Bush's Legacy

President Obama didn't get any concessions during his recent visit to the People's Republic of China, and no one should be surprised. One of the most important lessons in life is that if you make a series of big mistakes, you should expect to pay a price for them. Back in 2000, the United States was running a budget surplus, our military was second-to-none, our image in most parts of the world was quite positive, and our economy had been growing steadily for nearly a decade. Some of that growth may have been illusory, however, and the next eight years featured a daunting combination of misfortunes (9/11, Hurricane Katrina), and self-inflicted wounds (e.g., the financial crisis, the invasion of Iraq, the endless war in Afghanistan, the abandonment of any sense of fiscal responsibility, etc.). There's no magic button or clever diplomatic sleight of hand that will allow the United States to retrieve its former position without some real sacrifices, and so far, nobody seems eager to make the changes that might be necessary.

Hence Obama's modest demeanor in Beijing. No president is going to be able to lay down the law on human rights, exchange rates, or sanctions on Iran when China owns over a trillion dollars in U.S. assets, when the U.S. economy is on life support, and when the American military Is mired in two losing wars. Until we get our house in order over here, nobody should expect China to be especially responsive to our wishes or expect its leaders to view the "American model" as especially appealing. An wide-open marketplace of ideas hardly looks attractive when the result is the intellectual ascendancy of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.  

The follies of the past eight years were the greatest gift the United States could have given Beijing, and Obama's conduct in Beijing was the inevitable result. And if we keep doing what we've been doing (see under: Afghanistan, Middle East, etc.), I wouldn't expect things to change.

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If I were President Obama (now there's a scary thought!), I'd ask some smart people on my foreign policy team to start thinking hard about "Plan B." What's Plan B? It's the strategy that he's going to need when it becomes clear that his initial foreign policy initiatives didn't work. Obama's election and speechifying has done a lot to repair America's image around the world -- at least in the short term -- in part because that image had nowhere to go but up. But as just about everyone commented when he got the Nobel Peace Prize last week, his foreign policy record to date is long on promises but short on tangible achievements. Indeed, odds are that the first term will end without his achieving any of his major foreign policy goals.

To be more specific, I'd bet that all of the following statements are true in 2012.

1. There won't be a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel will still be occupying the West Bank and controlling the Gaza Strip. More and more people are going to conclude that "two states for two peoples" is no longer possible, and that great Cairo speech will increasingly look like hollow rhetoric.

2. The United States will still have tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan. Victory will not be within sight.

3. Substantial U.S. personnel will remain in Iraq (relabeled as "training missions"), and the political situation will remain fragile at best. 

4. The clerical regime in Iran will still be in power, will still be enriching nuclear material, will still insist on its right to control the full nuclear fuel cycle, and will still be deeply suspicious of the United States. Iran won't have an actual nuclear weapon by then, but it will be closer to being able to make one if it wishes.

5. There won't be a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

6. Little progress will have been made toward reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. The United States and Russia may complete a new strategic arms agreement by then, but both states will still have thousands of nuclear warheads in their stockpiles. None of the nine current nuclear weapons states will have disarmed, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is still unratified three years from now.

Other achievements that we won't see include the balancing of the federal budget, a major revamping of global financial architecture, reform of the U.N. Security Council, a significant increase in the size of the State Department or the foreign aid budget, or the completion of new trade round. I'm not even sure we will have closed Gitmo or ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by then.

Assuming he wins re-election, therefore, President Obama is going to be looking at a foreign policy "to do" list with remarkably few boxes checked off. And somebody ought to start thinking about this possibility now, because wise statecraft ought to anticipate the circumstances one is going to face a few years hence, instead of focusing solely on what's in the in-box today.

So what's Plan B? I'm still wrestling with that issue myself, but here's a quick sketch of some of the fundamental ideas. Plan B begins by recognizing that the United States remains the most secure great power in modern history and that most of damage we have suffered recently has come from scaring ourselves into foolish foreign adventures. It means rejecting the belief -- common to both neoconservatives and liberal internationalists -- that virtually every global problem requires an American solution and "American leadership." It acknowledges that social engineering in complex traditional societies is something we don't know how to do and probably can't learn, but it takes comfort from the fact that it is also a task that we don't have to do. It accepts that there are a few bad guys out there that do need to be confronted, captured, and sometimes killed, but understands that the more force we use and the heavier our footprint is, the more resistance we will ultimately face. And yes, Plan B understands that sometimes bad things will happen to Americans, and there is nothing we can do to completely eliminate all foreign dangers. Get used to it.

