We Lost The Stick
November 5th 2009 21:27
Everyone agrees that the United States is the world’s only super power, yet that status does not seem to be reflected in its diplomatic initiatives, except in the minds of the current administration (Bush first and now Obama) talking heads.
Take Honduras: the Obama administration State Department took the position that leftist President Jose Manuel Zayala is the legally elected president of Honduras, and the coup that removed him from office was illegal. Never mind that the Honduran constitution forbids the president from serving more than a single term and Zayala was planning to hold a referendum to have the voters give him Chavezian powers to continue on as president after his term ended. The right wingers, the Honduran congress, the Honduran military (especially after Zayala removed a general who protested his referendum), and the Honduran supreme court (which declared the referendum unconstitutional) all opposed the referendum. When Zayala was arrested in a coup, he fled the country, only to sneak back in and hide out in the Brazilian consulate. The United States, sensing a chance to seize the initiative in Latin America from Hugo Chavez, backed Zayala’s claim and withdrew all aid to Honduras. We then brokered a peace deal between the coup president and Zayala with Zayala agreeing to accept the decision of the Honduran congress as to whether he can resume the remainder his presidency; Zayala agreed to give up the referendum.
If Zayala is approved by the Honduran congress, and he truly gives up his referendum, then the Honduran constitution will be preserved, Chavez will be fuming but silent (what could he say; he won’t praise Obama), and all of Latin America will view the U.S. through different eyes. If Zayala is rejected by the Honduran congress, there will be civil war, but the U.S. will still be viewed favorably by the rest of Latin America. Even that left winger Zayala, in his euphoria at being saved by the United States, said “I'm only still here in office thanks to the United States.” I suppose this can be called a diplomatic victory for the United States and President Obama, if a potential civil war is the price for good publicity.
Take Israel: after insisting that Israel must freeze all settlement construction on occupied Palestinian lands, the United States did an about face and called for peace talks to begin between Israel and the Palestinians without the precondition of a freeze on settlement construction. Originally, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, President Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements. Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions.” Now, after being charmed and sweet talked by that irrepressible Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, Mrs. Clinton said, “What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements... is unprecedented. There has never been a pre-condition; it's always been an issue within negotiations.” After Mrs. Clinton left Israel, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon got on public radio and happily proclaimed, “There is no question that the United States are our staunchest friends and that Israel's firm stance on its positions pays off” (translation from Hebrew: we won!). How did so few Jews outsmart all those American Ivy League graduates?
Take Afghanistan: General McChrystal wants 40,000 more troops to fight the Taliban. His strategy revolves around moving the Afghanis to population centers and defending those centers, leaving the mountains to the Taliban; they won’t be able to claim victory if they don’t have a populace to victimize, so the theory goes. He also wants U.S. troops to give up their body armor, saying that this will show the local population, which doesn’t have body armor, that our troops are in this fight against the Taliban with them. That’s going to be a hard sell; just ask the soldiers and Marines at Walter Reed. McChrystal says none of this will work unless corruption is rooted out of government and the central government becomes more responsive to the needs of the people.
President Obama said he wanted to wait until after the Afghan presidential election, and then until after the presidential runoff election, to make his decision on whether or not to send more troops and military aid, and if so, how many more troops and how much more aid. He was secretly hoping against hope that Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghani Foreign Minister and presidential candidate, would beat Hamid Karzai, the current president; it wasn’t going to happen, even if there was no fraud. Abdullah (I’m calling him by his first name) knew that, so he protested the legitimacy of the election commission and withdrew from the election, handing Karzai a victory. Now the United States is stuck with a president of Afghanistan whose brother is a drug trafficker and warlord, and who deals with the Taliban and the CIA. Hamid promised, with a serious look on his face during a news conference after accepting congratulations on his re-election, that he would root out corruption in his government; I don’t think he means his brother because drug trafficking accounts for 95% of the Afghani GDP. The United States offered its congratulations; what else could we do? We are a superpower, but we couldn’t very well commit infanticide and kill our child, could we?
What happened to the big stick that Teddy Roosevelt gave us when we became a superpower? Is it on some shelf in the Smithsonian, rotting away, never to be used when we really need it? What’s the use of being a superpower if you can’t throw your weight around, especially with your tiny “friends?”
