Blogroll Me! How This Old Brit Sees It ...: The Obama Effect: 'nuclear diplomacy' edition

28 January 2009

The Obama Effect: 'nuclear diplomacy' edition

bush-putin-chess.jpg
Bush and his advisers never did figure out why Putin always seemed to get the best of them

Barack Obama has only been president a week, and already he's had a major success in an area of foreign policy and national security in which Bush found only failure. In response to Obama's assertion that he will review Bush's proposed European missile shield, Vladimir Putin declared that Russia will suspend deployment of nuclear missiles near Kaliningrad. Those missiles had caused our allies in Poland great concern, as Kaliningrad is just just a few miles away from the Polish border.

During the run-up to the 2004 election, challenger John Kerry identified nuclear proliferation as the #1 security threat facing the US, and President Bush agreed. But during his administration, Bush backed out of a non-proliferation deal with North Korea, which responded by tested a nuclear warhead and several nuclear-capable missiles (thankfully, the tests failed and Bush was able to get the Koreans to agree to a deal
almost identical to the one Bush had scrapped a couple of years previous).

But the North Korean fiasco was only the most spectacular of Bush's failures with regard to nuclear non-proliferation. Iran responded to Bush's belligerence by stepping up its program to enrich uranium for its civilian nuclear program, a program that could allow Iran to produce weapons-grade nuclear material in the future. Bush's plan to build a useless missile shield in Poland (ostensibly to protect West Europe from Iran's non-existent nuclear missiles) prompted Vladimir Putin to announce a plan to deploy nuclear missiles on the Polish border. And Bush's agreement to share nuclear technology with India, an agreement that violates the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, enraged the leaders of Pakistan and brought the two nuclear powers to the brink of war.

All of this happened while Bush chased after non-existent nuclear weapons in Syria and Iraq. Bush's only success against what he himself called the most serious security threat facing the country came when Moammar Gaddafi of Libya agreed to abandon a weapons development program. That success looks fairly modest in light of the fact that Libya's weapons program doesn't appear to have been anywhere near to bearing fruit.

After all that failure, you have to draw one of two conclusions. Either the task of containing nuclear proliferation is literally impossible, or Bush and his team didn't know what they were doing. And now Obama has answered that question for us by having immediate success that resulted from a reversal of Bush's policy.

***

Most leaders, even aggressive, militaristic leaders like Putin, are willing to engage diplomatically with their rivals and make compromises that are mutually beneficial. Unfortunately, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran isn't among the leaders who are willing to be reasonable. In response to Obama's firm but conciliatory rhetoric, Ahmadinejad demanded that Obama apologize to the Iranian people for past American policies. Presumably, that would mean apologizing for American support of the brutal Shah Mohammad Pahlavi and for the ongoing economic sanctions that continue to hurt Iran's economy.

Demanding an
apology for the actions of Obama's predecessors as a condition for opening serious negotiations is obviously an attempt to ensure that such negotiations negotiations ever take place. It's easy to see why Ahmadinejad wants to avoid such negotiations. An American-led sanctions regime has greatly damaged the Iranian economy, but it's also enhanced Ahmadinejad's political stature at home. So on the one hand, it appears that not much has changed with regard to the US/Iran relationship.

But because of his conciliatory approach, Obama is in a much stronger position than Bush was. Under Bush, China and India voraciously consumed Iranian oil, while Russia provided Iran with advanced weaponry, nuclear power technology, and even enriched uranium. But under Obama, Iran is likely to find itself increasingly marginalized by the world community and increasingly unable to avoid engaging in good-faith diplomacy with the US.

(cross posted at
appletree)

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6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Michael Fitzgerald, an expert in autism spectrum disorders, concludes that Hitler suffered from, and met all the criteria of Asperger syndrome as documented by Hans Asperger. As evidence of possible Asperger’s, Fitzgerald cites Hitler’s poor sleep patterns, food fads, dislike of physical contact, inability to forge genuine friendships, and an emptiness in his human relations. His conversations in the Men’s Home in Vienna were really harangues and invited no reciprocity, for which he seemingly lacked capacity. In Munich, Hitler was distant, self-contained, withdrawn and without friends. His comrades noted that he had no humanitarian feelings, that he was single-minded and inflexible. He was obsessive and rarely made good or interesting company, except in the eyes of those who shared his obsessions or those in awe of, or dependent on him.

1:27 am  
Blogger Syam Ahmedarino said...

live-long Mr. President...

2:26 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dont get the nuclear thing Richard... they yanks have it, Russia have it... Australia is sitting on more of it than we can flog to the world... yet they have a woobla if anyone else has it..

Yes I know all the moral arguements, just seems to drip of hypocracy...Screw the yanks theyve killed more people than the rest of humanity combined... I dont think they should preach to anyone

11:54 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ursley and A'Jay, I'm with you both.

(A'Jay, this piece is one of Gordo's not Richard's. Gordo's a 'yank' but one the good[er]guys.)

1:19 pm  
Blogger Nevin said...

It's a well written and thought provoking piece.

I agree with the author that Ahmadinejad's popularity rose due to Bush's stupid and arrogant ways. He was actually never loved all that much by the Iranians but because of his stern stance against Bush, whom most of the world hated, Ahmedinejad's ratings went up... Now that Bush is gone, his rating will go down tremendously... That is obvious to me as well...

However, if one looks around the world, one sees so many countries possessing this very dangerous weapon call "nuclear weapons"... Here is a list of countries: United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel....

If you ask me, let's ask all these countries to give up their nuclear weapons, as I perceive each and everyone of them as a treat to humanity... Not just Iran's or North Korea's actions... That way of thinking is very one dimensional..

Who decided UK or US are good and Iran and North Korea are bad? It's all bogus.. It's time the international community did something about getting rid of ALL Nuclear Weapons...

2:49 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

'Gordo's a 'yank' but one the good[er]guys.'

Apologise Gordo, not for my bit about your countrymen, but for generalising.... I am meeting some good americans...:)

3:02 am  

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