Plan B means playing "hard to get" more often, so that other states don't take us for granted and so that they bear a greater share of common burdens. It means exploiting balances of power and playing divide-and-conquer, instead of trying to impose a preponderance of U.S. power on every corner of the globe. It prizes the individual freedoms that are the core of American democracy -- freedoms that are threatened by a steady diet of foreign wars -- and it recognizes that other societies will have to find their own way toward more pluralist and participatory forms of government, and at their own pace. It seeks to maintain armed forces that are second to none but eschews squandering lives or money on peripheral wars that are neither vital nor winnable. It rejects "special relationships" with any other state, if by that one means relationships where we support other states even when they do foolish things that are not in our interest (or theirs). 

And Plan B proceeds from the belief that other states will be more likely to follow America's lead if they look at us and like what they see. America used to dazzle the world by offering up a vision of opportunity, equality, energy and competence that was unimaginable elsewhere. The danger now is that America is increasingly seen as a land of crumbling infrastructure, mountainous debt, uninsured millions, fraying public institutions, and xenophobic media buffoons. Over the longer term, getting our house in order back home will to a lot more to shore up our global position than conducting endless foot patrols through the Afghan countryside.

Postscript: Some smart observers -- such as Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic -- have a more favorable view of Obama's performance to date. They discern a trademark style in Obama's cautious and reflective approach to most policy issues: he sets forth general goals, waits to see how others react, gauges the limits of the possible, and then decides on a course of action. There's probably something to this view, and surely the patient examination of alternative policy options makes more sense than relying on one's "gut instincts" and then stubbornly refusing to admit the possibility of error.

Whether one relies on calm deliberation or a president's entrails, however, the proof of any approach to policymaking is its ability to deliver tangible results. And here the jury is still out. My concern is that Obama has yet to use American power -- in either its hard and soft forms -- in ways designed to shape the calculations and actions of both allies and adversaries. Where Bush erroneously believed that the United States could simply dictate to the rest of the world, thus far Obama seems unwilling to wield American power against stubborn opponents or withhold U.S. support from recalcitrant allies. His speeches are a valuable tool, but ultimately others need to know that there is resolve and purpose and tangible actions behind them. Sometimes foreign policy is like community organizing -- i.e., you're trying to herd diverse groups to work together for a common goal and your task is to overcome suspicions so that the common ground can be seized. But at other times it's more like a gang war. And when it's the latter, you have to take names, draw lines, and use the power at one's disposal to get the outcomes you want.

Think about it this way: how many foreign leaders are now grateful because the United States has backed them and their prospects are improving, and how many governments are now worried because the United States is successfully using its power to undermine or thwart them and force them to rethink their positions?

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My class at the Kennedy School is examining liberal theories of international politics this week, and the policy issue we'll be discussing is the question of democracy promotion. One of the assigned readings is former President George W. Bush's 2nd Inaugural Address. As you'll probably remember, the address was a soaring anthem to virtues of liberty and America's commitment to promoting it around the world. Some of the its choicer lines included:

The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands."

"America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one."

"It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

"The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations."

It would be easy to pick the speech apart, of course, or to point out that Bush's lofty declarations about "America's belief in human dignity" were at odds  with the torture regime that he oversaw as president. It was also the kind of speech that tends to make even America's friends overseas nervous, as they wonder what new crusades the United States might contemplating.

But that's not the point I want to make today. As I read it over preparing for class, I had an odd thought: what if Barack Obama gave the same speech? How would Americans react, and how would foreign audiences perceive it? I read it again, and imagined Obama's voice and cadences uttering the same lines. And you know what? It read a lot better that way. Try it yourself and see. (If you want to make this hypothetical easier to imagine, throw in the phrase "Make no mistake" once or twice).

I draw three rather obvious conclusions from this exercise. First, when you like a political leader, you'll tend to like what he or she says no matter what the actual words are. Conversely, if you've already decided you don't like someone, there's little they could do to convince you. Second, liberal values are deeply infused into American political culture, which is why either Bush or Obama could use a lot of the same phrases and invoke the same sweeping language and get a lot of heads to nod in assent. Third, as long as the United States is very, very powerful, there will be a strong outward thrust to its foreign policy, even when vital interests aren't at stake and even when meddling abroad could make things worse rather than better. 

