Change for the Better, Worse, or… To Be Determined?

Change for the Better, Worse, or… To Be Determined?

Review of Bending History, by Martin Indyk et al of The Brookings Institute

[All of the quotes are from Bending History. Martin Indyk et al. The Brookings Institute, 2012.]

Most, if not all, Americans know of the significance of the election of Barack Obama in that he was the first black President of the United States. Most Americans are familiar with Barack Obama’s domestic policies. However, besides America’s war against terrorism, (including the killing of Osama Bin Laden) there may be some gaps in the average Americans’ grasps of what Barack Obama has done in the way of foreign policy. Bending History, by Martin Indyk et al of The Brookings Institute, seeks to fill in the gaps in Americans’ knowledge of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Its key premise is that there is a mixed bag of successes, failures, and results yet to be determined of his “overall foreign policy history [23].” Throughout the book, the authors seem to grasp at straws to point out successes where situations have otherwise failed, but also do point out successes. At the same time, however, they do mention failures. Overall, it is a great read as one tries to understand how our President’s policies fit into he overarching mold of history.

            To begin with, the authors first present what President Obama sought to do in his administration up until 2011. To begin with, Obama sought an “anything but Bush [2]” method of conducting his policies. These included “opposition to the Iraq War, a willingness to engage pragmatically with dictators, and an emphasis on enhancing the roles of diplomacy and multilateralism in American foreign policy. [2]” He favored a hardline towards those who antagonized America, noting that “Talking,” by itself, “Does not work…. It’s time to turn the page on Washington’s conventional wisdom that agreement must be reached before you meet, that talking to other countries is some kind of reward, and that Presidents can only meet with people who will tell them what they want to hear. [4]” At the same time, the President is also a realist. For instance, he knows that “he [can] not end global hunger, abolish nuclear weapons, and end the threat of global warming. [5]”

            In fact, one of the ways in which Obama is a realist is that he saw the economic crisis and realized that a “new global order [12]” was coming, and this order did not involve America as the leading hegemon. In order to prepare America for this, he crafted a policy that consisted of many tenants. They were that China must be “given the respect it deserved as an emerging superpower,” “nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation,” and “changing…combative relations with the Muslim world into a positive partnership [14-15].” In terms of his more definitive goals, the President wanted to “[prevent] a global economic meltdown while also protecting America from immediate threats. [15]” In order to do this, President Obama crafted a foreign policy team with these goals in mind.

            Two of these members of the teams were Robert Gates and Richard Holbrooke. Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense at the time, was chosen because of his “pragmatism, seriousness, focus, and good judgment, as well as his ability to help the young progressive president overcome the skepticism of the military. [17]” He was also chosen for continuity’s sake for the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Richard Holbrooke was chosen because he had ended the Bosnia War through negotiation [20]. This was a sure pick for his team if he was to place proper emphasis on tough diplomacy with consequences. One of the challenges the President faced was China’s growing importance in the international arena and, even there, his picks for administration officials were deliberate and thoughtful.

            China. For China, Barack Obama brought Jeffery Bader and James B. Steinberg into his team for the senior director of “East Asian affairs at he National Security Council [30]” and deputy secretary of state, respectively. He believed that these were the best choices to correct Former President Bush’s “overly indulgent treatment of China. [30]” He believed that China was important, among other reasons, because it was an emerging power [24]. One of the major problems that confronted him in dealing with China was the economic crisis.

            China, finally coming into its own economically, looked at the US as sort of a role model for its economy [27]. However, once the financial crisis happened, China blamed the United States for the global economic crisis. Further, the crisis “reduced very significantly America’s power and prospects. [27]” This problem led to other problems, including a lack of trust towards America’s “overall intentions. [29]” The Chinese government has a very skeptical view on America and that is that “every American action is in some way part of a strategic, disciplined, highly coordinated set of initiatives to entangle China in responsibilities that will distract it from its development tasks, exacerbate its relations with its neighbors, and increase the chances of instability, [29]” all of which America will take advantage of. President Obama would seek to remedy this view by a summit in 2009 at Beijing.

            The summit in Beijing produced one main statement, and that was that “China [was] a major power [which is] to be treated with respect [32]” Though the only thing that came out of the summit was a statement that was complementary of each other, the authors posit that the agreement actually “sought…to cement the principles that would guide US-China relations in the future and to calibrate those on the basis of China’s more important position in the world.” The first goal that President Obama would seek to deal with China subsequently would be the control of greenhouse gas emissions.

