On Iraq and Iran, Obama Seems to Get It
On the front page of the New York Times this week, readers were treated to snapshots of an interview with Barack Obama, in which the candidate laid out a thoughtful and calibrated approach to questions of Iraq and the potential for diplomatic engagement with Iran. At a time when the war and our troops are a daily a political football on the campaign trail, Obama took the time to actually speak of facts, strategy, and American interests. It's only a matter of time before rivals start pouncing on him.
While I'm hesitant to give too much credit to a political candidate doing the campaign rounds, Obama's positions seem to reflect a genuine thoughtfulness, as well as the advice of those top-rate experts he has chosen as his advisers. More importantly, these advisers, which include figures like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Clark, and Former Ambassador Dennis Ross, are recognized as the anti-sleaze: they are well-meaning public servants with nuanced views about national security.
Obama's sentiments, which include the thoroughly logical fact that one can't begin to speak of securing Iraq without first talking to Iran, certainly has the Brzezinski footprint all over it (Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, while associated with America's failed policy during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis, is incredibly well-versed in Iranian politics).
Reading the transcript of Obama's interview, a passage jumped out at me in particular. Obama explained the flaws in the current Bush approach without resorting to the platitudes or touches of most other Democratic campaigns. As if respecting the intelligence of the American people, Obama went into significant length and nuance to express his position:
You've got the Bush administration expecting [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan] Crocker to make progress on the very narrow issue of helping Shia militias [some of which Iran supports] at the same time as you've got Dick Cheney giving a speech saying it is very likely that we may engage in military action in Iran and the United States Senate passing a resolution, suggesting that our force structure inside Iraq is dependent in someway on blunting Iranian influence. You can't engage in diplomacy in isolation. There's got to be a broader strategic context to it.The Iranians and the Syrians are acting irresponsibly inside Iraq. They perceive that it is a way to leverage or impact or weaken us at a time when they're worried about United States action in a broader context. I've already said, I would meet directly with Iranian leaders. I would meet directly with Syrian leaders. We would engage in a level of aggressive personal diplomacy in which a whole host of issues are on the table. We're not looking at Iraq, just in isolation. Iran and Syria would start changing their behavior if they started seeing that they had some incentives to do so, but right now the only incentive that exists is our president suggesting that if you do what we tell you, we may not blow you up.
At the risk of sounding like a political groupie (I'm still not sure who I'm voting for), Obama hit the nail on the head with this one. When a regime thinks it's in jeopardy, and it goes into something of a "regime survival mode" (the very corner we are now pushing Iran against), that regime will not adopt a wait-and-see strategy. Instead, it will do all it can to hamper its perceived aggressor, in this case the United States. It is no accident, then, that we are hearing of attacks on American troops by groups that receive arms from Iran. It's only strange that it's not happening more often.
Talking to Iran in the way Obama suggests should be something of a blueprint for our foreign policy in the region, not a punch-line for attacks against the Illinois senator, as it proved to be for Hillary Clinton, who once conveniently called Obama "naive" for saying he would meet with Iran's leaders.
In praising Obama, I am endorsing a style that I hope other candidates will adopt. It isn't enough to score points against the Bush administration with catchy phrases and applause-getters. Rather than pouncing on thoughtful policy proposals, the other candidates should put forth strategies that might actually move U.S. policy forward, and get us out of the current mess.
Follow Nathan Gonzalez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/engagingiran
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I loved this post Mr. Gonzalez. I especially loved this passage:
"Talking to Iran in the way Obama suggests should be something of a blueprint for our foreign policy in the region, not a punch-line for attacks against the Illinois senator, as it proved to be for Hillary Clinton, who once conveniently called Obama "naive" for saying he would meet with Iran's leaders."
This is absolutely true. I think he is being hit by Republicans who are fearful the Democratic Party will take the national security issue of away from them, and he is being hit by Democrats who are probaly entrenched in the existing politics of the party, which certainly need to be expanded and redefined if Democrats want to win back the presidency and become a majority party again.
I am happy he is standing his ground.
The point about Hillary is really funny. I mean, all of this from a woman who essentially tried to make Obama look politically naive on foreign policy, but he pollsters gave her a heart to heart and probably told her that more people agreed with Obama's position on Iran (which Hillary came around to by saying her administration WOULD talk with them) and Obama's position on Pakistan (which righ now is in a state of turmoil).
Clinton wanted to debate the semantics at that YOUTUBE Debate to make herself look good (talking about propaganda), but polls show Obama's original positions on both countries resonate more broadly than Clinton's.
Reading your post makes me glad that I was a supporter from DAY 1!
Obama '08
I believe Obama is spot on with is assessment. My concern is that the public would have adapt a whole new paradigm of thinking in foreign relations. As a nation, can we check our guns at the door? I'm not sure.
Like it or not, we have become a waring nation....at least so long as someone else's kid does the fighting.
Iran was so yesterday, Pakistan is today...follow the leader, follow Biden who is on-top of these situations. Let's go Huff.
So in essence Obama would eliminate the job of whomever held "Secretary Rice's position" and speak with ImADickHead himself?
To me that shows that you are giving a lunatic (Iran) undeserved attention on the world stage.
Obama - The first hearing of the year Iraq in the Senate Foreign Relations committee, he chose to discuss something completely different to military leaders.
Obama is not quite ready for prime time.
It is really very simple.
Get out of Iraq NOW.
Let the Iraqi people decide what is best for them.
It is costing the US far too much blood and treasure. We need to fix the many problems at home before we go solving other countries.
How about a War on Unemployment ?
War on Poverty?
War on Healthcare Profiteers?
Obama seems to be looking at the forest while the other candidates are working on the trees. This ability to transcend problems and identify root causes speaks well for this many of vision.
