Obama

As Peter Feaver observed over at Shadow Government, there's an ever-increasing number of leaks coming from the Obama administration on foreign policy. 

Beyond the drip-drip-drip on the Afghan strategic review, the foreign policy community is now agog at Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf's story in Time on the rise and fall of Greg Craig, Obama's first White House Counsel.  Former colleague Laura Rozen labels it as, "one of the most devastating accounts to have emerged of the Obama White House."

Calabresi and Weisskopf's story contains astonishing revelations, like the following: 

• Obama's foreign policy preferences changed as he confronted political realities;
• As time has passed, Obama has paid more attention to the political ramifications of his national security decisions;
• There were fierce bureaucratic battles over the release of national security memoranda;
• Greg Craig's influence waned when his policy recommendations produced political blowback;
• Over time, Obama has tried to balance national security concerns with his desire to unwind some of the Bush administraton's excessive actions.
• People who oppose Greg Craig did so mostly for short-sighted political reasons.

Well, blow me down.  

I don't mean to belittle those who either ardently support or ardently oppose the initial efforts to eliminate the legacies of Guantanamo and the like.  But stories that reveal politicians to be acting, er, politically don't really cause my jaw to drop. 

The only interesting thing I found in this piece was the part Rozen excerpted:

Obama arrived at Emanuel's office a few minutes later, took off his windbreaker and sat down at a table lined with about a dozen national-security and political advisers. He asked each to state a position and then convened an impromptu debate, selecting Craig and McDonough to argue opposing sides. Craig deployed one of Obama's own moral arguments: that releasing the memos "was consistent with taking a high road" and was "sensitive to our values and our traditions as well as the rule of law." Obama paused, then decided in favor of Craig, dictating a detailed statement explaining his position that would be released the next day.

But for Craig, it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory. Four days later, former Vice President Dick Cheney attacked Obama on Fox News Channel for dismantling the policies he and Bush had put in place to keep the country safe. More significant was the reaction within Obama's camp. Democratic pollsters charted a disturbing trend: a drop in Obama's support among independents, driven in part by national-security issues. Emanuel quietly delegated his aides to get more deeply involved in the process. Damaged by the episode, Craig was about to suffer his first big setback.

In other words, the  median American voters are comfortable with using illiberal means to protect the national interest (hmmm... that sounds familiar).  And, shock upon shock, politicians respond to public attitudes.   

I'm late to this party, but two quick thoughts on Obama's Tokyo speech: 

1.  Last week a sharp foreign policy observer -- and a former campaign advisor for Obama -- made an interesing lexicographical observation to me about the Obama administration's foreign policy rhetoric to date.  They use the word "partnership" a hell of a lot more often than they use the word "alliance."  That's not terribly surprising, given their emphasis on talking with adversaries, forming great power concerts, etc.  Still, there are times when it's important to reach out more to one's allies than one's rivals. 

The Tokyo speech was one of those occasions, and I'm happy to report that Obama used "alliance" 12 times and "partnership" only 9 times.  Perhaps this says more about the lay of the land in the Pacific Rim than anything else, but it does suggest that the adminstration is sensitive to regional nuances.

2.  That said, I was underwhelmed with the trade outreach of the speech.  Some reports suggest that Obama announced that the U.S. would join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an APEC trade forum comprising, at the moment, of Brunei, Singapore, Chile and New Zealand (with Vietnam and Australia thinking about joining). 

What Obama actually said, however, was:  

The United States will also be engaging with the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries with the goal of shaping a regional agreement that will have broad-based membership and the high standards worthy of a 21st century trade agreement.

So what exactly does that mean?  Helene Cooper points out the ambiguities of that language in the New York Times: 

Although Mr. Obama did open the door during his speech in Tokyo on Asia policy, he did not explicitly say that the United States would join the pact. A formal announcement that the United States is beginning negotiations would undoubtedly kick off criticism from free-trade opponents in the United States and pushback from Congress.

Mr. Obama spoke, instead, of “engaging the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries with the goal of shaping a regional agreement that will have broad-based membership and the high standards worthy of a 21st century trade agreement.”

That line left many trade envoys already in Singapore scratching their heads: did Mr. Obama mean that the United States would begin formal talks to join the regional trade pact, which presently includes Singapore, Brunei and New Zealand, and could later include Vietnam — an addition that could lead to more Congressional pressure at home?

Many regional officials have been waiting for the United States to join the initiative as a demonstration that Washington will play a more active role in the region. But the Obama administration has yet to establish a firm trade policy, as it is still reviewing its options.