            President Obama was concerned with climate change and wanted to combat climate change; however, he would have to convince China to change its policies. In this particular instance, though, Congress would get in the way. Though the President supported a change to the Kyoto protocol that would effectively cap-and-trade emissions, China would not have signed on to it because they were confident that Congress would never agree to such a measure [35]. In effect, it used Congress to its advantage when they learned that, upon visiting them, the measure would not pass and thus was able to keep their position (opposed to cap-and-trade) intact [35]. Though this led to failure, another problem would loom on the horizon: North Korea.

            For North Korea, President Obama was concerned that the country was convinced that by demonstrating themselves to be closer and closer to the achievement of nuclear weapons, they would be rewarded due to past events [36-37]. Though it agreed to sanctions against North Korea at first, China eventually backed away from them [37]. Yet China wants to keep North Korea’s nuclear program in check because “it increases tensions in Northeast Asia, produces capabilities that China does not want to see on the Korean peninsula, and renders ineffective the multilateral negotiation that China’s leadership is most associated with-the Six Party Talks [38]” In short, for North Korea to win, it would weaken China’s standing in the world. There were two problems for President Obama to overcome: China does not want to slow down its economic development at home, and the US political calendar conflicts directly with China-US relations. [39] Here, President Obama sought to use “tough actions” by meeting with the Dali Lama and by selling arms to Taiwan [40]. This decision backfired because China claimed it “violated the spirit” of the summit in 2009 [40]. However, 2010 would be a true testing point in this regards.

            In 2010, North Korea attacked a South Korean vessel, attacked a South Korean island, and revealed it was enriching uranium [45]. Though China’s relationship would be weakened with South Korea, it would ultimate decided to back North Korea so as to not upset the balance when Kim Jong Il died [46].  This decision was also against its own interests. Another botching of foreign policy would come when trying to get a deal in regards to the South China Sea conflict.

            In 2009, despite what was supposed to occur, the claimants to the South China Sea did not resolve their disputes. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement to the effect that the “United States takes no position on the various parties’ claims, but America wants such disputes to be handled without resort of the threat or use of force. It also wants the region to remain open to international commerce and, especially, to protect freedom of navigation within the South China Sea [48].” A problem would surface in the Association of Southeast Asian Nationals (ASEAN) regional forum when there were many complaints leveled at the Chinese foreign minister. The United States shortly thereafter made a statement that said that “all parties should engage in a multilateral negotiation; the territorial disputes would likewise be resolved through a collaborative process; the United States supports peaceful resolution of these disputes; all maritime claims must be based on valid land-based territorial claims; and the United States has a very strong national interest in preserving freedom of navigation throughout the South China Sea [48].”  The foreign minister reacted very harshly to this, and it became obvious that China had been left out of discussions of the United States’ positions with other countries [49]. Barack Obama could not make ground on these major issues, so he decided to pivot in 2011.

            In 2011, Bader and Steinberg left the government, leaving “no China specialist at the level of bureau chief or higher in the State Department, National Security Council, or Pentagon [57].” This pivot consisted of four areas. One is multilateral organizations, most notably attempting to see the Trans-Pacific Partnership through to completion; another is economics and trade, which was achieved by ratifying a free trade agreement with South Korea; the third is security, which President Obama put in place by protecting the US’s security interest in Asia from “Any future cutbacks in overall American military spending”; the fourth is promoting the idea that democracy can successfully “mange the transition to modernity [60].” This seemed to lead to an effective response from China.

China’s response to these policies has been to be measured, consisting of respect for “American strength and capabilities,” as well as a desire for relations between the two countries to not deteriorate [62]. The thesis of this chapter is that the policies’ effect still seems as of yet to be determined; however, a shrewd eye will point out that China has managed most of these situations to its own advantage, using diplomatic ploys to not only assert itself, but also uses them to its advantage. In fact, China seems to have the advantage so far in this department, most noticeable in the area of North Korea and the South China Sea. Mitt Romney’s hardline rhetoric towards China has made Obama also change his rhetoric, something that may be damaging were he to be elected to a second term. But this was not the only challenge he needed to confront in his first term.

Another challenge that President Obama needed to tackle was War and Homeland Security.  

            Homeland Security. In Bending History, the authors focus on three main issues for Homeland Security in their chapter, “War, Counterterrorism, and Homeland Protection.” They are Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. They also give the President high marks for the way he killed Osama Bin Laden, who was Al Qaeda’s original founder as well as mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. For Bin Laden, the authors make the point that the President decided to capture or kill with confirmation of the target, rather than bomb the building that bin Laden was found on because he wanted to make sure he killed who he thought he killed. They also mention that the way the Bin Laden operation was carried out was done so “efficiently and competently, [71]”—both Pakistan and the media were left in the dark until after the operation had concluded—with the end result being that he “decimated Al Qaeda’s leadership [71].” However, the authors note that Al Qaeda is still a threat. The next issue the chapter tackles is Iraq.

