Encouraging Signs on the Foreign Policy Front

Okay. I admit it. Before the election and leading up to the inauguration, I should have had more faith in Obama’s ability to turn things around on the foreign policy front. It’s been barely a week and a half, and already the groundwork has been laid for improved policies in Israel/Palestine, the Arab world more generally, Afghanistan, and even Russia.

To be honest, I’m very surprised. I thought the neocon attitude that the rest of the world is out to get us so we must bomb them first was more deeply entrenched in Washington foreign policy circles and that Obama would have a tougher time making a clean break from that way of thinking. I also thought that Obama would be susceptible to the Wilsonian wing of the Democratic Party that feels we must fight to make the world a better place by taking out dictators in the name of democracy and human rights. But it looks like Obama has put the adults back in charge; and, man, does it feel good to have underestimated him. That said, it’s still early, and a few steps in the right direction does not a complete-foreign-policy-turnaround make. But I’ve got to give credit where credit is due.

Signing an executive order that will effectively close Gitmo within a year was a promising beginning to the Obama administration. But that was a campaign promise and was to be expected.

The first somewhat surprising move came on day two, when Obama appointed George Mitchell as special envoy for Middle East peace. All the talk leading up to inauguration day was that Dennis Ross would fill that post, which would have been a clear signal that America was not all that serious about changing course in the region. The appointment of Mitchell, on the other hand, signals just the opposite. Mitchell has a long track record of being an even-handed and straight shooting mediator. (Read this for a full rundown of Mitchell’s credentials.)

Obama followed up the Mitchell appointment with an appearance on Al Arabiya television in which he made some important gestures of respect towards the Muslim community. It was basically just a PR appearance, but it was very good PR and showed once again that Obama is serious about doing things differently than Bush. A few words about Gaza in the interview would have been nice, but otherwise it was a very impressive performance.

The real shocker came a few days ago when Robert Gates talked extensively about U.S. goals in Afghanistan. Gone was all the flowery talk of stabilizing Afghanistan so that democracy can flourish and women can assert their rights (laudable goals, but entirely fantastical). Instead, Gates had this to say:

“Afghanistan is the fourth or fifth poorest country in the world. If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose, because nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience or money.”

Gates recalled that the Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan in the 1980s even with 120,000 troops and a “ruthless” method of operating there. “It’s not for nothing that Afghanistan’s known as the ‘graveyard of empires,’” he said.

U.S. goals in Afghanistan must be “modest, realistic,” and “above all, there must be an Afghan face on this war,” Gates said. “The Afghan people must believe this is their war and we are there to help them. If they think we are there for our own purposes, then we will go the way of every other foreign army that has been in Afghanistan.”

These statements sound nothing like pre-inauguration Obama and nothing like Bush-era Robert Gates. Thank goodness for that.

Lastly, there is even hope for an immediate thawing of ice-cold relations with Russia. Obama hinted to the Russians that he would consider putting off Bush’s plans to build a missile shield in Poland. This led to a reciprocal gesture of good-faith from Russia that they would halt the deployment of offensive missiles in Kaliningrad that would have been pointed at NATO allies in Europe. Putin also struck a notably soft tone in his speech yesterday in Davos at the World Economic Forum. We’ll see what happens with the Ukraine and Georgia NATO membership issue. But if the Obama administration continues to postpone any concrete steps towards membership, the door will be opened for cooperation with Russia on a variety of fronts, including the Iran nuclear issue, nuclear disarmament more broadly, and Afghanistan.

I look forward to seeing what develops out of these promising beginnings.