I wouldn't call it a "shellacking," but President Barack Obama's trip to Asia wasn't a stunning triumph either. He got a positive reception in India -- mostly because he was giving Indians things they wanted and not asking for much in return -- and his personal history and still-evident charisma played well in Indonesia. But then he went off to the G-20 summit in Seoul, and got stiffed by a diverse coalition of foreign economic powers. Plus, an anticipated trade deal with South Korea didn't get done, depriving him of any tangible achievements to bring back home.

What lessons should we draw from this? The first and most obvious is that when your own economy is performing poorly, and when you are still saddled by costly burdens like the war in Afghanistan, you aren't going to have as much clout on the world stage. After half a century or more of global dominance, some Americans may still expect the president to waltz into global summits and get others to do what he wants (or at least most of it). But that is harder to do when you've spent the past ten years wasting trillions (yes, trillions) in Iraq and Afghanistan while other states were building their futures, and have dug yourself into a deep economic hole.

Second, the geopolitics of the trip are important, as Robert Kaplan lays out in a good New York Times op-ed this morning. I don't agree with everything he says (in particular, I think getting out of Afghanistan would reduce the need to accommodate Pakistan and simplify efforts to forge a closer relationship with India) but most of his points ring true to me.

Third, the other event this week was yet another flap between the United States and Israel, and it's not as unrelated to the situation in Asia as you might think. At about the same time that Obama was making yet another eloquent speech about the need to improve relations between the United States and the Muslim world, Israel was announcing still more construction in East Jerusalem. Just what Obama needed, right?

When Obama said this step was "counterproductive" (now there's tough language!), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retorted that "Jerusalem is not a settlement; it is the capital of Israel." In fact, Israeli construction in East Jerusalem is no different than a settlement in the eyes of the rest of the world, because no other government recognizes Israel's illegal annexation of these lands.

And then what happened? Netanyahu sat down for nearly a full day of talks with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who proceeded to say (for the zillionth time), that the U.S. commitment to Israel's security was "unshakeable." She then declared that the U.S. position on future talks will seek to "reconcile the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state, based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements" (my emphasis).

Translation: the Obama administration is back in business as "Israel's lawyer," and the man who first coined that phrase -- former U.S. negotiator Aaron Miller -- said as much, referring to Clinton's statement as "the beginning of a common U.S.-Israeli approach to the peace negotiations." Given that Netanyahu has made it clear that East Jerusalem is not negotiable and that his own vision of a two-state solution is a set of disconnected Palestinian statelets under de facto Israel control, this is not an approach that is going to lead anywhere positive. And like his Cairo speech, Obama's remarks in Indonesia will soon be dismissed as more empty phrases.

So where's the connection between this issue and our strategic position in Asia? Indonesia is a potentially crucial partner for the United States (if you want to see why, take a look at the sea lanes in Southeast Asia), and it is also a moderate Muslim country with history of toleration. Yet the Palestinian issue resonates there too, and makes it harder for the Indonesian government to openly embrace the United States. As Kaplan notes in his Times op-ed, "China also plays on the tension between the West and global Islam in order to limit American influence there. That is why President Obama's mission to rebrand America in the eyes of Muslims carries benefits that go far beyond Indonesia and the Middle East."

What Kaplan doesn't say is that the United States' one-sided support for Israel against the Palestinians is an important source of the "tension" that China is exploiting. As the deputy chairman of Indonesia's largest Islamic group, Masdar Mas'udi, put it last week: "The solution of the Palestine problem is key to many problems between the West and the Muslim world… Our hope as Muslims to Obama and the U.S. is not unreasonable: If the Palestine problem could be resolved, it would be more than enough."

So the next time you read about some senator or congressperson denouncing any attempt to use U.S. leverage on both sides to bring about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, ask yourself why they are trying to undermine the U.S. effort to bolster its strategic position in a region that ultimately matters far more to U.S. security and prosperity. And by making it harder to achieve a workable two-state solution that would preserve its democratic and Jewish character and enhance its international legitimacy, they aren't doing Israel any favors either. Indeed, the remarkable thing about these zealots is that they are managing to undermine the United States' security and Israel's long-term future at the same time.

More than a year ago I did a post on sporting events that had a significant impact on world politics, and I wonder if we might be seeing another one at the U.S. Open tennis tournament today. I refer, of course, to the men's doubles team of Rohan Bopanna of India and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan, who will be playing the favored team of Bob and Mike Bryan of the United States this afternoon. Bopanna and Qureshi view their partnership as symbol of the possibility of improved relations between their two countries -- among other things, they sometimes wear t-shirts reading "Stop War, Start Tennis" -- and their success at this year's tournament even got the two countries' U.N. ambassadors to sit together at one of their recent matches.

This isn't the sort of thing that realists consider all that important, and it is hard to imagine that their example could overcome all the other barriers that have marred relations between India and Pakistan since independence. But who cares? One can only applaud what they are trying to do, and I'll be rooting for them today.  

UPDATE:  Alas, the "Indo-Pak Express" went off the rails against the Bryan Bros., although the match was in fact pretty close (7-6, 7-6).  Not quite the inspirational outcome I was hoping for, but it takes nothing away from their laudable effort to show that Indians and Pakistanis are not fated to be rivals forever.  And congrats to the Bryans, who may well be the best doubles team of all time.

I wasn't able to follow the fallout from Obama's message to Iran in much detail while traveling, but the magic of the internet allowed me to catch up a bit this afternoon (Monday in Singapore). A few quick thoughts:

First, having called for a more accommodating and open approach to Iran, I can only applaud Obama's New Year's message. It showcased his strengths as a leader: confidence, a ready willingness to abandon failed policies, and an ability to see how things might look to the other side. If we follow up with clear, resolute, and disciplined diplomacy, and if we have the patience to realize that you don't unwind thirty years of animosity overnight, we may succeed in defusing a serious problem, and maybe even turn Iran from an adversary into an asset over time.

Second, I though Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's response (given in a speech to a gathering at a shrine in Mashhad) was about what we should have expected, and not discouraging at all. Juan Cole has provided a translation on his website here, and I agree with his analysis here. Stripped of the somewhat harsh rhetoric, Khamenei was making the wholly sensible point that the key to changing the relationship lies in what each country does, not just what it says. After all, how would we respond if some adversary's leader made a friendly speech? We would welcome the words but we'd make it clear that real change would depend on actions, which is essentially what Khamenei did. And I had to love this passage of Khamenei's speech:

Regarding our vital issues, we are not sentimental. We do not make decisions based on emotion. We make decisions through calculation.

Who'd have thought that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran was a realist? Well, me, but also someone like Trita Parsi, who knows a lot more about Iran than I do. And when you think about it, Khamenei's response was a lot more encouraging than the U.S. reaction when Iran offered to negotiate a "grand bargain" with us back in June 2003. The Bush administration rejected the overture out of hand, and look where that got us.  

So I'd call this a good first step. But I'd remind everyone that this journey will be a long one, and if history is any guide, there will lots of opportunities for both sides to stumble.

ALIREZA SOTAKBAR/AFP/Getty Images