Obama a Bush successor..!
Qazi Hussain Asghar
As August draws to a close, so does the first phase of the Obama term.
The first months of any US presidency are spent filling key positions
and learning foreign and national security policy. It is not important
now to consider what Obama will do in the realm of foreign policy, but
what he has done and is doing. The single most remarkable thing about
Obama’s foreign policy is how consistent it is with the policies of
former President George W. Bush. This is not surprising. Presidents
operate in the world of constraints; their options are limited. During
the 2008 US presidential campaign, particularly in its early stages,
Obama ran against the Iraq war. The centerpiece of his early position
was that the war was a mistake and that he would end it. Obama argued
that Bush’s policies and more important, his style alienated US allies.
He charged Bush with pursuing a unilateral foreign policy, alienating
allies by failing to act in concert with them. In doing so, he
maintained that the war in Iraq destroyed the international coalition
the US needs to execute any war successfully.
Though around 40 countries cooperated with the US in Iraq, albeit many
with only symbolic contributions. The major continental European powers
particularly France and Germany refused to participate. When Obama
speaks of alienating allies, he clearly means these two countries, as
well as smaller European powers that had belonged to the US Cold War
coalition but were unwilling to participate in Iraq and were now
actively hostile to US policy. Early in his administration, Obama made
two strategic decisions. First, instead of ordering an immediate
withdrawal from Iraq, he adopted the Bush administration’s policy of a
staged withdrawal keyed to political stabilization and the development
of Iraqi security forces. While he tweaked the timeline on the
withdrawal, the basic strategy remained intact. Indeed, he retained
Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, to oversee the withdrawal.
Second, he increased the number of US troops in Afghanistan. The Bush
administration had committed itself to Afghanistan from 9/11 onward. But
it had remained in a defensive posture in the belief that given the
forces available, enemy capabilities and the historic record, that was
the best that could be done, especially as the Pentagon was almost
immediately reoriented and refocused on the invasion and subsequent
occupation of Iraq.
Toward the end, the Bush administration began exploring under the
influence of Gen. David Petraeus, who designed the strategy in Iraq and
the possibility of some sort of political accommodation in Afghanistan.
Obama has shifted his strategy in Afghanistan to an extent that he has
moved from a purely defensive posture to a mixed posture of selective
offense and defense. He has placed more forces into Afghanistan.
Therefore, the core structure of Obama’s policy remains the same as
Bush’s except for the introduction of limited offensives. In a major
shift since Obama took office, the Pakistani government has taken a more
aggressive stance toward the Taliban and al Qaeda, at least within their
own borders. But even so, Obama’s basic strategy remains the same as
Bush’s: hold in Afghanistan.
The most interesting point is how little success Obama has had with the
French and the Germans. Bush had given up asking for assistance in
Afghanistan but Obama tried again. He received the same answer Bush did;
no. Except for some minor, short-term assistance, the French and Germans
are unwilling to commit forces to Obama’s major foreign policy effort,
something that stands out. Given the degree to which the Europeans
disliked Bush and were eager to have a president who would revert the
US-European relationship to what it once was , one would have thought
the French and Germans would be eager to make some substantial gesture
rewarding the US for selecting a pro-European president. Certainly, it
was in their interest to strengthen Obama. That they proved unwilling to
make that gesture suggests that the French-German relationship with the
US is much less important to Paris and Berlin than it would appear.
Obama’s desire to reset European relations is matched by his desire to
reset US-Russian relations. Ever since the Orange Revolution in the
Ukraine in late 2004 and early 2005, US-Russian relations had
deteriorated dramatically, with Moscow charging Washington with
interfering in the internal affairs of former Soviet republics with the
aim of weakening Russia. This culminated in the Russo-Georgian war last
August. The Obama administration has since suggested a “reset” in
relations with the Russians.
The problem, of course, was that the last thing the Russians wanted was
to reset relations with the US. They did not want to go back to the
period after the Orange Revolution, nor did they want to go back to the
period between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Orange
Revolution. The Russians regard the latter period as an economic and
geopolitical disaster, while the Americans regard it as quite
satisfactory. The Obama administration is signaling that it intends to
continue the Bush administration’s Russia policy. That policy was that
Russia had no legitimate right to claim priority in the former Soviet
Union and that the US had the right to develop bilateral relations with
any country and expand NATO as it wished. But the Bush administration
saw the Russian leadership as unwilling to follow the basic architecture
of relations that had developed after 1991, and as unreasonably
redefining what the US thought of as a stable and desirable
relationship. The Russian response was that an entirely new relationship
was needed between the two countries or the Russians would pursue an
independent foreign policy matching US hostility with Russian hostility.
Highlighting the continuity in US-Russian relations, plans for the
prospective ballistic missile defense installation in Poland, a symbol
of antagonistic US-Russian relations, remain unchanged. The underlying
problem is that the Cold War generation of US-Russian experts has been
supplanted by the post-Cold War generation, now grown to maturity and
authority. If the Cold warriors were forged in the 1960s, the post-Cold
warriors are forever caught in the 1990s. They believed that the 1990s
represented a stable platform from which to reform Russia and that the
grumbling of Russians plunged into poverty and international irrelevancy
at that time is simply part of the post-Cold War order. They believe
that without economic power, Russia cannot hope to be an important
player on the international stage. That Russia has never been an
economic power even at the height of its influence but has frequently
been a military power does not register.
Of great interest, of course, were the three great openings of the early
Obama administration, to Cuba, Iran and to the Islamic world in general
through his Cairo speech. The Cubans and Iranians rebuffed his opening,
whereas the net result of the speech to the Islamic world remains
unclear. With Iran there is the most important continuity. Obama
continues to demand an end to her nuclear programme and has promised
further sanctions unless Iran agrees to enter into serious talks by late
September. This is not a criticism of Obama. Presidents; all presidents
run on a platform that will win. He has conducted his foreign policy as
if he were Bush. This is because Bush’s foreign policy was shaped by
necessity and Obama’s foreign policy is shaped by the same necessity.
—The wrtier is International Relations analyst.
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