EDITS | Saturday, June 27, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Bush was right after all
Ashok Malik
In diplomacy, messages are often not direct or straightforward. Sometimes lessons from one theatre have relevance for another. The belligerence of North Korean dictator Kim Jong II over the past few weeks is a sobering reminder of how things can go wrong if a paramount power decides to speak softly without waving a big stick.
On May 25, Pyongyang tested a nuclear device. A North Korean ship is currently on the high seas, apparently carrying an illegal cargo of missiles and other weaponry to Burma. On July 4, Independence Day in the United States, Mr Kim has promised to fire a missile in the direction of Hawaii.
The expected range of the Taepodong-2 is 6,500 km and Hawaii is just over 7,000 km from the launch site. Chances of the missile entering American waters/territory are small, but it will travel over Japan. On the whole, it will be the most serious infraction in the US’s Pacific region since Pearl Harbour.
It is ironical the North Korean leader’s muscle-flexing has taken place only months after a new and supposedly conciliatory resident arrived at the White House. After all, US President Barack Obama’s team made effusive noises about the conduct of foreign policy that would be different from President George W Bush’s sledgehammer, “with us or against us”, approach.
How did North Korea behave in the Bush years? As far back as 2002, Mr Bush named the Pyongyang regime as part of the “Axis of Evil”. In 2003, Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and in 2006 tested a nuclear device. The then American President pushed for economic sanctions and used China — the one country with influence on Mr Kim — to bring North Korea to the negotiating table.
North Korea did not give up its clandestine mission. Nevertheless, it checked itself. There were no overt displays of aggression. Mr Kim agreed to shut down some nuclear facilities. He recognised that in Mr Bush he had an implacable foe, one who would hit back and hit back hard if provoked.
Six months after the Republican President left Washington, DC, the North Korean megalomaniac has triggered an East Asian crisis. He has reneged on his promise to close nuclear installations and reverted to Bomb-making.
What does this tell us about Mr Kim and about political adventurism in general? The North Koreans have indicated they don’t think much of the Obama crowd, they see America’s resolve as weakening. They have also paid a left-handed compliment to Mr Bush —acknowledging he put the fear of god into them.
There are three implications to the crisis. First, it will give others ideas. Teheran has already more or less rebuffed Mr Obama’s offer of talks. In backing the wrong horse in the recent election — and misreading the mood of the Iranian people — the US State Department didn’t help its cause.
Of course, domestic unrest in Iran is at its most potent in some 30 years and this will allow the Americans to claim the moral high ground. However, it will amount to a tactical rather than strategic advantage. In the larger reckoning, Mr Obama cannot talk his way out of trouble on the Iranian front.
In the battle against Osama bin Laden and the international army of Islamists, Mr Obama has not backed down, but he has occasionally sent ambivalent signals. His speech in Cairo earlier this month pandered to the sort of negativism and overdone self-pity that is the staple of Al Qaeda apologists.
Perhaps Mr Obama was only using the polite phrases to set the stage for stern decisions. That remains a prospect for the future. For the moment, the Cairo speech can only be seen in isolation, and can get very qualified applause.
Second, Mr Obama is being put to test. He came into office with limited experience and with the reputation of being a foreign policy lightweight. To be fair, Mr Bush too had very little international exposure in January 2001, but was backed by a formidable Republican machine.
In contrast, Mr Obama’s original foreign policy advisers — some of whom he has despatched to relatively inconsequential posts in the United Nations — were the liberal extreme of his country’s strategic affairs establishment. Mr Obama campaigned on a theme that promised to end wars, not take the US further into conflict, work within multilateral systems, be cautious rather than impulsive.
All of that sounds nice — until one is faced with a first-rate, real-life crisis. If North Korea indeed gets a missile close enough to Hawaii, Mr Obama will encounter media frenzy. What will he do?
In a sense, this could lead to a microcosmic examination of the theory which holds that, if a 9/11-style attack were to repeat itself in his presidency, Mr Obama will be obliged to strike back with greater lethality than Mr Bush. His political and personal background will make it difficult for him to do otherwise, lest the public see him as ‘weak’.
Third, Afghanistan or Pakistan, North Korea or Iran, even India or China: The more Mr Obama tries to distance himself from the Bush template, the closer he moves towards it.
Mr Obama’s broader strategy for the war on terrorism is no different from the one Mr Bush set out. His easy touch has not worked with North Korea and Iran and sooner or later tough measures will be called for to tackle two nuclear programmes that America and its allies — in two separate parts of Asia — see as non-negotiable. For all the early camaraderie with Beijing and neglect of New Delhi, recent interactions between the Obama team and Indian interlocutors suggest the honeymoon with China is going to be short-lived.
Different global environments call for different modes of diplomacy. After 9/11, Mr Bush correctly calculated the world was headed for a Hobbesian interlude. Maverick actors — dictators like Kim, freelance commanders like bin Laden, mobster institutions like the Pakistani Army — would need to be treated with a mix of straight talk and unvarnished power projection.
That realism was a critical element of the Bush doctrine. It remains the former President’s most abiding foreign policy legacy. Mr Obama can paint it in another colour, give it a new name; ultimately, he has to embrace it.
-- malikashok@gmail.com
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