White House officials were not much clearer on what Mr. Obama meant when they were pressed on this after the speech. Michael Froman, an economics expert on the National Security Council, said that what Mr. Obama meant was that he would engage with the initiative “to see if this is something that could prove to be an important platform going further.”

Wow, that's some real enthusiasm coming from the G-20 sherpa.... not. 

For an administration that likes to pride itself as savvy in the ways of foreign policy subtleties, I still don't think they grasp the fact that trade policy is now embedded into foreign policy in the Asia/Pacific Region. 

Throughout the course of the Bush administration, a constant irritant in the Asia/Pacific region was Bush's tendency to place antiterrorism at the top of the queue in Asia/Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) discussions.  Not that anti-terrorism wasn't important, but APEC was not the proper forum for that -- APEC is all about regional economic integration.  China, by wanting to talk about trade, made a lot of diplomatic headway by distinguishing itself from the United States.

I bring this up because, according to the FT's Edward Luce, it looks like the Obama administration's policy malaise on trade is not winning it any allies in East Asia: 

In a meeting with President Barack Obama last week, Lee Kuan Yew, the veteran former prime minister of Singapore, said he felt privileged to meet the US leader at a “time of renewal and change in America and during a period of transition where the world order is changing”.

At private meetings around Washington, however, Mr Lee’s message was rather more blunt.

“You guys are giving China a free run in Asia,” he told Fred Bergsten, the director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “The vacuum in US policy is enabling the Chinese to make the running.”

Mr Lee’s timing was apposite. On Wednesday Mr Obama leaves for Tokyo for a regional tour that will include China, South Korea and Singapore, where Mr Lee’s government is hosting a summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum this weekend. Surveys in each country show that Mr Obama’s popularity has helped to restore the battered US standing in the region.

But the views of Asian governments do not always chime with those of their public. Across the region, concern is rising about the absence of US leadership on trade since Mr Obama took office. Few believe that he has the will or power to restart the Doha round of global trade talks – and he has not asked Congress for a renewal of the presi- dent’s fast-track negotiating authority.

Fewer still believe that he will be able to ratify the landmark 2007 US-South Korea free-trade agreement in the face of strong hostility in Congress....

while globalisation gets steadily less popular in the US, other parts of the world are moving ahead. South Korea recently concluded a free-trade deal with Europe. Japan is holding similar talks with the European Union. Ironically, the EU broached the talks as a way of protecting itself against the trade-diverting effects of the now moribund US-Korea deal.

US business lobby groups are hoping Mr Obama will be able to achieve some kind of a breakthrough in Seoul next week. Given that it would be futile for him to send the free-trade agreement back to Capitol Hill, any new steps would have to include a renegotiation of the deal to include better market access for US cars.

“It is really important to understand just how badly the US is screwing itself on trade,” said Mr Bergsten. “By having an inactive trade policy, others are rushing to fill the vacuum.”

For an administration that claims it wants to have better relations with its allies, Obama and his foreign policy team have been remarkably tone-deaf when it comes to trade policy. 

At every major summit meeting since he's come to office, Obama has heard complaints about the lack of U.S. leadership on the trade front.  This administration has demonstrated that it's not afraid to tackle multiple, complex challenges at the same time -- and yet they've been either mute or worse when it comes to trade. 

Barack Obama's decision to put trade policy in a lockbox and throw away the key is utterly appalling -- and, from a foreign policy perspective, completely counterproductive. 

A year after Barack Obama's election, I'm seeing a lot of post-mortems on his administration's first year in foreign policy.  Ben Smith's Politico story is a nice template for them: 

Foreign policy never goes according to campaign plan, but for President Barack Obama, who promised a hardheaded new engagement with the world, the last week and the weeks he sees looming ahead must be discouraging.

Across a region spanning Pakistan to the Mediterranean, foreign leaders seem to be challenging the very premise of his policy: that foreign countries can reasonably be persuaded to move in the direction of common interests, and that a better-loved America can get more done.

In Afghanistan, an all-out effort to promote a legitimate election turned into a scramble to prevent a civil war and ease the defrauded challenger off the stage. Iran persuaded the White House to drop its late-September deadline for action and then appears to have rejected a deal on nuclear fuel. Great powers such as Russia and China show no appetite for crucial concessions, while the U.S. Congress continues to block major action on a pillar of Obama’s policy goals — international action on climate change.

To which I say:  meh.  First, Smith's premise about Obama's foreign policy isn't quite right.  Sure, I think Obama and his foreign policy team would love it if "foreign countries can reasonably be persuaded to move in the direction of common interests, and that a better-loved America can get more done."  But c'mon, these are not stupid people, and I'm pretty sure that they know the limits of diplomatic goodwill and reasoned discourse. 

