• English Site
• >World
• >Trans-Atlantic Relations
• >

  The End of Arrogance: Obama Brings Toughness and Modesty to Foreign Policy

The End of Arrogance Obama Brings Toughness and Modesty to Foreign Policy

By Gabor Steingart

Part 2: Obama Is No Pacifist

American foreign policy is oriented primarily toward peaceful settlement. But President Obama is no pacifist. He extends one hand to the world while keeping the other hand balled up into a fist. "Our willingness to talk makes it even easier to pursue tough policies," says Dennis Ross, the special Middle East coordinator in the Clinton administration, who now advises Hillary Clinton. For Iran, as it seeks to develop nuclear weapons, "all options are on the table," as President Obama repeatedly emphasizes. This includes, in theory, an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz and Isfahan.

Obama has ordered an additional 17,000 US troops sent to Afghanistan, and another 13,000 could follow. Even after the US's partial withdrawal from Iraq in August 2010, 50,000 US soldiers are expected to remain in the country. The withdrawal is primarily from the cities. None of this was mentioned in the agreement former President George W. Bush signed with the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki late last year.

The new US president is also taking a tough stance in Pakistan. US military drones fly almost daily missions in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they drop their deadly cargo on houses and training camps presumably occupied by the Taliban. Several hundred people, including many civilians, have been killed in these bombings.

The government in Pakistan condemns the bombings as a "gross violation of our sovereignty." But Obama pays little heed to President Asif Ali Zardari who, though democratically elected, has relatively low approval ratings. "This is the war we have to win," he said during the election campaign.

This confrontation contains risks. It increases the Taliban's popularity in Pakistan. One of the casualties could be the frail democracy in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. But what would that mean?

"If Pakistan becomes a failed state," Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta warned officials in Washington last week, "it is a serious threat for you, for us and for the entire region." Then the nightmare of Sept. 11 could become reality: terrorists with nuclear weapons -- Pakistan's.

Spanta, however, is not exactly a well-liked spokesman for the region surrounding the Hindu Kush Mountains. The United States no longer has a very high opinion of the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair is even permitted to express publicly what the White House now thinks about the Afghan president, a darling of the West until recently. According to Blair, Kabul is incapable of building trustworthy and effective institutions.

Spanta speaks five languages and lived in Germany while in exile. When he was in Washington, he attempted to save what may no longer be salvageable. In a speech at the Center for American Progress, he talked about historic progress in his country.

Afghanistan, Spanta said, already has 20 privately owned television stations -- now if that isn't freedom of opinion, what is? The government, he said, has fired 621 civil servants for corruption -- look at us, we're doing something! Of 34 provinces, he told the Americans, drug cultivation has already been eliminated in 25 -- isn't that impressive? Spanta urged his American listeners not to give up on democracy in Afghanistan, telling them: "We need time."

Doors do not slam when governments end their relations. Instead, a quiet period begins. President Obama has canceled the regular videoconferences his predecessor held with President Karzai.

In the world of politics, humility and toughness are sometimes two words for the same thing.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.