Obama's foreign policy

Jackson Diehl has published an article in the Washington Post a few days ago in which he reflects about Obama's foreign policy and titles it " Diplomacy by timetable". He argues that in the President's world, the clock rules all. I will lay out some quotes from this article which merits reflexion.

His conclusion is that the timetables of this administration are disconnected from a strategy. Process is always important to good policy, and yes, the Bush administration sometimes demonstrated what can go wrong when there are no deadlines. Yet in the Obama administration, the timetable is becoming an end in itself. The current Administration's most notable product has been the establishment of deadlines. He argues that the President's biggest achievements so far are not results but the would-be means to deliver them.

He then sets out a number of examples: Iraq was Obama's first timetable. His plan to withdraw troops in 16 months put him into contention in the 2008 Democratic primaries. By the time he took the office as president two years later, Iraq had changed utterly, and Obama's 16 months had come and gone. He then proceeded nevertheless to adopt  a similar, 18-month timetable, for ending US combat operations. He stuck to it despite Iraq's political impasse and it's increasing instability causing some Iraquis to question whether US policy amounts to  anything more than a mere timetable. And next comes the December 2011 date for full withdrawal. If Obama sticks to it, he will put the new US strategic partnership with Iraq at risk, and hand another advantage to Iran.

He then goes on to say that one clock is measuring whether US troops will be ready to begin handing off security to Afghanistan's army by July 2011, when the first withdrawal of American troops is to take place. Another clock faces Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as they try to conclude a framework agreement by next September, when the one year timetable Obama encouraged them to establish will expire. Yet another clock follows Iran's nuclear program. The administration has said that Iran is 2 to 5 years away from producing a nuclear bomb. If serious negotiations with the United States and its Security Council allies do not start soon or if Iran does not take some confidence-building steps away from producing weapons, that time frame will begin to overshadow the sanctions policy.

So, in all the major international issues: Iraq, Iran, the Middle East and Afghanistan, the timetable is becoming an end in itself.

And here comes the damning conclusion: it reflects a president who is fixed on disposing of foreign policy problems and not so much on solving them. 

Zapatero, what a disaster!

Spain has woken up to the news that it is no longer one of the first ten economies in the World. So one more of the country's dreams goes down the drain. President Zapatero, true to his alleged commitment, is proceeding with his policy of reducing Spain's importance and level in world affairs.

It will be recalled that, after his surprising win in the 2004 elections, after the brutal Madrid bombings induced his countrymen into cowardly believing that ousting the Partido Popular goverment would buy them a reprieve in terrorist attacks, he inherited a prosperous country and an economy with a sustainable growth model, which he then quickly set off to destroy, financing all sort of policies meant to change the traditional structure of the country, and making it one of the most "progressive" in the world.

The only reason Spain, under Jose Maria Aznar, did not make it into the G-8, even though its economy was larger that Canada's, is because the US and Japan refused to open the door of the exclusive club to yet another EU country. Once again in international relations and politics, " beware of your friends!".

Paying for the party, however, is a different matter. Zapatero invited his voters ( he has never, rightly so, been given credit or hope by his adversaries) to an orgy of fun, good times, social welfare and few obligations. He also promised "his" Spain had overtaken Italy, and would soon be at the same level as France. He also refused to accept and challenge the economic crisis, which has hit Spin harder than other European neighbors precisely because the structure was much more fragile.

Now, he stubbornnly refuses to step down and call for early elections, thus allowing the people who voted him into power, to make the final choice. This is the democratic way, but Spanish socialism has a long history of being democratic only if it suits their purpose. So he has managed to agree on a budget for next year with the Basque Nationalists, who represent less than 3% of the total electorate and who are not even in power in their region. As a matter of fact Zapatero's own party is in power in the Basque region enjoying parliamentary support from the Partido Popular.

He seems to be losing the internal control of the party, and voices are asking for early elections in the first months of next year, because local and regional elections are due in May 2011 and every poll leads to a disastrous, for the Socialists, turnaround in favor of the conservative Partido Popular. PSOE could end up losing regions in which it has been in power for over 20 years. The only hope for them seems to be to call for general elections before then and let the electorate focus their frustration and hatred on Zapatero, and wish for a change in the general attitude by mid-2011.

The first test will be the Catalonian regional elections in late November. The socialists already accept that they will be voted out of power. The big question remains by how much. It could be the worst defeat for them since the first elections in the 70s.

But in the end, all this might well be positive for Spain. Maybe the electorate will get in line with other advanced Western democracies and vote with their wallets and not based on ideology. Revolutions and socialism do not garantee prosperity. Serious work and honest government do. Spain today has a government full of men and women with less qualifications than those posted in job opportunities advertisements for floor personnel in the local equivalent of Home Depot or Walmart. A substantial number of them don't even hold a High School Diploma and only two have the prospect of a job outside of politics. So democracy for Spain has certainly not meant the government of the best. Thankfully, democracy is well consolidated in the country and no looking back is opossible in 21st Century Spain. Not even Zapatero has been able to get this result. At least not yet, because given time this chap is capable of anything....