Second, you always need to grade on a curve -- i.e., how has Obama's first ten months stacked up to prior administratons?  Most incoming administrations screw up plenty in their first year in office.  With Clinton, there was flip-flopping over Haiti, dithering over Bosnia, screw-ups over Japan, etc.  With Bush 43, there was a lack of consultation with allies over treaty withdrawals, a dramatic policy shift on North Korea that badly embarrassed South Korea's leadership and eventually had to be walked back, and that whole failure-to-prevent 9/11 problem.  Even with George H.W. Bush, the first six months primarily consisted of a strategic review of the Soviet Union that was overtaken by events the moment it was finished. 

Will Obama have to walk back or reverse course on foreign policy?  He's done so on Israel, to be sure, and might do so on Afghanistan.  He has had successes in Honduras, Russia and the Somali pirates, however.  So far, I'd say Obama is shooting par for the course. 

I haven't been a huge fan of certain aspects of Obama's foreign policy -- like Philip Levy, I'm not thrilled with his trade policy.  Mostly, however, I'd characterize his foreign policy actions as reasonable -- and pretty much what I'd expected a year ago today. 

What about you, dear readers -- how do you grade Obama's foreign policy? 

Gideon Rachman notes that despite the French concern with happiness, the French themselves are pretty depressed. 

I'm pretty sure stories like this are not going to lift the mood of French President Nicolas Sarkozy: 

There is no Club Sarkozy nearby in this sweltering, squalid capital [of Guinea]; in West Africa, the French president cannot compete at present, despite his country’s historic connections as the former colonial power here. Right now, in this volatile region, mere mention of being from America — Obama’s America — is enough to avert an armed soldier’s grim gaze, defuse a mob’s anger, soften an unyielding border guard or lower the demands from ubiquitous bribe-seeking policemen.

The president’s name, freshly painted, appears above a barbershop, a grocery, a school, even tire stores here, as well as the cabaret in Boulbinet. In a leading bookstore downtown, a full-scale poster of Obama looks out from behind a closed door, a visual echo of the sentiments of those who go in to discuss politics.

The implications of this new American authority in an unfamiliar spot received a tryout last week, when the Obama administration sent a senior diplomat here to condemn the massacre of dozens of unarmed civilians protesting Guniea’s military government in September. They seem clear: America punches above its weight, in a part of the world that it has hitherto left to the French. The United States, with few practical sticks to beat the junta, nonetheless has a moral authority in the streets that the big-dog French do not match....

[W]hen Mrs. Clinton said the next day that she was “appalled” by the “vile violation of the rights of the people” in Guinea, Captain Camara had nothing to say, publicly at least. But when Mr. Kouchner called for an international intervention force, the captain angrily said, “Guinea is not a subprefecture, is not a neighborhood in France.”

The differing reactions were not lost on local observers. Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, an opposition leader, said Captain Camara “dared to defy France, but he didn’t dare defy the U.S.”

“America is a power that counts,” Mr. Diallo said. “You can’t turn your back on them.”

Oh, snap. 

If you're wondering why it took me a few hours before choosing to blog about Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Price award.... well, it took me that long to stop laughing. 

Honestly, I'm not laughing at Obama.  I'm laughing at the morons on the Norwegian Nobel Committee who made this decision to cheapen an already devalued prize.

Seriously, let's imagine the deliberations that led to this decision:

CHAIR:  Guys?  Guys!!  It's 2 AM and we've got an award to give later today!  What are we gonna do?    We can't use Jimmy Carter again -- he was our emergency winner the last time we were stumped!  If we don't do this right, we'll have less credibility than the Grammys!!

MEMBER A (clearly drunk):  Hey, why not Neil Patrick Harris?  For bringing peace to.... umm.....  Hollywood awards shows?! 

MEMBER B:  Remember when Time's Man of the Year was... you?  Why can't we do something like that?  You know, say that the Peace Prize goes to all peace-loving people. 

CHAIR:  No f%$&ing way.  What do you want me to do, hold up a mirror to the cameras when I say who won?  And you know how many idiots would ask for their take of the prize money? 

MEMBER A:  Seriously, Neil Patrick Harris is awesome.  Any of you checked out Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog? 

MEMBER B:  Hey, how about that Iranian guy who won the election but got screwed by the mullahs?  He seemed pretty peaceful.

CHAIR:  Sorry, no dice.  We used up our Iranian quota this decade with Shirin Ebadi.   