Take Honduras: the Obama administration State Department took the position that leftist President Jose Manuel Zayala is the legally elected president of Honduras, and the coup that removed him from office was illegal. Never mind that the Honduran constitution forbids the president from serving more than a single term and Zayala was planning to hold a referendum to have the voters give him Chavezian powers to continue on as president after his term ended. The right wingers, the Honduran congress, the Honduran military (especially after Zayala removed a general who protested his referendum), and the Honduran supreme court (which declared the referendum unconstitutional) all opposed the referendum. When Zayala was arrested in a coup, he fled the country, only to sneak back in and hide out in the Brazilian consulate. The United States, sensing a chance to seize the initiative in Latin America from Hugo Chavez, backed Zayala’s claim and withdrew all aid to Honduras. We then brokered a peace deal between the coup president and Zayala with Zayala agreeing to accept the decision of the Honduran congress as to whether he can resume the remainder his presidency; Zayala agreed to give up the referendum.
If Zayala is approved by the Honduran congress, and he truly gives up his referendum, then the Honduran constitution will be preserved, Chavez will be fuming but silent (what could he say; he won’t praise Obama), and all of Latin America will view the U.S. through different eyes. If Zayala is rejected by the Honduran congress, there will be civil war, but the U.S. will still be viewed favorably by the rest of Latin America. Even that left winger Zayala, in his euphoria at being saved by the United States, said “I'm only still here in office thanks to the United States.” I suppose this can be called a diplomatic victory for the United States and President Obama, if a potential civil war is the price for good publicity.
Take Israel: after insisting that Israel must freeze all settlement construction on occupied Palestinian lands, the United States did an about face and called for peace talks to begin between Israel and the Palestinians without the precondition of a freeze on settlement construction. Originally, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, President Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements. Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions.” Now, after being charmed and sweet talked by that irrepressible Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, Mrs. Clinton said, “What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements... is unprecedented. There has never been a pre-condition; it's always been an issue within negotiations.” After Mrs. Clinton left Israel, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon got on public radio and happily proclaimed, “There is no question that the United States are our staunchest friends and that Israel's firm stance on its positions pays off” (translation from Hebrew: we won!). How did so few Jews outsmart all those American Ivy League graduates?
Take Afghanistan: General McChrystal wants 40,000 more troops to fight the Taliban. His strategy revolves around moving the Afghanis to population centers and defending those centers, leaving the mountains to the Taliban; they won’t be able to claim victory if they don’t have a populace to victimize, so the theory goes. He also wants U.S. troops to give up their body armor, saying that this will show the local population, which doesn’t have body armor, that our troops are in this fight against the Taliban with them. That’s going to be a hard sell; just ask the soldiers and Marines at Walter Reed. McChrystal says none of this will work unless corruption is rooted out of government and the central government becomes more responsive to the needs of the people.
President Obama said he wanted to wait until after the Afghan presidential election, and then until after the presidential runoff election, to make his decision on whether or not to send more troops and military aid, and if so, how many more troops and how much more aid. He was secretly hoping against hope that Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghani Foreign Minister and presidential candidate, would beat Hamid Karzai, the current president; it wasn’t going to happen, even if there was no fraud. Abdullah (I’m calling him by his first name) knew that, so he protested the legitimacy of the election commission and withdrew from the election, handing Karzai a victory. Now the United States is stuck with a president of Afghanistan whose brother is a drug trafficker and warlord, and who deals with the Taliban and the CIA. Hamid promised, with a serious look on his face during a news conference after accepting congratulations on his re-election, that he would root out corruption in his government; I don’t think he means his brother because drug trafficking accounts for 95% of the Afghani GDP. The United States offered its congratulations; what else could we do? We are a superpower, but we couldn’t very well commit infanticide and kill our child, could we?
What happened to the big stick that Teddy Roosevelt gave us when we became a superpower? Is it on some shelf in the Smithsonian, rotting away, never to be used when we really need it? What’s the use of being a superpower if you can’t throw your weight around, especially with your tiny “friends?”
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