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Two recent op-eds tell you a lot about the corner the United States is painting itself into on Iran.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, neoconservative Eliot Cohen says we have only two options: an American or Israeli military strike "which would probably cause a substantial war," or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, "which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear."  Echoing the neocons' earlier campaign for the invasion of Iraq (a decision he enthusiastically endorsed),  Cohen recommends that we "actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic."  He does not call for a U.S. invasion (for which there are no forces available and scant public support), but instead calls for employing "every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard" to bring down the clerical regime.  And he warns darkly that if Obama allows Iran to get a nuclear weapon, he will face a firestorm at home that "will makes the squawks of protest against his health care plans look like the merest showers on a sunny day."  Hmmm....I wonder what he's talking about here?

If anyone doubted that the neoconservatives were still pushing for a U.S.-led effort to remake the Middle East-despite the disaster they've already created in Iraq-this piece (and a similar oped by Paul Wolfowitz in yesterday's Financial Times-should correct that assumption.  Of course, Cohen trots out the usual bogeymen about Iran's "fanatical, ruthless, and unprincipled regime" (an obvious hint that these are irrational criminals who could not be deterred), and flatly declares that no "real negotiation or understanding" is possible with such people.  He says that allowing Iran to have the bomb "may yield the first nuclear attack since 1945," even though he also believes the mullahs are "willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power."  (Newsflash: if "staying in power" is the Iranian leadership's  primary goal, starting a nuclear war and thus inviting overwhelming retaliation by the U.S. or Israel isn't something they're going to do.)

But what is most revealing about Cohen's piece-apart from the worst-case alarmism that pervades it-is his own awareness that the forceful line he favors won't work.

First, he recognizes that air strikes by Israel or the United States can delay but not stop the nuclear program and could easily unleash a wider, highly destructive war.  Second, he understands the economic sanctions haven't worked in the past and are unlikely to convince Tehran to change course now.  He cannot imagine trying a more accommodating route, so all that is left is "regime change."  But we've tried that too, beginning in the Clinton administration and continuing up to the present day, and Cohen doesn't argue that this will work either.

Cohen's proposed approach thus offers us the worst of all possible worlds: we continue to confront Iran with various ineffective threats, thereby ensuring that relations remain bitterly contentious, making ourselves look ineffectual, and giving them more reason to want a deterrent capability.  It is an approach that will only strengthen hardliners and undercut the moderates who still hope for change there, and convince a new generation of Iranians (70 percent of the population is under 30) that America is the "Great Satan" after all. 

Given that Cohen recognizes that his own recommendations won't work, one can only conclude that his real aim is to make sure that there is no accommodation whatsoever between Washington and Iran.  His warnings about the protests that Obama will face are intended less to solve the actual problem than to persuade the President to stick with the failed policies we have followed for the past two decades.

The alternative to Cohen's ineffectual pessimism is laid out clearly by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett in today's New York Times.  They also recognize that military force, covert action and economic sanctions aren't going to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.  Given the dearth of attractive alternatives, they recognize that the only way to convince Iran not to weaponize is to engage in a broad and patient effort to transform the whole U.S.-Iranian relationship.  Obama has made rhetorical gestures in that direction, but his administration has also continued covert action programs aimed at Iran, repeatedly threatened tougher sanctions, and never embraced the need for a broader "strategic understanding" with Iran.

The Leveretts remind us that Richard Nixon achieved his opening to China by taking concrete steps to reduce U.S. pressure on Beijing, even at a moment when China was helping North Vietnam kill U.S. soldiers.  (And this was Mao's China, remember, which U.S. officials had long seen as fanatical, ruthless, irrational, etc.).  Nixon did this because he understood that transforming the entire U.S.-China relationship was more important than worrying about Beijing's bad behavior; the key was move to a relationship where such bad behavior was no longer in China's interest.

The strategy they outline might not work with Iran, but it would hardly leave the United States worse off than the strategy Cohen recommends, which by his own admission is likely to fail.   The problem, of course, is that it is the neoconservative forces that Cohen represents are now working overtime to prevent the United States from pursuing the one course of action that might-repeat, might-actually convince Iran it is better off with an enrichment capacity but not an actual bomb.  

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According to Section 603 of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Defense Department Reorganization Act, the president must submit an annual report to Congress outlining U.S. national security strategy. This requirement has produced a number of timeless literary classics, such as the Clinton administration's 1995 "National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement" (a glowing paean to democracy, institutions, human rights, and other liberal ideals), or the Bush administration's 2002 "National Security Strategy of the United States of America," (a portentous bit of bombast mostly remembered for its justification of preventive war).