            For Iraq, the authors duly, and correctly, note that President Barack Obama had not been in the U.S. Senate to vote for the war [73]. Nonetheless, he has been consistent on the way in which he has approached Iraq. From the time he ran for the Chicago State Senate, the President has called the war “dumb…and rash [74].” Further, there is the contention presented here that Obama got lucky that the situation there was beginning to improve. Thus, when he took office, he began the drawdown. However, he modified his campaign promise from leaving in 12-16 months to 19 months, and left 50,000 troops—this was contrary to his promise of leaving only a token member of troops there [75]. Despite being seen as possible breaking a promise, there was logic behind his steps.

            President Obama’s logic in drawing down the troops was that casualties were already dwindling, and therefore he saw the room to make sure he could slow his withdrawal. The authors claim that his handling of this was “thoughtful, careful, and effective [77].” However, the next few steps were not. To begin with, he handed off the care of Iraq to Vice President Joe Biden, known for making off-the-cuff gaffes  [78]. Though the book claims that this was done for purposes of ”quiet diplomacy, [78]” which consisted of trips by Biden to Iraq every few months, as well as meetings in Washington, and so forth [78] it gave the impression that Barack Obama had, in effect, forgotten about the war. While Biden was successful “to a degree [79]” – though no evidence of this is given other than Iraqi’s support for the withdrawal had increased—Biden had the need to remind the Iraqi public that Obama had not forgotten about the war, and tried to get Maliki to stop manipulating election law [79]. However, it would be the United States who would ultimately wind up manipulating the election law.

            In 2010, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s party won the majority of seats, but was unable to form a coalition government. The White House instead decided to tell Maliki, the current President to “form a government of national unity that included Allawi’s party, an alliance that would allow the latter to play a major role in the selection of defense and interior ministers [85].” However, the authors note that this backfired and instead made Allawi and Maliki not be on talking terms due to a “major breakdown in government, [85]” fostered by Washington’s advice, the larger lesson of which seems to be to not meddle in the Iraqi government’s internal affairs. The next challenge in the way of national security was Afghanistan, in which a similar approach was used, this time at home.

            For Afghanistan, President Obama appointed General Stanley McChrystal to command US forces. His approach was to keep his distance from McChrystal, an approach that “kept McChrystal and Obama out of touch during the crucial summer months, when the need for additional troops was being diagnosed in Afghanistan [89].” This would eventually be fixed in the fall. One of the concerns in Afghanistan was the revival of the Taliban. This had happened though a “combination of intimidation, cajolery, bribery, and selective violence [90].” Additionally, the fact that the Taliban now had contacts with the Haqqani network made them a formidable fighting force. The way in which the Obama Administration went about solving this problem, among others that arose in Afghanistan, was embarrassing. For one, cables were leaked that Ambassador Eikenberry did not think President Karzai (Afghanistan) was dependable. Further, most administration official castigated Karzai in private, which led to even further problems [94]. The final mismanagement of Afghanistan happened in 2010, when the Rolling Stone conducted an interview with General Stanley McChrystal. This interview would lead to McChrystal’s dismissal. It should be noted that had the President not kept his distance, as mentioned earlier, this situation may not have happened. Inexplicably, Eikenberry remained as ambassador to Karzai, despite the very active conflict between the two [97].

            The author’s treatment of the aforementioned events in Afghanistan is disappointing. Their contention is that “it is too soon to know if Obama’s policy gamble in Afghanistan will work [97].” However, upon reading the supposed “policy” in the book, it is difficult to see what the policy is, besides the mismanagement of his administration, coupled with the provocative relationship with the Afghan President, as well as the mismanagement of his own troops on the ground. If the President were to have kept in touch frequently as former President Bush did, the situation may have wound up quite differently; however, given that one cannot rewrite history, it is difficult to tell. However, President Obama would have one last chance; that would be in dealing with Pakistan.

