Winner takes it all, including problems?
The first term foreign policy heritage and the relationship with other countries of the world before the second term starts appear to be no less complex than the internal issues, which are of primary concern for the US President at present…
The New York Times, one of the most respectable US newspapers, published a review of world reaction to the Obama’s re-election (1). Citing Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, it says Russia is satisfied with the result expecting predictability in the Russia-US relations. There is even a possibility there will be more flexibility in some areas, like missile defense, for instance, as Obama promised talking to Dmitry Medvedev. At that, deep essential differences remain related to the missile shield and such international problems as Syria. Washington’s reaction to Russia’s internal affairs is a matter of concern too.
Ed Husain, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), comes up with a rather unexpected judgment. As a leading Egyptian liberal politician told him in Cairo earlier this year, his country wished George W. Bush would still stay in power. At least the Egyptians would know how get on with him. Not just in Egypt, but in Syria, Israel, Bahrain, Iran and even Saudi Arabia there is a perception that President Obama and the United States cannot be relied upon. It weakens America's allies and strengthens its enemies. Besides, the new Obama’s friends in the Middle East – the Muslim brothers – are the most influential entity in the region and they expect the right type of leadership and reliability on the part of the USA As a result the US reliance on moderate Islamist forces during the “Arab Spring” will require additional concessions.
Shlomo Avineri, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, former Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, thinks Obama has realized how difficult is the way to mutual understanding between Palestinians and Israelis. He should take into consideration the lessons learned during his first failed attempts to achieve rapid results while grappling with the issue. No matter there are differences between Obama and Netanyahu, in particular related to the West bank of river Jordan, the cooperation between the two countries has reached an unprecedented level. Anyway, it’s good for the Jewish state to have a friend in the White House, even he is critical sometimes.
According to Thomas Clouse Chandran Nair, an executive director of influential Pan-Asian think tank Global Institute for Tomorrow, no real changes of US foreign policy are in store for the Far East countries. To great extent their attention is focused on China’s power change. The Far East has lost its previous enthusiasm for the US President because of his failure to keep the foreign policy promises during the first term.
If Obama wants to restore trust in Asia he shouldn’t limit himself to rhetoric only. He’ll have to convince the peoples of the continent that he understands the necessity for the US to adapt to power change in the rapidly changing world, including the relations with China, Russia, Iran, Syria, not talking about the approach to “the chaos in Afghanistan”.
Dr. Constanze Stelzenmuller, a Senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund, shares mixed feelings. On the one hand, the Germans and other Europeans sighed with relief when Obama was re-elected. They never expected anything good from Romney. His remark about Russia being a geopolitical number one foe for the United States made many European politicians raise their eyebrows. On the other hand, there was some frustration over some steps taken by Obama’s administration, in particular related to Guantanamo prison, missile defense, unmanned aerial vehicles warfare and the stimulus measures among others.
According to other sources, Pakistan was among few countries, where hopes prevailed that Romney would win (2). The country’s leadership thinks the bilateral relations are at the lowest ebb in dozens of years, it had been much better with Republicans in power. Unmanned aerial vehicles attacks are the major reason for exasperation along with the bloodshed in Afghanistan that is unrelenting, no matter the assurances to the contrary.
There is a defined agenda for debate and deliberations on the second term foreign policy prospects. Martin Sean Indyk, Vice President and Director for Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., finds it possible the President could play a historic role in international affairs, something expected from him during the first term. That’s where he could make much better than tackling internal issues (3), if it pans out, of course. Talking about pending problems at the top of priority list, he mentioned the Iranian nuclear program, Syria plunging into civil war that might spill over to Lebanon, Iraq and Bahrain, the Palestinian issue, possible attempts of new Chinese leadership to assert itself abroad, the continuation of strategic arms reduction talks with Russia. Obama will also have to give a new lease on life to the Asia Pivot strategy building full-fledged partnership with the two emerging Asian giants – China and India, as well as to define the way to terminate the war in Afghanistan. In other words, Obama is expected to take part in the formation of new world order ”to defend US strategic interests and promote its liberal values”, a Saint Graal of US foreign policy thinking, no matter what issue is in focus. Morton Isaac Abramowitz is Senior Fellow of the Century Foundation, a leading Democratic think tank. He is a man with vast experience in intelligence matters. To his mind the President will do his best to expedite the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad from political scene. With Assad gone, the Kurds will become a core issue. Syria’s fragmentation process could may them independent enough to complicate the US relationship with the countries facing Kurds related problems like Turkey, Iraq and Iran. The probability is that in the case of Syrian Kurds, the US will be more inclined to directly or indirectly side with Turkey, a far more important foreign policy partner (4).
Stephen Schlesinger, a Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation, holds an opinion that Obama will do his utmost to avert a new military intervention in the Middle East, no matter what militaristic rhetoric he might resort to under the circumstances. The reasons are the internal issues burden and sad experience of the recent past, in particular Iraq and Afghanistan. Besides, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu openly came out in support of Obama’s opponent during the elections. Now the President will be less inclined to reckon with Israeli’s demands to use force against Iran while confirming the US commitment to the security of Israel. His Iranian policy will remain as ambiguous as it was, including such steps as sanctions, threats, boycott, international pressure, but no war.
James Blitz, Defense and Diplomatic Editor, the Financial Times, says dealing with Iran’s nuclear program is probably the biggest foreign policy challenge of President Obama’s second term (5). Until now the administration says a military action is possible at the next stage of uranium enrichment – when Iran takes a strategic decision to create the bomb and comes near to the testing phase. If Mr. Obama sticks to this view, he will need to restrain Israel again, arguing that economic sanctions should be given more time to persuade Iran into a deal.
China’s potential and ambitions alarmingly grow, but the stated intention of the White House to influence its policy evokes open scepsis among many experts. Kathrin Hille is a Financial Times correspondent in Beijing, says the US has limited resources to exert such influence at the strategic level. The US military options are limited by China’s development of weapons systems designed to project power beyond its coast and deny an adversary – most likely to be the US – access to certain areas. This includes a land-based anti-ship missile which could put US carriers in Asia at risk.
Fred Weir, the Christian Science Monitor's Moscow correspondent, reports that Russia is actively looking for ways to counter Washington’s actions. Right now the Kremlin adopts the new tactics (6). In response to the US criticism of human rights and democracy Russia makes public no less acrimonious facts of US practice concerning these issues. Thus the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, being itself under criticism for mass falsifications during the elections, demonstratively refused to conclude the US elections were free and fair. It says the US presidential election on November 6 fell short of international election principles. The Russian statement says the principles of universal suffrage, authenticity, justice, openness and transparency are not duly guaranteed by US government.
(1) http://nytimes.com/politics/ The World on Obama – NYTimes_com.html
(2) http://blogs.cfr.org/campaign-2012/2012/11/09/views-from-abroad-world-reacts-to-obamas-win/
(3) http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2012/11/08-us-election-foreign-policy-ath
(4) http://tcf.org/
(5) http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/4d9eb496-28da-11e2-9591
(6) http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/1107/Russia-not-Obama-s-No.-1-foe-but-Moscow-doubts-a-fresh-reset
