Dan

Calabrese

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March 16, 2009

Obama's Weak Diplomatic Instincts

One of the consequences of electing an inexperienced, naïve novice to the highest office in the land is that you get a president who doesn’t know the true meaning of diplomacy. And it shows – quickly.

Real diplomacy means dealing with allies and adversaries alike from a position of strength, much as you would deal with an opposite party in business negotiations. The objective is not to give things up for the sake of being nice and making friends. The objective is to skillfully get to an agreement that works for you – and you can’t do that unless the other side believes it would be foolish not to reach a deal.

President Obama appears to believe in the naïve, left-wing definition of diplomacy, which is simply being eager to make concessions for the sake of avoiding disputes and disagreements.

We see this in Iraq, where Obama has gone ahead and announced a date certain – August 31, 2010 – when the U.S. will remove the last of its combat troops. This satisfies the hankering of his political base, which has always been more concerned with leaving Iraq than with winning there. But even more so, it satisfies any insurgent movement that might still have ideas of promoting chaos and mayhem within a burgeoning, democratic U.S. ally.

Eighteen months from now, U.S. forces will be gone. The president has already given up the game. If you’re a would-be Iraqi insurgent, you’ve got 18 months to plan what you’re going to do.

Obama has applied the same thinking in his dealings with Russia, where he has already signaled his willingness to give up the planned missile defense shield in Poland. The Russians have been denouncing the planned shield since 2001, when former President Bush pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty for the purpose of pursuing it. The U.S. insists that the shield is designed to protect against a rogue state that might get its hands on nukes (think Iran), and the Russians admit to no designs on attacking the U.S. or its western allies.

Still, the Russians don’t want the shield because they fear it weakens their strategic position. And they’re right. That’s exactly what it does. In diplomacy, anything you can do to weaken your adversary’s strategic position makes you more effective. This is why Ronald Reagan refused to give up missile defenses in the 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev was begging him to do so. Missile defense put the U.S. in a position of diplomatic strength.

Obama is only too willing to put the U.S. in a position of diplomatic weakness by letting the Russians know that missile defense is on the table. Supposedly, missile defense is the chip Obama is willing to play in exchange for the Russians’ help in preventing a nuclear Iran. But why give away our missile defenses in exchange for Russia’s help when we have an ally, Israel, that is ready, willing and able to undertake an air campaign to take out Iran’s nukes?

Unleashing Israel is the much stronger play. It gives you the opportunity to eliminate the Iranian nuke threat and still keep your missile defenses. Instead, Obama appears willing to give up our defenses and trust two not-all-that-trustworthy gentlemen – Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – to eliminate a nightmare scenario that could threaten the security of the entire world.

Finally, in Afghanistan, President Obama recently made the extraordinary pronouncement that we are “not winning” the war. (In other words, as Harry Reid might say, we’re losing.) Now, maybe we’re really losing. Then again, maybe Obama just wants people to think we’re losing so that when we ultimately win, he’ll get credit for the strategy that worked.

Either way, when the commander-in-chief announces that America is losing a war, it sends the worst possible message both to our own forces and to the enemy. When Obama then makes the rather astounding statement that he intends to reach out to “moderates” within the Taliban, these so-called “moderates” already know that they’ll be negotiating from a position of strength. The president of the United States has said so.

On almost every front, the president’s first instinct is to offer concessions. Whether that means the Russians get their way on missile defense, the Taliban gets a sweet deal or the Iraqi insurgents get advance notice about when it will be safe to strike – it’s a great time to be an enemy of America.

When Obama announced during the campaign that he would be glad to talk to thugs like Ahmadinejad, Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il, critics objected that he would elevate the stature of such men by meeting with them. Obama said that was ridiculous. And it was, only in the sense that it is far from the biggest problem.

The real problem with Obama talking to our enemies is that he shows every sign of being a complete pushover in diplomacy, which only works if undertaken from a position of strength. That is a principle Obama clearly does not understand. The more Obama talks to our enemies, the weaker America will become.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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