Grappling with the Obama Reality

For people like me — young, college-educated and politically independent “millenials” — Barack Obama was and stilll remains the college-professor-we-wished-became-president, who actually became president of the United States. His “Yes, We Can” campaign tagline and exhortation for young ones to enter public service resonated strongly, but much to the surprise of those who know my politics, I was rooting for Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. It wasn’t so much a vote against Obama than a vote for Mrs Clinton. We all know who won.

Sure, there were concerns over baggage from her husband’s presidency, but she also had the experience and the verve to negotiate the murky waters of Congressional politics, an important aspect of legislative strategy. I thought Obama could have done with some more political experience as either Hillary’s vice-president or Secretary of State, which would then prepare him for a run in 2016. After all, he’s much younger than Hillary. If there were anybody more equipped to clean up the mess created by a spoilt brat who didn’t know better and allowed two wily old foxes to hijack his presidency, it was perhaps a strong and smart motherly figure who would be able to stand up to the egos that dot politics. Simply put, America needs to be rehabilitated.

Those same friends thought I was cynical for thinking that, but politics is cynical. You have to fight cynical with cynical and then somehow rise above that. Not many political progressives are capable of that because they usually get lynched by the GOP for their politics, which are easily cast as “limp” and “gutless” and therefore “bad for America” by their more hawkish opponents. Both Obama and Hillary want to rise above that, but I wasn’t sure if Obama had what it takes to move beyond cynical hell. I was enthralled by the idea of an Obama presidency, but I wasn’t too hot about the reality of it.

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Pay Attention to Burma

Photo: Flickr/Franz Patzig

The United States’ recent decision to pursue a different tack with Burma has been cited by reports to be the reason for the unusual Chinese rebuke of the Burmese over a recent border spat. According to a recent Inter Press Agency article, the recent Chinese-Burmese border bust up may have been compounded by Chinese concerns over its long-time client state’s future relations with the U.S.

Some background: This latest Chinese rebuke comes as United States has moved rather aggressively in courting Burma in the last few weeks. Following Senator Jim Webb’s trip to Burma in August, the U.S has announced a shift in its Burma policy, announcing its plan for engagement with the junta’s reclusive leaders must be part of a “sustained process of interaction.” This move, which has been strongly supported by Burmese opposition, has been quickly followed by a meeting between Kurt Campbell, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Asia and Burmese health minister, U Thaung on the margins of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. This is the first such high-level talks in more than a decade.

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Engagement: The More, The Merrier

It is difficult to resist drawing comparisons when two apparently non-official “rescue” missions were made in the last fortnight alone by prominent U.S. political personalities. That they were to two of the world’s most closed countries — North Korea and Burma — has invited a flurry of perspectives on how the Obama adminstration should conduct themselves in its foreign policy.

Foreign Policy’s David Roftkopf advocates caution. He says:

Webb says he was not an official emissary of the administration. Bill Clinton said the same thing. Clearly, in both instances this particular bit of diplomatic kabuki theater is transparent to all. Webb is the regional subcommittee chair on a critical Senate subcommittee, he is close to the administration, was briefed by them before his trip and promises to brief them on his return. At no time did they renounce the trip and he traveled on a U.S. government plane. His visit was official and the credit for the release of Yettaw and the potential negative consequences of the mission must accrue to the president and his team.

Personally, I think making engagement a centerpiece of a new U.S. foreign policy is a major positive development for which the administration deserves great credit. But as with any such new initiative, we need to be careful about how we approach it prior to getting all the bugs worked out. The Webb mission, even with is success in terms of securing the release of Mr. Yettaw, winning a session with Suu Kyi and engaging in a rare exchange with the leader of the regime, raises important concerns that need to be addressed if the new policy is to work to our best advantage in the future.

Key to such caution will be how much the U.S. first engages with countries that wield more influence in both countries. Diplomatic pressure cannot come from America alone, it has to be multilateral and come from other countries. China figures centrally in both cases, but more so for North Korea. The Burma case is a little harder to crack because its neighbors reportedly have business interests in the country that predate the military regime in power. Economic sanctions therefore become ineffective.

Instead, the Obama administration could do better to cajole/entice Burma’s ASEAN neighbors, India and China, to apply more sustained pressure on the military junta to accede to international norms. While ASEAN member countries maintain an official non-interference stance, international outrage and the Southeast Asian regional grouping’s belated introduction of a Human Rights Mechanism in 2007 have combined to make that untenable. This is since any failure to condemn Burma’s ridiculous treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi would affect ASEAN’s credibility.

A commitment to engagement is a great starting point, but the Obama administration could expand their notion of “engagement” to take on a more pluralistic approach to advance its foreign policy agenda.

[This first appeared on TheAtlantic.com's Politics Channel.]