Obama's Foreign Policy Reflects (Political) Multiple Personality Disorder

I'm still trying to get a feel for Obama's approach to foreign policy, and it finally occurred to me that it resembles the approach you might expect from someone suffering from multiple personality disorder. With regard to Iraq and Afghanistan, he might as well be George Bush. With regard to the rest of the world, he might as well be Jimmy Carter. Consider, for example, this:

Dismay at Obama plan to leave 50,000 US troops in Iraq after 2010

Thursday 26 February 2009 02.35 GMT

Democratic Congressional leaders have expressed dismay that President Barack Obama is planning to leave as many as 50,000 US troops in Iraq even after the long-awaited withdrawal of combat troops next year.

Obama, on a visit to a military base in North Carolina today, will announce plans to make good on his campaign pledge to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq. There are about 145,000 US troops in Iraq and Obama is expected to say that most of the combat troops will be withdrawn by August next year.

The president called Congressional leaders to the White House yesterday to inform them in advance of his plan.

But the Congress members, most of whom were opposed to the war, expressed regret afterwards that so many, between 35,000 and 50,000, are to be left behind.

According to one congressional official, lawmakers were told that General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, and General Ray Odierno, the top commander in Baghdad, believed the plan presented moderate risk but supported the 50,000 figure.

Democratic leaders are dismayed, but General Petraeus thinks that the plan presents only a moderate risk. That works for me, and it's a lot like things were under Bush. What about Afghanistan? Consider this:

For those of you scoring at home, here’s who doesn’t like President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy: John Murtha and Bill Ayers. Here’s who does: John McCain and Bill Kristol.

One place where President Obama has followed through on his post-partisan promise is foreign policy. With centrist national security Cabinet picks, he built on the success of the surge in Iraq and managed to depolarize the most divisive debate of our decade. Now he’s doubled down on Afghanistan, committing 21,000 new troops and extending the effort to Pakistan, all in an effort to root out al Qaeda and the resurgent Taliban. It’s a long-term commitment by a resolute new president that scrambles old political labels and brings a welcome bipartisan focus to the global conflict formerly known as “the war on terror.”
...
“On Afghanistan and Iraq, I think he’s been good,” Kristol told me in a pre-conference interview. “Gates, Clinton, Jones, Obama, Biden, Holbrooke—these are serious people. They’re trying to do the right thing and they’re not being diverted much by day-to-day politics… I’m heartened by the first two and half months of the Obama administration because I do think that some of the crazed partisanship and bitterness of the Bush years seems to have receded.”

On Afghanistan and Iraq, Barack Obama is George Bush, and I could not be happier about that (so far). But everywhere else, Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter because he seems to actually believe that if you are just nice to terrorist nations, they'll be nice to you. Perhaps Obama is right about that, but the early returns are not overwhelmingly favorable. First, we have North Korea and its soon-to-be-fired rocket:

April 1, 2009

North Korea is fueling rocket, U.S. military says

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- North Korea has begun fueling its long-range rocket, according to a senior U.S. military official.

The fueling signals that the country could be in the final stages of what North Korea has said will be the launch of a satellite into space as early as this weekend, the senior U.S. military official said Wednesday.
...
Pentagon officials worry less about the payload and more about the launch itself, saying that any kind of launch will give the North Koreans valuable information about improving their ballistic missile program.

The United States believes that the North Koreans have the technology to hit Alaska or Hawaii with a missile and that the country is working on advancing that technology so it could hit the west coast of the United States.

Not only are they going to launch this rocket (apparently), they are not being very nice about it:

N. Korea threatens to shoot down U.S. planes
Pyongyang accuses U.S. of spying on site of an impending rocket launch

April. 1, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea accused the United States of spying on the site of an impending rocket launch and threatened Wednesday to shoot down any U.S. planes that intrude into its airspace.

North Korea says it will send a communications satellite into orbit on a multistage rocket between April 4 and 8. The United States, South Korea and Japan suspect the reclusive country is using the launch to test long-range missile technology, and they warn Pyongyang would face sanctions under a U.N. Security Council resolution banning it from ballistic activity.

Well, that's one rogue nation. What about Iran? Will Obama's nice-guy approach be all that it takes to cause the Ayatollah to unclench his fist? Not likely:

Iran's supreme leader dismisses Obama overtures

March. 21, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's supreme leader rebuffed President Barack Obama's latest outreach on Saturday, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in U.S. policy.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was responding to a video message Obama released Friday in which he reached out to Iran on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian new year, and expressed hopes for an improvement in nearly 30 years of strained relations.

