December 1, 2008
The recent attacks in Mumbai, India focused international attention back to the continuing problem of organized terrorist activity. As Hillary Clinton is presented to the world as our next Secretary of State, the more sensationalist elements of the media have their focus on terrorism. Terrorism is highlighted to the exclusion of the other pressing matters to be faced during Secretary Clinton’s upcoming tenure, presiding over that all-important bureaucracy in the neighborhood known as “Foggy Bottom”. Nevertheless, Secretary Clinton will have several other pressing issues on her agenda — “leftovers” that have stumped the previous administration for the past eight years. Among these abandoned, stinking socks on the floor of the Oval Office, the least fragrant involves the situation with Iran. The Bush years took that bad situation and made it far worse. A December 1 article in the Tehran Times focused on the remarks of Majlis Speaker, Ali Larijani, about what might lie ahead between the United States and Iran. While suggesting that the Bush Administration “sabotaged” efforts to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, the article mentioned Larijani’s criticisms of what was described as the Democrats’ Iran containment policy.
A report in the December 1 Los Angeles Times examined the expectations of Arabs and Israelis, with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Discussing various forecasts concerning American strategy towards Iran, the article noted:
Some analysts predict the Obama administration will try instead to broker an Israeli-Syrian accord, aimed at drawing Syria away from Iran’s influence and diminishing Iran as a threat to the Jewish state.
Elizabeth Bumiller’s article in the November 22 New York Times described the “working chemistry” that has developed between Barack Obama and Ms. Clinton. This chemistry resulted in a softening of Clinton’s position, expressed during the primary season debates, about negotiating with Iran:
But although Mrs. Clinton criticized Mr. Obama for being willing to sit down and talk to dictators, he has said he would have a lower-level envoy do preparatory work for a meeting with Iran’s leaders first. Mrs. Clinton has said she favors robust diplomacy with Iran and lower-level contacts as well.
In the November 24 Jerusalem Post, Douglas Bloomfield gave us a refreshing look at how the Obama – Clinton foreign policy team might function:
Hillary’s great challenge will be to remember who IS President, who ISN’T and who WAS. She will have to focus on rebuilding relationships damaged during the Bush years of “my way or the highway” foreign policy, taking the lead from the man she once described as not ready to be president.
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In the Middle East peace process, as in other policy areas, Obama seems intent on charting a pragmatic, centrist course. While that will disappoint both the Jewish Right and Left, it could prove a welcome change after eight years of the Bush administration’s faith-based foreign policy and not-so-benign neglect of the peace process.
As Inauguration Day approaches, the Bush Administration’s legacy of complete incompetence in nearly all areas is being documented by countless writers around the world. By invading Iraq, Bush-Cheney helped Iran realize its dreams of hegemony. Bush’s mishandling of Iran’s rise as a nuclear power became the subject of a thought-provoking opinion piece by David Ignatius in the November 30 Washington Post. Mr. Ignatius noted that Iran had neither enriched uranium nor the technology to enrich uranium (centrifuges) when Bush took power. As Bush’s days in the White House wind down, we now see Iran with nearly 4,000 centrifuges and approximately 1,400 pounds of enriched uranium. The 2006 precondition that Iran halt uranium enrichment before the United States would participate in diplomatic efforts to address this issue, exemplifies the handicapped mindset of the Bush-Cheney regime. As Mr. Ignatius pointed out:
It’s impossible to say whether Iran’s march toward nuclear-weapons capability could have been stopped by diplomacy. But there hasn’t yet been a good test. Because of bitter infighting in the Bush administration, its diplomatic efforts were late in coming and, once launched, have been ineffective.
By the time we finally have a President and a Secretary of State who are capable of taking on the dicey task of negotiating with Iran on the nuclear issue, it may be too late. Hillary Clinton’s biggest challenge in her new job has already been cut out for her by the Bush Administration’s nonfeasance.
Obama The Centrist
January 12, 2009
It was almost one year ago when the conservative National Journal rated Barack Obama as “the most liberal senator in 2007”. Of course, that was back during the primary season of the 2008 Presidential campaign, when many people believed that the “liberal” moniker should have been enough to sink Obama’s Presidential aspirations. Now, with the Inaugural just a week away, we are hearing the term “centrist” being used to describe Obama, often with a tone of disappointment.
On Sunday, January 11, David Ignatius wrote an op-ed piece for The Washington Post, entitled: “Mr. Cool’s Centrist Gamble”. Mr. Ignatius spelled out how Obama moved toward the political center after his election, beginning with the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff, to appointing a Cabinet “which is so centrist it almost resembles a government of national unity”:
The President-elect’s appearance on ABC’s January 11 broadcast of This Week with George Stephanopoulos motivated Glenn Greenwald to write on Salon.com that the interview:
Mr. Greenwald (an attorney with a background in constitutional law and civil rights litigation) began his article by taking issue with the characterization by David Ignatius that Obama’s centrist approach is something “new”. Greenwald pointed out that for a Democratic President to make a post-election move to the center is nothing new and that Bill Clinton had done the same thing:
Greenwald then focused on a point made by Mr. Obama in response to a question posed by George Stephanopoulos concerning whether the detention facility at Guantanamo will be closed within the first 100 days of the new Presidency. The President-elect responded that:
The magic words in Obama’s response that caught Glenn Greenwald’s attention were: “creating a process”. Why should due process require creation of a new process outside of our court system? Mr. Greenwald suspects that this “new process” will be one that allows for the admission of evidence (confessions, etc.) obtained by torture. If what Mr. Obama has in mind is a process that will protect the secrecy of legitimately-classified information, that is one thing. Nevertheless, I share Mr. Greenwald’s skepticism about the need for an innovative adjudication system for those detained at Guantanamo.
George Stephanopoulos made a point of directing Mr. Obama’s attention to “the most popular question” on the Change.gov website. It came from Bob Fertik of New York City, who asked:
The response given by the President-elect involved a little footwork:
Glenn Greenwald’s analysis of Mr. Obama’s performance on This Week, did not overlook that part of the interview:
Obama’s expressed position on whether to prosecute the crimes of the Bush administration is fairly consistent with what he has been saying all along. Frank Rich covered this subject in his January 10 New York Times editorial:
Welcome to Barack Obama’s post-partisan world. The people at the National Journal are probably not the only ones disappointed by Obama’s apparent move to the political center. It appears as though we will be hearing criticism about the new administration from all directions. When he disappoints centrists, you can read about it here.