MEMBER B:  That Zimbabwean guy?   

CHAIR:  If you can't remember his name, then he's not getting the award. 

MEMBER C:  Did you read how the Oscars will have, like, 10 nominees for Best Picture this year?  Why not give this to all 20 members of the G-20? 

CHAIR:  Doesn't the G-20 actually have more than 20 members?  Can anyone name them all?

Silence....

MEMBER A:  And How I Met Your Mother is definitely underrated as a sitcom.  NPH owns that show.   

MEMBER C:  Hugh Jackman was People's Sexiest Man Alive this year.  Why not double up on him, like we did with Al Gore? 

MEMBER A:  Get serious, man.  Wolverine sucked!!

MEMBER B:  Hey, here's a crazy thought... why not Barack Obama? 

General laughter and merriment.

CHAIR:  How exactly are we going to justify the award?  Jesus, even Jimmy Carter had done some actual peacemaking when we gave it to him.  What are we going to say?  "Barack Obama has succeeded brilliantly in not acting like George W. Bush in His First Term?"

MEMBER B:  C'mon... the guy just lost the Olympics bid even after flying all the way to Copenhagen. 

MEMBER A:  Hey, how about Taylor Swift?  We could guarantee Kanye wasn't in the audience. 

MEMBER B:  Look, maybe it will give Obama a boost.  With the massive prestige that the Nobel Peace Prize now carries in the United States because of our brilliant recent selections, maybe this will help get health care reform passed.  This award would so put conservatives on the defensive!

[General nodding around the table.]

MEMBER A:  Fine, no one else likes Neil Patrick Harris at this table, I get that.  What about Roman Polanski?  That would make a statement.   

CHAIR (looks at watch):  Fine, whatever, we're way past deadline.  (Points at MEMBER B).  Write up the explanation.  (Points at MEMBER A).  Contact Neil Patrick Harris and put him on "standby" in case Obama can't make it for the acceptance speech. 

MEMBER B (scribbling furiously):  Hmmm....how's this?  "Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened."

CHAIR:  Hmmm.... no actual achievements other than Not Being George W. Bush in His First Term, but it sure sounds good!  OK, we're adjourned 

MEMBER C (looking through nomination letters):  I can't believe that professor from Tufts nominated Salma Hayek again.  Doesn't he know that this is a serious award?!   

In semi-seriousness -- Bono got robbed, man.

UPDATE:  I do think Obama's response was to the hubbub was pretty good.  Again, I'm really not laughing at him -- I'm laughing at the Nobel Committee's decision-making.  At this point in time, there were a lot of other, more deserving candidates. 

Giving the award to Obama is kind of like giving that junior professor the Teacher of the Year award -- it dooms their chances for tenure. 

The Century Foundation's Jeffrey Laurenti earlier this week on the sharp differences between the Obama administration and its predecessor:

Barack Obama is reaping treble returns for America this week as he makes his first appearance as president at the United Nations.  Never has an American president been greeted on the U.N.'s unique global stage with such giddy anticipation, or undertaken so extensive and substantive a schedule there.... 

[I]t is Obama's dramatic realignment of U.S. policy away from American conservatives' unique fetishes, and to the mainstream goals and values that most of the American people share with the rest of the world, that explains the new opportunity for renewed American leadership.

From Helene Cooper's write-up of Obama's United Nations speech today in the New York Times: 

But even as Mr. Obama sought to signal a changed tone in America’s dealings with the world, much of his speech centered on old and intractable issues, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions and a Middle East peace process. And while his choice of words was different and more conciliatory, the backbone of American policy he expressed remained similar to the Bush administration’s in many areas.

Well, that clarifies matters, then. 

After the sturm und drang of last week's decision by the Obama administration to slap tariffs on Chinese tires, I've seen a bit of a pushback among the economic commentariat.  This pushback comes in one of two forms: 

1. This is not a big deal
2. Obama has his eyes on the larger prize

Over at TNR, Noam Scheiber makes the first case -- that this is a tempest in a teapot: 

With anti-trade sentiment rising in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, it's become increasingly difficult to resist genuine protectionism--to say nothing of passing new trade pacts. (Bilateral deals with Colombia, South Korea, and Panama have all stalled out in Congress.) Absent a small gesture on behalf of American workers, it's safe to say the trade agenda would be doomed for the foreseeable future. (It may be anyway, of course.) Which is why Obama's decision seemed relatively straightforward once the International Trade Commission ruled that Chinese tires were in fact disruptive. Even so, Obama announced that the tariff would top out at 35 percent, well below the 55 percent recommended by the ITC.