Khamenei holds the last word on major policy decisions, and how Iran ultimately responds to any concrete U.S. effort to engage the country will depend largely on his say.

In his most direct assessment of Obama and prospects for better ties, Khamenei said there will be no change between the two countries unless the American president puts an end to U.S. hostility toward Iran and brings "real changes" in foreign policy.
...
Khamenei said there has been no change even in Obama's language compared to that of his predecessor.

"He (Obama) insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day. If you are right that change has come, where is that change? What is the sign of that change? Make it clear for us what has changed."

Obama has vowed to be persistent in his nice-guy attitude, but it is worth noting that Iran has been persistent in their response to this attitude as well. For example, remember when everyone was arguing that George Bush should hold unconditional talks with Iran? In response, Iran had other ideas:

2008-10-12

Iran's Vice President Sets Two Preconditions for Talks with US

TEHRAN (FNA)- Vice President for Media Affairs Mehdi Kalhor said on Saturday that Iran has set two preconditions for holding talks with the United States of America.

In an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, he said as long as U.S. forces have not left the Middle East region and continues its support for the Zionist regime, talks between Iran and U.S. is off the agenda.

It is the Americans who are in dire need of reestablishing ties with Iran, he underlined.

Iran is not obliged to reestablish ties with the U.S., he said.

"If they take our advice, grounds for such talks would be well prepared," he said.

It is stupidity to hold talks without any change in U.S. attitude, he underlined.

In other words, back then (like today), Iran said that sweet talk is not enough. Abandon Iraq and throw Israel under the bus; then we'll talk. They said the same thing back in 2006. I think it will take more than the nice-guy approach to affect Iran's behavior, but I guess we'll see. In the meantime, at least Obama's new approach will make the Europeans happy.

How is Obama's new attitude working with respect to the Taliban? Like this:

US peace offer lunatic, say Taliban
2 Apr 2009
REUTERS

KABUL: Taliban insurgents rejected on Wednesday a US offer of “honourable reconciliation” as a “lunatic idea” and said the withdrawal of foreign troops was the only way to end the war in Afghanistan.

“This matter was also raised in the past,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, referring to comments by Obama who spoke of reaching out to moderate Taliban. “They have to go and find the moderate Taliban and speak to them. This is a lunatic idea,” Mujahid said by telephone.

I just think that if you are persistently nice to terrorists, they will persistently spit in your face. Still, I am an empiricist, and I will happily change my mind if Obama's approach results in concrete gains. For the time being, it looks to me like the man is acting like someone suffering from political multiple personality disorder. Sometimes he's George Bush, and sometimes he's Jimmy Carter. Not perfect, but much better than I expected during he campaign.

UPDATE: An interesting article in the New Republic weighs in on Obama's approach to Iran:

Charm Offensive

You could almost hear the international sigh of relief that greeted President Obama's videotaped message to Iran last week. After eight years of bluster and threats, an American president civilly addressed both Iran's people and its leaders; he spoke of mutual respect, of Iran's role in making the world "a better and more beautiful place," of "shared hopes" and "common dreams." The buzz among ordinary Iranians inside and outside Iran was overwhelmingly positive. But I couldn't help but think of an instant message I received from a young journalist in Iran the day Obama was elected. "When is your olive branch coming," he wrote sardonically, "so we can reject it?"

Sure enough, the response to Obama's remarks from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the head of the Iranian state and the commander of its armed forces, was swift and negative. Khamenei told a crowd in Mashhad on March 21 that America's extended hand looked like an iron fist encased in a velvet glove. Recalling American support for Iraq in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and the United States's accidental shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988, Khamenei wondered aloud if Obama was changing America's policy or only its rhetoric:

Did you release Iran's frozen assets? Did you lift the sanctions against us? Did you give up slandering and broadcasting negative propaganda against our nation? Did you give up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? ... In any case, all the American officials as well as other people must know that the Iranian nation will not be deceived or intimidated.

With that, Khamenei laid dead the notion that the problem between the United States and Iran could be resolved simply through outreach, however gracious, on the part of an American president. There was a dignity to the leader's message: He would not be flattered by superficial niceties, like the show of familiarity with Persian tradition. He would believe change when he saw it.

And an earlier article in the New Republic highlights the fact that the new approach is much like an old approach that did not work. In 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave a speech that basically apologized to Iran for past offenses. The Ayatollah was not very impressed back then, either:

The question is, what good will this admission do us?... What good does this admission - that you acted in that way then - do us now?.. An admission years after the crime was committed, while they might be committing similar crimes now, will not do the Iranian nation any good...