Hope, Global Edition

I think that Barack Obama's speech in Berlin yesterday was a mark of how much things have changed for the worse in the eight years since George W. Bush was elected president. It was a fine speech, though I don't think it was a knockout. What made it remarkable for me was how unremarkable it would have been about a decade ago.

There was a time, not too distant in the past, where if a president had gone to Europe and essentially said, "We're allies and we're going to work together on common problems," everyone would have said, "Well, duh!" But no more. After eight years of unilateral treaty withdrawals and the occasional unilateral, "preventative" war it's an applause line to say that we're going to work with our allies. This is actually what things have come to.

Obama made the point that the problems in New York aren't confined to New York and the problems in Berlin aren't confined to Berlin. He had a great line that problems aren't confined within a country's borders anymore. Again, a decade ago the idea that the global community faced certain shared threats and challenges wasn't exactly news. It certainly wouldn't have been news if a presidential candidate had said that we should work with our allies to addrss those threats and challenges. So what changed? Bush happened.

On the whole, Obama gave a solid speech that likely will play well in Europe (and hopefully here). What he didn't do was offer any particularly new ideas. The ideas just seemed new because for the last eight years the administration has tried to ignore the rest of the world. Obama is promising to change that. No wonder the rest of the world likes him.

We Could Use Some More Inexperience

At this point in the campaign, it seems like the central narratives are pretty set and probably won't be changing too much. For instance, the notion that Barack Obama is inexperienced (and probably naive) about foreign policy is pretty entrenched into the campaign coverage. (For the latest example, check out this article.) However, let's look at the last week with an eye toward how naive Obama really is.

First, Obama has been saying from about the start of the campaign that Iraq is the wrong war to be fighting and that Afghanistan needed to have more of our attention. McCain (with much of the media following along) blustered about Iraq being the real war and how we need to focus there. But then McCain did an about face and said that we need to increase our troop presence in Afghanistan after all. For those paying attention, it sure looked like McCain was adopting Obama's policy, but the press didn't really point that out because, after all, McCain is the expert and Obama is inexperienced.

Second, after months of defending his assertion that the U.S. should aggressively negotiate with Iran (and being tarred as an appeaser as a result), the Bush administration decided maybe that wasn't such a bad idea after all. So now we're sending some pretty high level diplomats to Iran. For those paying attention, it sure looked like Bush was adopting Obama's foreign policy, but the press didn't really point that out because, after all, Obama is inexperienced.

Third, you may have heard that Obama is in favor of withdrawing troops from Iraq over 16 months, contngent upon conditions in the country. He's gotten a fair amount of flak for that from McCain and from President Bush. However, it turns out that the Prime Minister of Iraq supports Obama's plan. And you've got to figure that he knows the situation in the country pretty well and has an interest in making sure things go well there.

So in one week three of the most controversial pillars of Obama's foreign policy have been affirmed in pretty big ways. Not bad for someone who the press is going to continue to portray as inexperienced and naive about foreign policy.

Further Negotiation

As expected, Obama's insisted willingness to meet with leaders of enemy countries is not going down well in some (many) quarters. The charges of naivete and inexperience are out in force.

Before I go any further, I should reiterate that I'm not a foreign policy expert and don't really know what would actually come with negotiations. That being said, I think many of the arguments used against possible negotiations are faulty on the face.

The big one I've been hearing has to do with this notion of giving legitimacy to whoever we negotiate with. I guess the thinking is that by having the president sit down with a foreign leader we grant added stature to that leader. I'm not really sure if that's the case. Take the case of Iran. In whose eyes would we be granting Ahmadinejad legitimacy? He's already the leader of his country and is probably well respected among his allies. Furthermore, we acknowledge him as the leader of Iran, which in itself seems to be what would most confer legitimacy. It doesn't seem realistic that he would gain greater legitimacy by meeting with an enemy (like Obama wouldn't gain more legitimacy in this country through the meeting).

