WASHINGTON - While United States President Barack Obama has clearly improved
Washington's image abroad during his first 100 days in office, the next 100
will almost certainly prove much more challenging for the new president's
foreign policy.
Putting aside the possibility that the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression could become much more severe than the White House currently
anticipates, or that the swine flu currently spreading out of Mexico explodes
into a modern-day version of the 1918 epidemic over the coming months, Obama
will face a series of difficult decisions on how to deal with a plethora of
actual and potential geostrategic crises.
Most of those are centered in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, the region
which the deadly dialectic between al-Qaeda and
the hawkish and hubristic policies of Obama's predecessor, George W Bush, did
so much to destabilize. But likely hotspots with potentially global
ramifications will not necessarily be confined to the southern underbelly of
Eurasia.
The test of a second nuclear device by North Korea following its expulsion of
United Nations inspectors this month, for example, could upset the board in
Northeast Asia, put renewed strains on the US-Japanese alliance, and strengthen
right-wing voices in Washington. Their charges perhaps most prominently
articulated by former vice president Dick Cheney, they have denounced as
dangerously naive Obama's promotion of respectful dialogue with Washington's
adversaries.
The first 100 days have passed without major incident, as most of the world
greeted Obama's promise of change and diplomatic engagement with a mixture of
barely disguised relief and anticipation, as well as varying degrees of
skepticism and hope.
The honeymoon was enhanced not only by Obama's personal charm and rhetorical
deftness in dealing with some of the most sensitive challenges, notably Iran,
but also by his and top aides' repeated assurances that they were in
"listening" mode toward a world which had been too little listened to by the
previous administration.
That Obama enters the second 100 days in a remarkably strong political position
- unexpectedly bolstered this week by the defection of a key Republican
senator, Arlen Specter, giving Democrats a potential filibuster-proof majority
in the upper chamber - should make it easier for him to ignore voices such as
Cheney's. Recent polls showing that the public gives its strongest approval
ratings to his foreign policy performance also give him more running room.
But major tests loom, just as Vice President Joe Biden predicted during last
autumn's presidential campaign. "Mark my words," he said at the time. "It will
not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama."
Perhaps the most urgent crisis - something about which Obama declared himself
"extremely concerned" on Wednesday night - is the situation in Pakistan, where
al-Qaeda-backed Taliban have recently extended their control over the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) region into North-West Frontier Province,
including the Swat Valley, and into districts as close as 100 kilometers from
Islamabad.
The weakness of the government of President Asif Ali Zardari and the reluctance
- at least until Tuesday - of the Pakistani army to challenge the rebel advance
have spurred little less than panic among policy makers in the administration
and the Pentagon, for whom the nightmare scenario of a failed, nuclear-armed
state has suddenly appeared much closer to reality than they had imagined on
January 20.
Now that the army has counter-attacked under growing US pressure, the
administration, which has continued to carry out controversial Predator drone
attacks against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan, is pressing
Congress to rush through nearly US$2 billion in military and economic aid for
Islamabad.
It is also pressing Islamabad to accept a much bigger US counter-insurgency
training program, an investment that recalls to some in Washington the gradual
escalation of US involvement in Indochina under former president John F
Kennedy.
The Vietnam analogy has been raised with increasing frequency next door in
Afghanistan. There, Obama has already ordered the deployment of an additional
21,000 troops through the summer, as well as a "civilian surge" designed to
strengthen the capabilities of a very weak central government as part of an
ambitious new counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy designed to win "hearts and
minds" of disaffected Pashtuns, who make up the Taliban's base.
With the melting of the winter snows, that strategy, key elements of which
remain to be clarified, will undoubtedly be tested by new Taliban offensives.
If they continue on the bloody upward trajectory of the past two years, it
could well force Obama to choose by middle or late summer between further
escalation - the Pentagon has proposed sending another 9,000 troops by the end
of the year - and a less ambitious strategy focused narrowly on what he has
defined as his core goal - "to disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Iraq, from which Obama has promised to withdraw all US combat forces
by 2011, is once again moving back into the limelight as a series of bombings
in Baghdad has made April the most violent month in the capital since March
2008 and resurrected the specter of sectarian warfare.
If the violence grows worse over the next months and key political issues -
including the fate of Kirkuk and its environs and the central government's
failure or refusal to effectively incorporate the largely-Sunni Sons of Iraq
militias or to implement reforms to the de-Ba'athification law - are not
resolved, Obama may well find himself under pressure to revise or hedge on his
withdrawal plan.
Any hint that he would yield to that pressure would likely create a political
revolt from key Democrats, many of whom are already deeply - if so far, mainly
privately - concerned about US escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
More immediately, however, Obama will face some difficult decisions when
Israel's new right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to Washington
in mid-May. Netanyahu appears determined both to withstand US pressure to
abandon his longstanding opposition to the creation of a viable and
territorially contiguous Palestinian state and to persuade Obama to give Iran
only a few months - rather than a year or more, as Obama appears to prefer - to
reach an agreement to curb its nuclear program before imposing unprecedented
sanctions or taking even stronger action against Tehran.
While both men would clearly like to avoid a public confrontation, indications
suggest that it will be very difficult to paper over their deep differences. If
a breach indeed materializes, Obama could find himself challenged not only by
the Republican minority but also by key Democratic lawmakers who are considered
close to the right-wing leadership of the so-called Israel Lobby.
If, on the other hand, he is seen as deferring to Netanyahu, especially on the
Palestinian issue, Obama could well lose much of the ground he has gained
overseas, and particularly in Europe and the Islamic world, in the first 100
days of his presidency.
Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.
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