Academics like me normally love such exercises, in part because it conforms to an idealized view of what the policy process should be. First, the administration identifies vital U.S. interests, and then sketches the various intermediate objectives that must be met in order to advance or protect them. Then it lays out the specific policies it intends to follow to achieve these goals, and then (supposedly) goes ahead and implements them. The whole exercise is also consistent with the appealing notion of democratic accountability, because Congress can ponder the administration's priorities and plans and decide not to fund policies it doesn't like. Grand strategic pronouncements of this sort are also an obvious opportunity to communicate intentions and priorities to the outside world.

We scholars also like these documents because they give us a chance to aim our intellectual firepower at a fixed target. Dissecting written arguments is something we've been trained to do since graduate school, and giving an academic an official statement of "national security strategy" is like putting a seven-course meal in front of a gluttonous gourmet. We can dissect the underlying assumptions, identify the theoretical underpinnings that are supposedly shaping policy, compare and contrast this year's version with earlier reports, and look for contradictions, gaps in logic, or other shortcomings. Plus, these reports make a great teaching tool; they are the bureaucratese that has launched a thousand class discussions. If your job involves teaching and writing about U.S. foreign policy, in short, you should be grateful that Goldwater-Nichols forces every administration to produce something new to feed on each year.

Of course, you shouldn't assume these reports actually tell you what the administration is going to do. They are often drafted by committee, or by some hired pen, and the president may not play much (any?) role in the process. More importantly, foreign policy always involves adapting to actions or events that one doesn't anticipate, and no government can ever stick to its strategic vision with complete fidelity. Even so, these statements are usually worth reading, if only to get an idea of an administration's basic inclinations, or at least what it thinks it is trying to accomplish.

The Obama administration hasn't offered us its version of our "national security strategy" yet, and despite everything I just said, I'm beginning to wish they weren't compelled to do so by law. For one thing, I suspect it will look a lot like the Clinton administration's versions, and consist of a long "to-do" list drawn from familiar liberal interventionist dogma. But more importantly, this is one of those periods where the main features of U.S. grand strategy may not be easy to talk about openly and honestly.

In simple terms, what Obama seems to be attempting is a wide-ranging process of selective retrenchment. This is hardly surprising, because the Bush administration got us badly overcommitted and refused to raise taxes to pay for it. So Obama is getting us out of Iraq, and appears to be rethinking his approach to Afghanistan. He's making constructive concessions to a number of potential adversaries (such as Russia), in order to gain their support on more pressing issues (such as Iran)  He's telling his Secretary of Defense to rein in defense costs, emphasizing diplomacy at every turn, and letting everyone know that Uncle Sam isn't going to solve all the world's problems all by itself. He's not retreating to Fortress America, of course, but he and his team aren't swaggering around saying that America is the "indispensable nation" either.

Given the mess he inherited from Bush and the need to repair America's public finances, this approach makes eminently good sense.  But when you're s great power engaged in a process of retrenchment, you probably don't want advertise that fact in your official statement of "national security strategy."  If you do, you'll just get a lot of flak from hardliners, who still haven't figured out that the previous eight years was mostly a disaster and that U.S. resources aren't infinite. And a few minor adversaries may decide to test your limits, and you'd rather not have to waste time responding. Spelling things out explicitly might also make some Americans nervous, because they've gotten used to America being #1 and they've forgotten that the best way to stay there is to get others to do the heavy lifting instead of trying to do it all ourselves.

Obama should stick to his present course -- as subtly and quietly as possible -- and when it's time to fulfill that Section 603 requirement, he should ask his advisors to write up a strategy statement that does not spell out what is really going on. And if they can make it sufficiently boring so that nobody pays much attention, so much the better.

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Just when you think the wingnuts are taking over the asylum, something happens to restore one's faith in rational analysis. Here are one and a half items that offered me some solace.

The half-full glass is the Obama administration's decision to replace the planned deployment of missile defenses in Eastern Europe with "a reconfigured system aimed more at intercepting short- and medium-range Iranian missiles." The original scheme was always a pretty silly idea, insofar as it was allegedly supposed to protect Europe from a presently non-existent "Iranian threat." If Iran ever did get nuclear weapons and missiles with sufficient range, why would they aim them at Poland or Czechoslovakia or other European targets? Plus, if those dastardly Iranians could develop a missile and warhead to do that, they could undoubtedly find some way to sneak a nuclear device (i.e., one small enough to fit on a missile) into Europe via clandestine means, thereby negating any benefit we might derive from being able to knock down a few incoming ballistic missiles. Spending billions on that task always struck me as like spending thousands on a sophisticated burglar alarm while leaving your doors and windows unlocked.

