Take China, the most important stop on Secretary Clinton’s inaugural “listening tour” of Asia. To be sure, human rights advocates groaned when Clinton publicly took humanitarian complaints and Tibet off the table and contended that the U.S. and the People’s Republic had more pressing issues on which to focus. It may be that Clinton indulged, John McCain-style, in a bit too much public straight talk in this instance, but her message was the right one for the times. However detestable the government of China is in many respects and however justified the case of the Dalai Lama may be, it remains true that the U.S.-China relationship is now the most important in the world, as The Economist has recently argued. China owns about a third of our national debt and relies heavily on American markets to support its export economy. The American and Chinese economies are, for better or worse, joined at the hip, and the way each responds to the current crisis will drastically affect the welfare of the other. Furthermore, the world’s hopes for beating back global warming rest increasingly on inducing China to industrialize in an environmentally sustainable manner. For both these reasons, close coordination between the U.S. and China wil define the world’s response to the challenges we face over the next few years, economic and otherwise. That the Obama administration is taking the pragmatic line — treating the Chinese as equals to be respected rather than “butchers” (to use Bill Clinton’s phraseology of 1993) to be tolerated is crucial to establishing the relationship of trust needed to guide us through these troubled times.
In Russia, the Obama administration has been very candid about “pressing the reset button” on bilateral ties, which frayed markedly during the latter years of the Bush administration, especially over NATO expansion and the Russian invasion of Georgia. The administration has adopted a pro-nuclear disarmament stance, something that the Bush administration strongly eschewed. It also appears that the U.S. is backing away from its policy — two administrations in the making — of attempting to contain Russian power projection among its immediate neighbors, signified by the administration’s lack of strong objections to Kyrgyzstan’s increasing ties to Russia and its closure of an American base. While on the surface this looks like a foreign policy defeat, a relaxed response to increasing Russian influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia will serve to lessen the Russian perception that the U.S. seeks to ring it with hostile states and marginalize it in its own backyard. These signals, along with Obama’s stated willingness to negotiate on Eastern European missile defense if Russia takes a more cooperative posture in dealing with Iran, should serve to lessen suspicion of American policy ends in Russia. The perception that the U.S. seeks cooperation rather than subservience (as appeared to be the case in the Clinton and Bush administrations) may induce Russia to shelve its belligerent posture and work together with the U.S. on issues of mutual concern, like curbing Islamic extremism and preventing nuclear proliferation.
Iran, like Russia, has been the recipient of positive diplomatic overtures from the new administration. These have included an American abandonment of the military option against Iran, a willingness to negotiate on issues of nuclear energy and an implicit recognition of the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic. Thus far, the Iranians have responded with bellicose rhetoric. That said, like Roger Cohen of The New York Times, I do not subscribe to the “Mad Mullah” theory of Iranian foreign policy. The Iranian regime is highly pragmatic (for example, it knows that if it used a nuclear weapon against the U.S. or Israel, Iran would become a glow-in-the-dark parking lot) and interested mainly in maintaining its rule and attaining what it views as its rightful place as a regional superpower. Obviously, the latter is not in the American interest, and unlike Cohen, I do not think the Obama administration should rush to woo Iran at the great expense of more established and firmer partners like Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, the Obama administration does the right thing when it signals that it envisions Iran as a legitimate player in the region, and one the U.S. wants as a partner in regional initiatives, not an antagonist. Iran, with its economic woes and restive younger population, cannot afford to rebuff such an offer of inclusion wholly, and such a gesture serves to bolster the political stock of Iranian moderates by deflating the existential threat posed by the “Great Satan,” the prize propaganda weapon of the nation’s hard-liners.
On the question of Israel and the Palestinians, the administration’s stance has struck me as pitch-perfect. First, Secretary Clinton has pledged $900 million to the battered Gaza Strip, and the U.S. has moved to stop Israel from imposing arbitrary and punitive restrictions on which goods they allow into the region.
Second, the administration sent a delegate to negotiations over the draft Durban II agreement, and then withdrew from the conference when it became clear the event would descend into an Israel-bashing fest, as in 2001. The administration has been supportive of Fatah-Hamas negotiations to give the Palestinians a unified leadership, while remaining adamant that it will only recognize Hamas when the latter recognizes Israel’s permanence and commits to solving the conflict by negotiations.
Simultaneously, while guaranteeing Israel’s military aid for the near future, the Obama administration has strongly objected to unjustified home destructions in East Jerusalem and settlement expansion in the West Bank, underscored with threats that American loan guarantees may be in jeopardy if such activities persist. This new approach is positive for two reasons. First, the sense that the U.S. is acting in a more evenhanded manner should have the effect of bolstering pro-compromise forces among the Palestinians. Second, with a right-wing government taking power in Israel, it is important that the U.S. firmly oppose Israeli measures that will endanger the possibility of a two-state solution and harm Israel’s long-term security. Certainly, in times like these, a more balanced approach is far superior to the Israel-can-do-no-wrong stance of the prior administration.
Obviously, this has been an incomplete survey of the Obama administration’s diplomatic policies. Two months into his term, it is hard to ascertain the effects of Obama’s governance on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the situation in Pakistan, all of which he inherited in more or less current form from Bush.
However, where the administration has been active diplomatically, it has been impressive. The most striking difference is a change in tone. Where the Bush administration appeared disrespectful of other global perspectives, even from close allies, the Obama administration has developed a tendency to seek common ground, strategic partnerships and grand bargains with global powers, while reacting with equanimity to their slights, rhetoric and occasionally aggressive actions. The administration realizes that, to lead the world in maintaining geopolitical stability in the midst of economic turmoil, and shaping international responses to the demands of the 21st century, it behooves the U.S. to be consultative and multilateral, rather than brassily unilateral. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appear to be bringing diplomacy back into diplomacy, and for that, we should be profoundly grateful.