So the tariff is modest, narrow, legal, and designed to preserve the political viability of free trade....

[B]oth Bush and Obama were rhetorically committed to free trade at the time of their tariff flirtations, and both men had taken practical steps to promote it. (Bush had sought fast-track authority from Congress; Obama, in a much tougher political environment for trade, scaled back a "buy American" provision in the stimulus.) So pretty much the only way to divine this difference is by peering into the two men's souls.  

Hmmm........ no, not buying the equivalence between Bush and Obama here.  First, to repeat, just because something is legal doesn't mean it's good policy. 

Second, as Phil Levy pointed out, the Bush administration specifically declined to apply these tariffs when he was president.  So there is some different between the two administrations' perspectives on trade.

Third, if Scheiber is correct that this is merely "a small gesture on behalf of American workers," then I'd be fine.  But I'm curious about his faith in that assertion.  All the political signs point to a lot of gestures in the protectionist direction.  Each of them, by themselves, is Lilliputian in their effects -- but the cumulative effect can be to keep the Gulliver of freer trade under lock and key. 

The Financial Times' Alan Beattie makes the more interesting argument -- which is that a short term sacrifice of trade policy in favor of health care will sow the seeds of a viable long-term policy of trade liberalization: 

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that this is a straight trade-off. Placate the labour unions on trade and get them to support Mr Obama on healthcare. Whisper it quietly, and be prepared for accusations of heresy to rain down on your head, but that might be a deal worth making....

Instead of hoarsely exhorting the benefits of trade to people who aren’t listening, [trade enthusiasts] need to be seen to soften its downside. Since the American public seems to ascribe much job loss in the US economy to globalisation – usually wrongly, but there we have it – this means reducing the costs of being laid off. Since much healthcare is currently tied to employment, achieving universal coverage would be one of the best ways of doing that....

Mr Obama has now come down on the wrong side of three big decisions on trade: happily signing a stimulus bill with Buy American provisions, abrogating an agreement allowing more Mexican trucks to operate in the US, and now granting the first ever emergency tariffs under a particular “safeguard” measure in US law. All are damaging both to trade and to the US’s international standing. All risk inflaming protectionist sentiment at a sensitive time.

But if he can use his capital to achieve universal healthcare and begin to shift the visceral dislike of trade that has gripped large parts of the American public and their representatives on Capitol Hill, it might prove worth it. He is playing with fire, which has creative but also destructive power. Just like globalisation.

Beattie gets at an interesting proposition -- that stronger safety nets will make Americans more comfortable with globalization.  You can certainly point to public opinion polling in support of this hypothesis. 

It's a good argument, and it's the one I suspect Larry Summers and Tim Geithner told themselves after the tire decision was made.  The thing is, I'm not sure whether it's politically accurate. 

In my debates about trade over the years, I've talked with a lot of union activists on the other side of the fence.  These are people dedicated to the protection of them and theirs -- and given the economic straits of their workers, I can't blame them.  I know from talking with them, however, that a stronger social safety net will have zero effect on their trade position.  Sure, they want health care -- but they also want to make sure that their union continues to exist as a viable political entity.  Regardless of universal health care coverage, globalization eats away at the unionized employment sector in the United States.  For unions in the 21st century, protectionism is not a policy position to be traded away -- it is at the core of their perceived interests.  Health care will not affect that position. 

Am I missing anything? 

UPDATE:  Noam Scheiber responds on TNR's blog to say that maybe I am missing something: 

[T]he political context looms incredibly large here. Simply put, it's incredibly difficult to defend, much less expand, free trade in the middle of a deep recession. And this is the deepest since the 1930s. In that context, the best you can probably do is beat back the worst protectionist excesses and live to fight another day. 

Which is to say, you can't just make a straight-forward point-by-point comparison between Bush and Obama. The question is, what would a pro-trade president do in the current political context? My point is that it's far from clear he or she would behave any differently from Obama.

Scheiber is absolutely correct that the curent political environment is hostile to trade -- but I'm not all that sure the environment was any less toxic in the early half of this decade.  In December 2001, George W. Bush, flush from the success of the war in Afghanistan, possessing an approval rating above 80 percent and larding out pork like no one's business, secured the passage of Trade Promotion Authority through the GOP-controlled House of Representatives by a single vote.  In 2005, CAFTA made it through the House by a two-vote margin. 

Let's face it, however -- this debate is about the future.  If Obama abstains from futher acts like the tire tariff, I'll concede that I've overreacted.  If there's more of this to come, then I think Scheiber will have underreacted.