In terms of his enemies, Ahmadinejad wouldn't be gaining much legitmacy with them either. It's already clear that he's a force to be dealt with in one way or another. A meeting also wouldn't lead to a wide scale reassessment of him and cause western powers to say, "Maybe he's not so bad after all." So the legitimacy thing doesn't make sense for me.

There's also the danger of appearing weak and emboldening our enemies. That's not an argument against negotiations. That's an argument for having smart negotiations.

As Bill Clinton quotes repeatedly in his autobiography, Israeli leader Rabin commented before meeting Arafat, "You don't make peace with your friends." We can't act like fifth graders and say "I'll talk to you, but I won't talk to you because I don't like you." That policy only gets you so far. It certainly doesn't lead to peace. It's time to acknowledge that.

To Negotiate or Not to Negotiate

Despite the fact that Hillary Clinton has yet to drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination, the general election has gotten underway. So far, I have to say that I like what I see. Rather than the feared "You're old/You're black" barbs flying back and forth, we seem to be in for a substantive debate on what U.S. foreign policy should be in the coming years. Who'd have known that actual discussion was possible in this day and age?

In particular, the topic du jour has been the issue of the threat posed by Iran (particularly in relation to the threat of the old USSR) and whether or not negotiations with Iran make any sense. I'm not any sort of expert in foreign policy and so anything I write from this point on should be taken with a major grain of salt (or two). That being said, I think I've identified the major point if disagreement between the dueling senators.

What the argument really comes down to is the question of whether or not Iran is a rational actor on the global stage. Depending on how one answers that question, everything else falls into place. By rational, I don't mean reasonable necessarily. I mean, rational in the sense of holds a sense of self preservation and will try to promote its own interests.

Obama seems to think that Iran is a rational actor. In this thinking, Iran clearly poses a lesser threat than the USSR (another rational actor) did. Clearly the USSR had a larger army, greater international presence, and a more potent nuclear arsenal than Iran does today. However, you may have noticed that the world isn't a radioactive disaster zone. That's because rational thinking constrained the use of nuclear weapons and prevented outright war. Any use of nukes or any reversion to an outright ground war would have cost both sides so dearly that it wasn't in the rational interest of either country to initiate. Mutually assured destruction worked because neither side was willing to accept an assured destruction. If Iran is similarly unwilling to accept its own destruction (even if it means inflicting great harm on the U.S.), then it poses a lesser threat than the Soviet Union did.

However, that calculus changes hugely if Iran is an irrational actor as McCain seems to think. If Iran is willing to accept its own destruction (which clearly wouldn't be in its rational self interest) if it meant destroying the U.S., we're in real trouble. Mutually assured destruction during the Cold War only worked because neither side wanted to be destroyed. But if one side doesn't mind, there's no real disincentive to trying to destroy the other. Assuming that Iran is an irrational actor, it may be willing to accept its own destruction as the cost for destroying the United States. Assuming that this view is correct, Iran poses a significantly greater risk than anything that Soviet Union presented. Despite all the rhetoric, the rational USSR never really could have acted to destroy the U.S. There are no such assurances with an irrational Iran.

The question of ratonality vs. irrationality also holds implications for whether or not to negotiate with the country. If rational, negotiations that clearly lay out positive and negative consequences could be very beneficial. If irrational, negotiations will not do anything at all.

That's the point where I think Obama finally wins the debate. I can't pretend to know whether or not Iran is willing to act in a rational manner in its own self interest. My sense is that it would, but that's not based on much more than wishful thinking. However, looking at the possible outcomes seems to indicate that negotiations are worthwhile. If Iran is rational, good can come from talking and listening. If Iran is irrational, nothing more bad will happen. The situation won't get better, but I don't see how it would get worse in a practical sense either. It's not like Iran would say, "Well, I used to hate them and want them wiped off the earth, but now after meeting the president I really hate them and want them wiped off the earth." As long as our negotiators had the sense to not give away the farm, we wouldn't have anything to lose. We might even have something to gain.