            To begin with, President Obama understood the situation in Pakistan correctly. He knew that more focus must paid to it, and also knew that nuclear proliferation was a problem with that nation. Further, there were frequent outbursts of violence in the country, events that the Pakistanis blamed the United States for. President Obama’s solution was to send more aid [100-101]. He sent aid in the form of the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill in 2009, which hardly did favors for the President’s popularity in Pakistan. Instead, the Pakistanis thought that “it included too many conditions or demands on the their country, as for any gratitude or improved relations that resulted [102].” In fact, one Pakistani official called the amount of aid “a drop in the bucket. [102]. However, despite the bill, there have been successes. These come in the form of increased military cooperation, as well as the permitting of drone strikes within Pakistan to kill suspected terrorists [102-103].  But even that was not perfect, as Osama Bin Laden, living within miles of a military academy, was not handed over. It is highly implausible that Bin Laden’s whereabouts were totally unknown by anyone within the 5 years he lived there [104]. The authors, here, suggest that a number of overtures could be made to Pakistan. These include forgiveness of debt, an energy deal, and a free trade accord [105]. These would be given in exchange for greater cooperation in the fight against terrorism, as well as the curbing of their nuclear weapons program [105]. At the conclusion of this chapter, the authors call Obama’s action on these three threats to homeland security “Characterized by patience but in the end decisiveness [111].” It should be pointed out that the only decisiveness he made in these three areas was met by backfires and/or unforeseen problems, the most successful decision of which is the killing of Osama Bin Laden. The next issue that the authors tackle is the Middle East.

             The Middle East. The Middle East was a complex problem that President Obama had to deal with. For one thing, the Palestinians insisted that they would only negotiate if the Israel’s stopped building settlements. To tackle this problem, President Obama’s initial approach was to say that a 100% complete pro-Israel stance from the US, rather than each side negotiating as equal—as Bush had done—was not productive to the situation [117].  Even though he held that the US’s commitment to Israel was “Steadfast [117],” he also realized he had to reach out to the Arab world as well. His first overture would come when he gave his first interview as President to an Arab cable news channel [118]. He would give subsequent speeches as well; most notable in 2009, at Cairo, when he said that Israel’s very existence was a “product of the Holocaust [118].”  The problem with this is , though it played greatly in the Arab world, caused a schism in US-Israeli relations. In fact in his very first meeting with the Israel Prime Minister, he demanded a “complete settlements freeze, [119]” which would lead to more problems than solutions.

            President Obama would eventually hammer out the details of a settlements freeze and give them to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in exchange for Yemeni prisoners. The problem was that the king had not heard of these prisoners, nor did he trust either the Yemeni leader or the Israel leader [122]. Eventually, despite the Israelis not having assurances from the Saudis, the Israelis would eventually grant a settlement moratorium, settlement building that would resume at a later date. George Mitchell was appointed to head the peace negotiations. These talks would break down and Joe Biden would visit Israel in an attempt to reboot negotiations [125]. The talks would resume, but little progress was made.

            When the Gaza flotilla incident occurred, leading to an attack on a Turkish ship trying to break a blockade near Gaza, the talks completely collapsed. While all of this was going on, the moratorium expired. This lead to a disastrous end to the peace talks; the Palestinians would NOT negotiate without a moratorium. This marked an ultimate failure in the peace process for President Obama, who decided to “walk away [131],” telling all of his cabinet members to not discuss the peace process with either side, and ending the talks. Despite the fact that President Obama again mismanaged the situation, the authors of the book state, “whether he [Obama] can redeem his promise of Israeli-Palestinian peace awaits both the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election and conditions on the ground, should Obama have an opportunity to try again [140].” It is remarkable to note that their conclusion on such a failure is “the jury is still out,” while it is clear that the jury has declared Obama incapable of fostering peace with his current approach. He would have another opportunity to redeem himself when the Arab Revolutions happened, resulting in what some call “The Arab Spring.”

            The “Arab Spring.”  During the Arab Spring, there were four main rebellions: Syria, Libya, Bahrain, and Egypt. Egypt was important to America because it is the most influential country in the Middle East, its location is “Geostrategic,” and it has a working peace treaty with Israel. Bahrain was important to America because it is Saudi Arabia’s neighbor. Libya was not important to the US at all, and in Syria, it was difficult to take action. Each of these rebellions were dealt with in a different way by Obama.

            In Egypt, Obama wanted a democratic transition despite wanting to stay away from Bush’s prior strategy of actively promoting democracy (143). Obama’s demand was that Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian leader at the time of the rebellion, hand over power to a vice president. At the same time, Egypt would enact constitutional reforms to bring about an election in 2 months (148-1490). At the same time, he realized that this was less and less likely the more that Mubarak stayed in power (148). As a result, in spite of what he originally wanted—to not actively promote democracy—Obama put himself in the situation of promoting democracy in the Middle East. Mubarak would eventually leave at his urging and therefore effectively abandoned him. This would cause “deep offense” and would cause a rupture between Obama and the rest of the Middle East (150).