Ohg.
http://thefireside.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/obama-the-soul-of-black-folk-incarnated/
So Obama is going to covert the mullah's from a revolutionary regime into a moderate state like it was in the time of the Shah? He's going to make them see the light that their uncompromising foreign policy and drive for regional power can only end in their destruction? He's going to save the mullahs from themselves? What exactly are the new incentives Obama plans to use to effect this miraculous change? What new combination of carrots and sticks that hasn't been tried before? Or does he hope to accomplish this with the magic of his personality? His non-demeaning, non-bullying, frank style?
Or could it be that Obama has a secret plan for dealing with the mullahs, like John Kerry had for winning the Iraq War? Since he offers nothing but vague generalities my guess is that he has nothing more.
Obama says that "Iran and Syria are acting irresponsibly in Iraq." Just Iraq? What about Lebanon and Palestine, or within their own countries? These regimes are accountable and responsible to no one but themselves, they worship the sword and respect nothing else. As they live by the principle that "MIGHT MAKES RIGHT" anything short of regime change is doomed to fail.
But something that needs to be acknowledged is that the personal nature of the one conducting the "diplomatic talks" with foreign nationals has an immeasurable influence on the success of America extracting itself from a horribly failing situation. Obama is the only one I can actually visualize as having real success in the "let's talk" approach because he tends to not give off a demeaning attitude and has the ability to speak his mind with authority without sounding like a bully. Like it or not, he will likely be the most accepted and respected on the global scale. He is the complete opposite of the caricature of American leadership as viewed around the world - by both friends and foes. As such, he offers the best hope of real change and progress as opposed to regress.
Not sure if Zbigniew Brzezinski can be blamed for "failed policy during the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis"
Carter got the hostage back alive, without being a cowboy and causing unnecessary bloodshed. And the Iranians revolution was a long time coming. We were too busy with the Russians. Brzenzinsky was the architect of Soviet defeat in Afghanistan
I guess you missed the part where Obama didn't bother to show up for the two Senate resolution votes on Iraq and Iran...
I guess that means that "getting it" involves dodging going on the record so that you can claim that you weren't wrong.
Some leader...NOT.
THE ONE WHO GETS IT ABOUT IRAQ AND IRAN AND PAKISTAN AND EVERYTHING ELSE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE IS JOE BIDEN.
It's no accident that every one of the candidates on the stage during last week's debate at one time or other agreed with some point that Senator BIDEN made...that despite the fact that he was only given a total of 6 minutes of time over the two hours, compared with all of Hillbamwards' empty rhetoric/political jabs (aided and abetted by the moderators and their insipid questions early on, followed by the absurdity of couching the pertainent questions in "lightning" rounds.)
BIDEN...Now, HE gets it..FOR REAL.
AMEN TO KERRY AND CLINTON
Nat writes:
It is no accident, then, that we are hearing of attacks on American troops by groups that receive arms from Iran. It's only strange that it's not happening more often.
Apollo Speaks:
Let me clear up the mystery for you, Nat: it's called managable instability, i.e., keeping our boys busy fighting off malitia/insurgent attacks so they won't have the freedom to march on Tehran.
Only if we agree to remove every last soldier from the Middle East will Iran call off the attacks. Unless Obama is prepared to negotiate a complete U.S. withdrawal from the region he will get nowhere with Iran.
The best plan I heard is from Kerry and Hillary. John Kerry has the good sense to understand that we need troops in the ME as a buffer to Iran. And Hillary wants our forces to withdraw to Kurdistan-neither position of which is favorable to Iran and its strategic interests in the region. To Kerry and Clinton I say Amen.
Obama's comments are slightly heartening, but NOT a nail hit squarely on the head. They look more like some smart, if tardy, politicking on his part, and nothing more.
We would all agree that we neeed a regional approach to getting out of Iraq in a peaceable manner; i.e., with neither internecine bloodbaths nor expanded wars.
But there is so much more wrong with our approach to Iran than this little tete-a-tete.
Why doesn't he, or someone, just come out and say:,"Hey, remember WMDs in Iraq? Well, now its nukes in Iran. So, let's not go there."
We have no proof that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. None.
The IAEA says there is no evidence of a weapons program, and Iran HAS THE SOVEREIGN RIGHT to enrich uranium on its soil.
What is needed is not a more diplomatic negotiating posture that will allow Iran to gracefully give up its nuclear ambitions, thank you very much, Mr. Obama.
Iran's nuclear ambitions are not only peaceful, as far as ANYBODY knows, but also completely legal under international treaties to which we are signatories.
The whole sanctions nonsense has no merit whatsoever.
Not the first round, not the second round, not the third round.
Iran has not been formally charged with any terrorist activity, nor has the IGRC, or any Iranian army faction, been shown to have acted in anything but the manner in which you would expect under the circumstances.
Iran wholeheartedly supported the US against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. WHOLE-HEARTEDLY.
We forget.
We pushed Iran into nuclear energy with $$$$
and technical support.
We forget.
We overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in a military coup, and installed the Shah so we could control their oil.
We forget.
With Iran capturing Taliban and Al Qaeda militants to assist in the war on terrorism, Bush declares Iran a part of the Axis of Evil.
Iran does not forget.
They will enrich their own uranium.
Fashion your foreign policy around THAT reality.
This post is inaccurate. Gonzales is trying to portray Clinton as unwilling to use diplomacy, or meet with Iran's leaders. Not true. She said that she could not promise she would meet with some antagonistic foreign leaders such as Iran within the first year. She said she would first lay the groundwork through the state department before meeting face to face. Very different.
Barack Obama is our best hope for peace.
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