Posted By David RothkopfThursday, May 27, 2010 - 6:18 PM
Although it's hard to believe, there have actually been
developments this week that were more difficult to understand than the finale
of Lost-- which is saying something since the show was roughly as
incomprehensible as a boozy 3 a.m. chat with Lindsay Lohan.
We've had:
People actually listening to the rantings of
James Carville, a man who has turned Tourette's Syndrome into a form of
political analysis. This week it was
about how the government should take over shutting down the Gulf oil spill
despite the fact that literally no one in the government has the expertise to
do so.
The U.S. still trying to undercut the benighted,
ill-conceived and virtually certain not to work Brazilian-Turkish initiative
with Iran in order to advance our own benighted, ill-conceived and virtually
certain not to work sanctions program there.
The release of a national security strategy that
could have easily saved much paper by simply using a photo of George W. Bush
with a big red circle around it and a line through his face. What made the strategy -- which was an almost
perfect snapshot of mainstream foreign policy conventional
wisdom -- incomprehensible was not its content so much as it was the clear
disconnect between that content and what the administration was actually going
to be capable of or inclined to do.
The presentation of Exhibit A with respect to
the aforementioned disconnect -- which was when Loveable Old Uncle Joe Biden then said we were
on schedule to leave Iraq despite the fact that as the Post subhead put it:
"U.S. expects to leave despite violence and political disarray." We seemed to have gone from the absurdity of
"Mission Accomplished" to the pathos of "Mission Abandoned."
Bland Lee Dewyze beating gifted Crystal Bowersox
on American Idol. Even more baffling:
that the show will still be the most viewed television program in America this
week despite the fact that it contains less healthy nutritional content than
one of KFC's Double Down sandwiches.
(That's the one that uses two pieces of fried chicken instead of
bread ... and come to think of it, the fact that America eats crap like that
sandwich and watches crap like "American Idol" actually not only makes perfect
sense...it explains why we ended up with Bush as president and why, maybe,
Obama's national security strategy was even necessary. Not much there but at least it is a kind of
policy detox. Better for our blood
pressure, fewer toxic additives, and a recognition that for a while we're going
to have to be on a fat free diet if we want to regain our strength.)
If all that's confusing to you, brace yourself -- the summer ahead may prove to be a real head spinner. And more on that note in tomorrow's offering. Stay tuned...
Whether the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil with Iran
ultimately actually defuses the stand-off between Tehran and the international
community remains to be seen. And even
if it does, it seems unlikely to actually stop Ahmadinejad & Co. from
continuing surreptitious efforts to cultivate nuclear weapons capability -- especially
given the Iranians' decision to simultaneously announce that they will continue
their enrichment program in any event. Indeed, it, like the sanctions program the United States has been
engineering, seems more likely to simply hit the "pause" rather than the
"reset" button, thus buying the one commodity the Iranians want most: time.
That said the effort is significant on another level. It represents the return of Plan B both to
Middle Eastern and global relations. During the Cold War, international actors
typically had a binary choice. They
could seek the favor and advocacy of the East or the West, the Soviets or the
Americans. Then, almost twenty years ago that all ended. And for a while it appeared, the choice was
America or an international community that couldn't get its act together
terribly effectively.
But Turkey and Brazil working closely with Russia, India, and
China, have effectively sent a message that Plan B has returned to the global
equation. They have essentially said they didn't want to go along with the
American approach to solving the problem (sanctions) and were vehemently
against the Israeli approach (bombs away). The Turks in particular have been
vocal with their BRIC partners in expressing their skepticism of the
effectiveness of sanctions and their sense they would be very
counterproductive.
The Iranians in turn seem to have recognized that the Brazil-Turkey
deal is a win-win for them. It makes them look like they want to be
constructive and thus takes the heat off of them and buys time. They get to tip
the geopolitical scales in the direction of the relevance of emerging powers,
tweak the U.S. efforts, and seemingly help usher in a new era in international
diplomacy.
Something else vitally important to notice has happened
here. This has become the first Middle Eastern stand-off in which the most
important player from outside the region was China -- because China is the one
country that had and has the power to determine whether or not a sanctions
regime would work. The Chinese, while
still internally debating just how much they want to lead on the international
stage, have played this deftly so far. They have engaged in talks with the United States
and with their BRIC plus one partners. They have evaluated. Behind the scenes
they have been constructive and moderate with reports coming out of recent
meetings among BRIC leaders that they have made the case for understanding the
pressure that President Obama is under. And they have pressed the Iranians to
make a deal while sharing like the others in the emerging power leadership a
healthy skepticism of Iranian motives and likely compliance.
Thus this deal may seem smallish and technical from afar,
but it could well signal a change in the way international diplomacy
works. Certainly, it signals an intent
on the part of a group of vitally important emerging powers not to be cowed by
the "with us or against us" mindset that still permeates some in the U.S.
foreign policy establishment.
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