            In Bahrain, Obama wanted the leader of Bahrain to show restraint during the protests. This did not happen. The President wanted the revolution to be resolved peacefully, but to this day, it is not a peaceful resolution. The President also wanted a transition, but this did not happen at all. The end result in his dealings with Bahrain was that this caused a schism in the relationship between Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and America (158)

            In Libya, Obama would take a “unilateral” response, fostering cooperation between most nations—including Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia wound up figuring out that if they supported action in Libya, there would be less insistence upon changes to their own government (165). Since the leader of Libya, Moammar Gadhafi, and his actions caused broad international outrage, a UN resolution was passed in a matter of hours and not days, as was usually expected (163). The end result is that President Obama managed to remove Gadhafi from power, stopping the bloodshed in the interest of regional stabilization, using NATO airpower instead of his own.

            Finally, in Syria, Obama realized that he could not intervened for two main reasons. One is that putting US troops on the ground was simply not practical (173). The second reason is that there was no broad international consensus as to what to do (174). The situation, to this day, is largely unresolved.

            The conclusion that the authors reach is largely apologetic, yet again, for Obama and the way he handled the situations in the Middle East. Though the authors claim that Libya is a success, they maintain that the others’ fate is uncertain. Another one of Obama’s challenges would arise in handling Iran and North Korea, or the “Rogue States,” as the authors call them.

            Iran and North Korea. For Iran, the main issue is stopping Iran’s nuclear program. For North Korea, the problem is that negotiations with them have heretofore not worked. In both cases, though, the Obama Administration has strengthened alliances AGAINST them.

            For Iran, the main issue is that the country is trying to enrich nuclear weapons. Iran, on the other hand, wants to destabilize Iraq, so this way they have room to breathe. Obama wanted to engage Iran and try to resolve these issues. To start off, he recognized the Islamic Revolution in the country (190). When Obama’s bigger approach failed, he turned to his allies in this instance, Israel and Russia. With Israel, he effectively calmed them down by working with their Intelligence Department to create the Stuxnet virus, which temporarily stopped the Iranian centrifuge (194-195). With Russia, the two countries (USA and Russia) proposed that, in order for Iran to enrich their uranium, the fuel should be sent to Russia, the fuel rods fabricated in France, which would then be sent back to Iran (197). Iran responded indignantly and revealed that it had had a secret uranium enrichment facility all along (194). Obama then held a press conference to say that he knew about it all along (194). The end result was that this process angered Russia, which then voted with the US (and therefore with China) to pass sanctions against Iran (200). But this process did not work as Iran, to this day, continues to enrich uranium (208). This could have set the process up for Obama to declare war on Iran in the name of nonproliferation (208).

            North Korea, as the authors remind us, is the only nation to have withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (210). They also have nuclear weapons. As a result, they could sell these weapons on the black market to, say, a terrorist organization. Or, they could use them on any of the Asian countries if they militarily intervened. The truth of the matter is that no one knows where these weapons are. To engage them, Obama, again, decided to try to engage. To begin with, he had the UN agree to pass a statement condemning North Korea (219) whilst engaging with them. The end result was that that talks failed and never resumed. For this chapter, the authors seem to be grasping at straws for a success, saying that Obama strengthened international “consensus” about Iran and North Korea’s “bad behavior.” (220) However, the larger point on this issue is that both of these situations are, as of yet, unresolved. Iran has flied in the face of sanctions and North Korea refuses to attempt to resolve problems with the other nations.

Bending History, by Martin Indyk et al of The Brookings Institute, seeks to explore the various foreign policies of Barack Obama. They seem to grasp at straws, at times, to find successes in what are otherwise failures of the administration, while highlighting the many successes of his administration. The difficulty that one might have in understanding their point of view is that their overarching theme is that “The arc of history is long.” That is to say, what is not working now may work later if you give President Obama a second term. Yet it fails in mentioning just what makes them think that things will be different. For instance, Obama’s policies towards North Korea are not working as they will negotiate with the USA. The authors’ point out, in their conclusion, that many things have yet to be settled. But if the North Koreans are not negotiating with America now, what makes them think that Obama will either change his policy to foster negotiations, or follow a different course? The answer is that no evidence is provided that shows how they think things might go differently, and this is the book’s key shortcoming. Overall, it is a great read, but be prepared for an apologetic tone.