for more, see The Water's Edge, September 2009). That the new scheme retained plans for European bases was widely reported and acknowledged. And if the new missile defense plan was an important piece of Obama's national security strategy, his emphasis on nuclear nonproliferation is an essential strategic keystone. Obama has championed nonproliferation issues since long before his presidency, and the coming months will witness several important milestones along the path toward achieving his stated goal of a nuclear weapons-free world. In April, Obama will host a special international summit designed to curb the spread of nuclear materials, and in May, the UN will host the review conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which are held every five years. Obama is pushing hard for a START follow-on treaty to build momentum for the events that follow, and it is only natural that such pressure would yield some pushback from Russia. And if reports this week of a final agreement are correct, then Obama's efforts finally will have paid off.

The world of diplomacy is often marked by an excessive and artificial display of politeness. But when sensitive political or security issues are at stake, international actors never hesitate to disregard propriety in the name of their own self-interest. A U.S. president who seems pre-occupied with domestic policy may appear to be a ripe target to be needled, prodded, or otherwise pushed around. But one can only be pushed around when they have forced their way into issues that could easily be left alone. The tensions that have been building in the U.S.-Israel relationship are not a consequence of Obama's withdrawal from it, but rather of his deeper engagement in it. He has pushed Netanyahu hard to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank and to reopen direct negotiations with the Palestinians. And although a START follow-on treaty was inevitable, Obama's focus on nuclear nonproliferation issues and his decision to reconfigure U.S. missile defense plans were by no means a foregone conclusion. These were deliberate policies that he adopted, of which one of the consequences was a tougher, more drawn-out series of negotiations with Russia. Israel and Russia have not disrespected Obama or taken advantage of his domestic political circumstances. Rather, Obama has staked out contentious policies that have placed him in exposed positions. In other words, he's just as engaged as he should be.

Foreign Policy Association, 26 March 2010

Posted by Daniel Widome at 01:18 PM to Europe,

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.watsonblogs.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1764

Comments

Posted by: percocet 10 325 at October 22, 2010 08:53 PM