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KERRY & HAGEL : AN INTERIM REPORT
John
Kerry and Chuck Hagel have been at the helm of American foreign and
security policy for some months now. Much was expected from new faces,
new approaches and – perhaps – some new thinking. How are they doing?
Any proposed answer, however tentative, depends on the standards used to
measure success or failure in the conduct
of the United States’ external relations. If you judge the direction of
the Obama administration’s foreign policy over the past four-plus years
as basically sound, then there are solid grounds for rating the new
team highly. If you wanted shifts in its orientation
and methods, then you justifiably will register disappointment.
For there as yet is no sign that anything has changed.
That holds for form as well as substance.
Many
expected that Kerry would bring to the State Department a smoother,
more subtle diplomacy. By experience and reputation, he was advertised
as someone who understands that mode of address counts in foreign
dealings; so, too, is how one expresses American intentions and desires.
After years of Leon Panetta’s abrasiveness, and
Hillary Clinton’s condescension, greater tact and finesse promised
dividends on the international stage. That positive development has not
been forthcoming. Kerry ricochets around the world like an unguided
missile as if bent on topping Hillary’s record accumulation
of frequent flyer miles. More troubling, purpose and adequate
preparation are lacking. So he flies into Baghdad with the well
publicized intent to cajole Mr. Maliki into breaking off his material
and political support to Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime. The Iraqi
Prime Minister tells Uncle Sam to go to hell. Secretary Kerry next
shows up in Ankara with the equally well publicized intent to cajole
Tayip Erdogan into breaking his plans to visit Gaza. The Turkish Prime
Minister tells Uncle Sam to go to hell. Kerry follows
up with a well publicized call for the Palestinian quasi-government of
Mr.Mahmoud Abbas to meet with the Israelis to discuss ‘peace’ despite
President Obama’s having cut the ground from under him during his recent
visit to Israel by accepting unceasing West
Bank settlement expansion. Assad fires his US friendly Prime Minister,
Fayyad, instead.
All of this is inept, embarrassing and exacts a price in American
prestige and influence in the main arena of the country’s foreign
policy.
Mr.
Hagel, by contrast, is a more substantial person than Mr. Kerry and
with better instincts. Yet he too yields to the prevailing Washington
culture to engage in gestures as a substitute for action. Hence, a few
weeks back, when the question of possible American military intervention
in Syria rose to the surface again - thanks
to reports that Assad has used chemical weapons against the rebels, and
thereby crossed a ‘red line’ pointlessly drawn by Obama - Hagel jumps
into the fray to say that we are not certain what happened and haven’t
decided what to do if it did happen. In other
words, giving in to the compulsion to open one’s mouth even if one has
nothing to say. That accords with the prevailing Washington belief that
“I make sounds, therefore I am” – so I can’t be overlooked. That a
person of Hagel’s sobriety should partake in this
nonsensical pastime testifies to how inextricable style and substance
have become linked even on matters of grave consequence.
What
of that substance of the Obama administration’s foreign policy? The
linear continuity that characterizes it is striking. That is most
evident in the Middle East. On Israel, unqualified deference to the
Netanyahu government. On Iran, non-negotiable demands with no
concessions backed by ever tightening sanctions. On Syria, Assad
must go but we won’t arm the rebels because some weapons might fall
into the hands of the Islamist jihadis who form a major part of the
insurrection. We grasp for the will ‘o wisp of talks leading to Assad’s
voluntary departure despite the abundant evidence
that the radicalizing and embittering effects of civil war make that an
impossibility. Toward this end, Kerry entices Putin into co-sponsorship
even though Russia is adamant that it will not be party to any effort
to oust Assad; Moscow invited back into the
high-stakes Middle East game before agreeing on its rules and aims.
On Afghanistan, fight on against a multifarious set of foes even
after 2014 (using Special Forces, drones, and the CIA’s army of O-4
units) even though Washington is unable to say what the end state should
be or to explain realistically how we might
get there. On Iraq, talk vaguely about the awkwardness of all fledgling
democracies while the country slides towards a renewed civil war and
the government embraces the Islamic Republic of Iran. On Yemen, drone
attacks against could-be terrorists along with
all-out support for the latest autocratic who rules part of the
country. On Egypt, stick with the Muslim Brotherhood since Obama
impetuously declared President Mursi a partner last year despite the
crackdown on opposition to the authoritarian Islamist state
taking shape.
None
of these sterile policies appears to be under critical review – much
less are there signs of new thinking. There
was no reason to expect either from Mr Kerry who at no time since 9/11
has expressed any deviation from the main lines of three
administrations’ foreign policy. More was expected from Mr. Hagel. After
all, he is on record as questioning the logic and practicality
of our confrontational approach toward Iran. He has pointed out the
counter-productive effects of Israel’s uncompromising opposition to
square dealing with the Palestinians. He was a sharp critic of our
occupation of Iraq. He has offered thoughtful alternatives
to an American global strategy that is overly simplistic, recklessly
audacious and prone to self-defeating interventions. While it is
politically unrealistic that Hagel would quickly become an in-house
skeptic of his President’s foreign policy, something that
inescapably entails taking on powerful elements of the country’s
prevailing establishment and its entrenched orthodoxy, still there was
some small hope in certain quarters of doubts quietly being raised on
individual aspects of it - and/or perhaps some reflective
public statements that plowed fresh intellectual ground. That may yet
come despite the absence of harbingers. Or, it may be that the only way
Hagel will make a difference will be by digging in his heels when Obama
faces the likely decision about whether to
attack a recalcitrant Iran down the road.
Overall, the
Obama administration's approach to the Middle East has been impervious
to changes on the ground - even the most drastic. No strategic
adjustments have been made to the seismic events of the Arab Spring and
their unstable aftermath. Turmoil in Egypt and Yemen,
civil war in Syria, intensified sectarian conflict in Iraq,
irresolution on Iran - all are unsettling and dangerous in themselves.
As cause and effect of a sharpening Sunni-Sunni confrontation across the
region, they take on far-reaching implications. Even
the political geography of state boundaries drawn after the collapse of
the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago is now threatened with a
violent recasting. Yet Washington plods ahead, as if on automatic pilot,
trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.
That is: the tacit alliance of Israel and the 3
Arab autocracies (Egypt, Saudi Arabia & Jordan) to resist any
challenge to the status quo; bringing down the Islamic Republic of Iran;
and - of course - attacking any Islamist elements hostile to the United
States
in the name of the "war on terror." The manifest contradictions among
these ends, the sterility of tactics, the narrow and short-term focus -
these flaws in our approach elude the Obama people as they insist that
reality must fit their pre-conceived notions.
So they are like a squirrel marooned in the center of a busy
intersection not knowing which way to jump to avoid danger – all the
while presuming to direct the six-way traffic by furiously waving its
tail from side to side.
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