|
By Lachlan Carmichael, Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON, D.C.: The luster President Barack Obama once projected
on US foreign policy is wearing off as prospects darken for
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, the Middle East and North Korea.
Analysts were split on the reasons. One
suggested Obama may have succumbed to his predecessor George W.
Bush’s deluded notion that he can change the world, another that
his policy of engaging foes was “naive,” while a third
criticized him for being indecisive.
Aaron David Miller, who has served in past
Republican and Democratic administrations, worried that Obama may
have abandoned his pragmatic approach to international relations.
“Barack Obama came into office with a
clear-headed, realistic agenda when it came to foreign policy,” he
told Agence France-Presse, marking the contrast from Bush’s bid to
spread democracy through military force and tough talk.
“He saw himself as a transformational
president at home, but not abroad. He was what I would describe to
you as a transactional president: he saw the advantage of diplomacy,
he saw the advantage of engaging your enemies and your adversaries.
“But what seems to have happened is that
somewhere along the way, he somehow has come to the conclusion or
allowed the image to be conveyed that he can fix these things,”
said the public policy scholar with the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Miller said Obama, for example, had made
Afghanistan a “war of necessity” when victory is elusive, seen
Israel rebuff his call to freeze all settlements and tried in vain
to get Iran to talk about giving up its nuclear program.
Scoffing at “the notion that somehow we’re
going to nation build” in Afghanistan, he pointed out: “We
can’t even pass a health care bill.”
‘Trapped by own rhetoric’
Miller portrayed the United States as a
“modern-day Gulliver” that was helping to tie itself in knots
with its own delusions.
The best the new administration can do, he said,
is to “manage” difficult situations, make small improvements and
set realistic goals for the Middle East, Iran and Afghanistan.
Michael O’Hanlon, a security specialist with
the Brookings Institution, said Obama may have been trapped somewhat
by his own lofty campaign rhetoric and media pressure, but he did
not agree that the president had veered off course.
“Obama himself has gotten very pragmatic since
he has become president on most national security issues. I commend
him for that and I see every reason to assume that he will continue
to act that way,” O’Hanlon said.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser
under President Jimmy Carter, was more pessimistic about Obama, even
though he enthusiastically supported his presidential candidacy.
Despite Obama’s oratory about overhauling ties
with the Muslim world, the US risks “sliding into a deeper
conflict with various segments of the world of Islam,” Brzezinski
told the London-based Financial Times.
He questioned Obama’s approach of sending more
troops to Afghanistan, wondering if it suggested the administration
envisioned some kind of military victory where there can be none.
Brzezinski said Obama, who is still
contemplating strategy and troop numbers for Afghanistan, should
have taken such key decisions before now and feared the US was
becoming mired in a conflict that also involves Pakistan.
He also charged that the new administration had
“been diddling around” trying to reach some “evasive
compromise” on Israeli settlements that would do little to advance
a final settlement.
Jackson Diehl, writing an opinion piece in The
Washington Post, argued that it was “naive” to think that
engaging dictators, including North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, would
produce results.
“North Korea devoted the first few months of
this year to fresh nuclear and missile tests; now it has reverted to
its old demand that the United States grant it a peace treaty and
recognize it as a nuclear power,” he wrote.
He said Obama’s outreach to North Korea,
Venezuela, Syria and Iran had “fallen flat,” even if it did
leave the door open for some results in the future.
|
