When Sen. John Mc Cain announced that he would suspend his presidential campaign in order to return to Washington after Hurricane Katrina, his opponent continued his campaigning, famously declaring that a president must be able to deal with more than one thing at a time. After his first year in office, President Barack Obama is discovering that’s not as simple as he made it sound on the campaign trail.
His time and energy have been focused on his ambitious domestic agenda and nearly all of it on trying, successfully, to get Congress to pass his massive healthcare overhaul. Not only has that prevented him from moving on to other aspects of his domestic agenda, it has left precious little time to deal with the rest of the world, much of which looks to the United States for leadership. The world has undoubtedly noticed. So much, then, for being able to deal with more than one crisis at a time.
Mr. Obama cancelled a long-scheduled visit to Australia and Indonesia in order to lobby in support of his healthcare plan, a complex overhaul that more than half of poll respondents said they don’t want. Presidents who are confident in their position and aware of all the many responsibilities of the most powerful office on earth, normally leave such business to staff and Congressional leaders. His party, after all, holds a comfortable majority in both houses. But Mr. Obama, who wanted, as his legacy, to be the president who nationalized healthcare, chose instead to stay home and engage in domestic politics instead of keeping a date with one of America’s most loyal allies, Australia, and the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia.
So consumed by its domestic social agenda is this administration that it is leaving foreign affairs and diplomacy to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice-President Joe Biden. That surely sends a message to world leaders about priorities and about the chaotic state of affaires in Washington which preoccupies the president and diverts his attention from world affairs. It does not inspire their confidence or facilitate cooperation.
In the past year, the administration has little in the way of diplomatic successes to its credit. To begin with, it came down on the wrong side in the presidential crisis in Honduras, insisting that an unpopular president, who was forced out of office by the country’s supreme court for attempting to defy the constitution regarding term limits, be restored to power, against the wishes of a majority of the people. Elsewhere in Latin America, Brazil’s President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva spoke out against imposing sanctions on Iran during a visit by Ms. Clinton. Meanwhile, Ms. Clinton appeared to tilt toward Argentina in its long-running dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, whose British subjects fervently wish to remain British. This angered our British allies who fought a recent war to retain control of the islands.
Then there was an embarrassing apology to Libyan dictator, Col. Moammar
Gadhafi by State Department spokesperson, P.J. Crowley for having the audacity to compare Gadhafi’s declaration of a jihad against Switzerland over a 2008 arrest of his son Hannibal for abusing domestic employees, with a rambling, incoherent speech the Libyan had made before the UN General Assembly. This continued the administration’s apparent policy of groveling before dictators and despots.
Congress got into the act, complicating foreign relations when a sub-committee passed a provocative and totally unnecessary resolution declaring the defunct Ottoman Empire guilty of massacring Armenians over a century ago. This angered Turkey, a member of NATO and a generally pro-Western Muslim state constituting a strategic bridge between Europe and Asia.
Mr. Obama promised early action on brokering the so-called peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Overlooking for a moment that there is no process to the peace process other than endless talk, resolutions and road maps to nowhere, Mr. Obama had said that he wanted a two-state solution in two years which he described as a cornerstone of his foreign policy. To that end, he sent the affable, smiling Vice-president Joe Biden to Israel to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel chose that occasion to announce an expansion of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem which the Palestinians would like as their capital if and when they ever get around to agreeing on conditions for an independent Palestine, such as recognizing Israel’s right to exist. Mr. Biden’s smile quickly faded, Ms. Clinton scolded Mr. Netanyahu by telephone and Mr. Obama took time out from the healthcare wars to express outrage. Mr. Netanyahu apologized agreeably, whereupon his government promptly announced more Jewish settlements.
Next, the Chinese government decided it had had enough of American lecturing over trade imbalances and currency manipulation, especially from a country that relies on its credit to finance its bloated government spending. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao added that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and the American love affair with the Dalai Lama violated China’s internal affairs andhere’s a stretchterritorial integrity.
Finally, a bruised but unbowed Hillary Clinton went forth to Moscow to seek Russia’s help in persuading China to support meaningful sanctions against Iran. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin used that occasion to inform Ms. Clinton that, actually, Russia would be helping Iran to build a nuclear reactor.
After this string of setbacks, spokesperson Crowley provided some, perhaps unintended, comic relief. He was actually quoted as saying, “Notwithstanding political posturing, our international cooperation has expanded greatly over the past year.”
Now that’s what I call finding success in the ashes of failure.
Copyright 2010 J. F. Kelly, Jr.