We had this program because missile defenses have been a sacred cause for the GOP ever since Reagan launched the old "Strategic Defense Initiative." Because building effective missile defenses is hard, expensive, and potentially open-ended, it is an appealing full-employment policy for government weapons labs and certain sectors in the U.S. defense industry.  These corporations are happy to take some of their profits and give it to think tanks and lobbyists who will push the idea to the public and to Congress. There are also some diehards who saw deployments in Eastern Europe as a way to stick a thumb in Moscow's eye, ignoring the fact that Putin & Co. could and would cause trouble for us if we did. And of course our Eastern Europe allies liked it, less because they were worried about Iran than because they saw it as a way to strengthen overall ties with Washington.

To be sure, Obama has bowed to these political realities and sought to preempt criticism, reiterating that there's still an Iranian threat and that he's merely decided to replace the original system with one based on different architecture. Secretary of Defense Gates and the JCS have backed him up, the former remarking that "those who say we are scrapping missile defense in Europe are either misinformed or misrepresenting the reality of what we are doing." So this glass is only half-full. But I'm going to hope that this decision is the first step towards abandoning the whole idea, so that we can spend those billions on weapons we might actually need.

Which brings me to Item No. 2: Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak's declaration that Iran is not in fact an "existential threat" to Israel. He's right, and he deserves praise for saying so forthrightly. Iran remains an obvious national security problem for Israel for a number of reasons, but the frankly hysterical talk about "existential threats" was becoming counterproductive, unless your aim is to persuade people that war is necessary and that it will make everything better. Exaggerating the potential impact of an Iranian bomb may have been more dangerous than the capability itself would be, especially if it began to convince worried Israelis it was time to emigrate or led Iran's leaders to mistakenly think that getting a weapon would suddenly give them a lot of additional influence or leverage. So kudos to Barak for reminding us that Israel is strong and offering a saner perspective.  

These two moments of sanity reinforce each other, of course. If a future Iranian nuclear weapon isn't an existential threat to Israel then it isn't a politically meaningful threat to anyone, save countries that might be tempted to conquer Iran at some point in the future. So if Barak is right (and I obviously think he is), then the case for missile defense deployments in Eastern Europe is weaker than Obama is admitting.

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If you want to keep up with the debate on Afghanistan, you should obviously be reading FP's AfPak Channel. But here are a few other items of special note:

1. Chairman of the JCS Admiral Mike Mullen thinks we need more troops and more time. Some key Senators are skeptical. To watch the actual hearings, go here.

2. A new CATO Institute report on how to get out.

3. An open letter from the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy on why Obama should rethink his Afghan "strategy." (Full disclosure: I'm one of the signatories).

4. What Sarah Palin and the guys who thought invading Iraq was a good idea think now. For some reason the phrase "caveat emptor" springs to mind.

5. Tom Englehardt is skeptical of benchmarks, but offers a long list of his own.  

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Although I voted for him with enthusiasm and was delighted when he won, I've tried to maintain a critical stance towards the Obama administration's efforts so far. As readers of this blog will know, I've been critical of their approach to AfPak, ambivalent about their Middle East policy, troubled by the backsliding on torture and indefinite detentions, and concerned that they were trying to do way too much too soon. But I've also tried to cut them some slack, knowing that they inherited an economy in free fall and a set of intractable foreign policy problems. Even a great president and a competent team would find it difficult to work instantaneous miracles, especially in a political system that has many veto points and was designed to make far-reaching change difficult to impossible.

That said, I am starting to wonder. In particular, I think Obama is going to have to pick an issue and demonstrate that there is a price to pay for thwarting him. Not every opponent is amenable to sweet reason and calm deliberation, and adversaries abroad --and at home -- need to understand that the President can be tough too. Like the early Bill Clinton, so far he's been better at punishing supporters (e.g., Van Jones, Charles Freeman) than opponents.

So I keep thinking about Ronald Reagan's decision to go after the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) back in 1981. When the union went out on strike over demands for better pay and working conditions, thereby violating a federal law barring walkouts by federal employees, Reagan ordered them back to work and fired any members who didn't comply. In fact, he barred the strikers from further federal employment (a ban he later rescinded), while the administration improvised a replacement system that kept the airplanes flying. Whatever the merits of Reagan's action, it showed he could play hardball and it made him appear to be a decisive leader who wasn't afraid to go to the mat.

Bottom line: Obama and his team need to pick a fight with someone and win, so that both rivals and fence-sitters recognize that foot-dragging, malicious distortion, etc., are not without costs and risks. But one word of advice: a war with Iran is not the sort of fight I have in mind.

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