Posts Tagged ‘obama’
The Value of Values: Soft Power Under Obama
One irony of the Obama presidency is how much it relies on hard power. The president came into office proposing a dramatic shift from George W. Bush’s perceived unilateralism, and most of his predecessor’s hard-edged counterterrorism tactics and massive deployments in wars abroad. Yet after three years, Obama has escalated forces in Afghanistan, embraced the widespread use of unmanned drones to kill terrorists at the risk of civilian casualties, kept Guantánamo open, and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in a thoroughly unilateral fashion.
What he hasn’t accomplished to any great degree is what most observers assumed would be the hallmark of his approach to foreign affairs—a full assertion of the soft power that makes hard power more effective. His 2008 campaign centered on a critique of President Bush’s overreliance on hard power. Obama suggested he would rehabilitate the damaged image of America created by these excesses and show that the United States was not a cowboy nation. Upon taking office, he made fresh-start statements, such as his June 2009 remarks in Cairo, and embraced political means like dialogue, respectful multilateralism, and the use of new media, suggesting that he felt the soft power to change minds, build legitimacy, and advance interests was the key element missing from the recent US approach to the world—and that he would quickly remedy that defect.
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Obama’s Russia Reset a ‘Disaster’
Chess champ-turned-opposition leader Garry Kasparov tells Eli Lake the upcoming Russian elections will be a “charade” and Obama’s Russia policy is a “disaster.” And he spares no word for George W. Bush or Condi Rice, either.
Many democratic opposition figures in countries sliding toward authoritarianism see Western election monitors as a lifeline, a chance for a fair election that might be fixed if not for the watchful eye of outside observers. That’s not the case for Garry Kasparov, the iconic chess champion who has emerged as a public face of Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin’s grip on power.
“We are asking Americans and Europeans not to send observers,” Kasparov said in an exclusive interview. “You understand Putin will get whatever he wants. What is the point of pretending this is an election? It’s a charade. Don’t interfere with it, just don’t pay respect to the charade.”
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RF reserves right to react to US sanctions over Magnitsky case
Russia reserves the right to adequately react if the United States uses sanctions against Russian officials over the Magnitsky case, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday.
“We reacted to the fact that what happened and happens on the possible decision on using sanctions by the American Administration,” the diplomat said.
“If this is done in practice, we reserve the right to adequately react to this move,” he added.
“That kind of lists has nothing in common with partnership and the declared policy to developing strategic relations with different countries,” he stressed.
“In any democratic state competent juridical structures decide if any person or a group of persons are guilty or not of any unlawful deeds,” Lukashevich said.
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Time to Abandon ‘Reset’? : Obama’s hope that Russia would change under Medvedev has not worked out
When pressed to name the foreign-policy successes achieved under President Obama’s watch, administration officials routinely cite the president’s “reset” of relations with Russia as one of the most important. With Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s announcement on September 24 that he will run next year for the Russian presidency, this may soon change.
Putin’s announcement should not have come as a shock to anyone. Skeptics of the Obama administration’s efforts to “reset” relations have seen this coming since the policy was announced to much fanfare in March 2009.
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Give the next Russian ambassador a powerful tool to guard human rights
Wednesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to consider the nomination of Michael McFaul as the next U.S. ambassador to Russia highlights one of three steps that Congress should take this fall related to Russia and U.S.-Russian relations.
The Senate should confirm McFaul, who has served as President Obama’s top adviser on Russia at the National Security Council. Second, both the House and Senate should waive the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which deals with emigration of Soviet Jews as it applies to Russia, and third, they should replace it with an up-to-date bill that would sanction Russian officials responsible for gross human rights abuses. These moves would strengthen McFaul’s hand as he heads to Moscow.
Notwithstanding some serious concerns we have had with Obama’s “reset” policy — we think the administration has oversold its successes, essentially ignored Russia’s neighbors and done too little on human rights concerns — McFaul is a renowned Russia expert, a strong proponent of democracy promotion (he recently wrote a book on the subject) and deserves the Senate’s support.
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Helping Russia avoid Putin kleptocracy
Revolutions often ignite over pervasive corruption – or rather when enough people demand integrity in government. Arabs had that aha moment this year. In Russia, the moment may be soon with news that Vladimir Putin plans to take back the presidency.
Mr. Putin does not appear the greedy sort, but his harsh consolidation of power has created a political system ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt – worse than Haiti’s or Nigeria’s. Other nations might want to start planning for another Russian revolution in coming years, given what the US Embassy in Moscow has called a “virtual mafia state” centered on the Kremlin.
Polls show a declining popularity among Russians for the once highly admired Putin. And the widespread corruption – estimated at $300 billion a year in kickbacks and bribes – will only hinder necessary reforms to prevent economic troubles as Russia’s oil production declines.
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Barack Obama’s UN speech goes from cutting to confused
Here’s a quick take on President Obama’s just-concluded address before the UN General Assembly:
1. There’s a reasonable chance he’ll have to give another speech reaffirming – sorry, “clarifying” – his commitment to a free and independent Palestine. In short, Barack barracked Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO’s heedless effort to unilaterally attain statehood via plebiscite. Obama, incensed that the Palestinians would go around him in this way after all the work he put into the “peace process,” stuck mainly to a US election-year script on the issue. GOP front-runner Rick Perry has accused this administration of selling-out Israel. So Obama tilted back: America has got an “unshakable” attachment to Israeli security (an old line); men, women and children in southern Israeli are being bombarded with thousands of rockets and mortars from terrorists in Gaza (true); Israeli adolescents grow up knowing that their counterparts in Arab countries are being taught to hate them (long true); and – in a nice little double-barreled blast aimed right between the narrowly spaced eyes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad- the Jewish state faces an existential threat to be “wiped off the map” and the Holocaust is a fact that cannot be denied.
One PLO representative in the audience was shown shaking his head “no” during some of this (contrast to Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s blinkless, Aztec-faced stare throughout.). The full statehood bid at the UN Security Council may be averted anyway in a last-minute compromise, as Adrian Blomfeld just reported.
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For U.S. And Russia, Distrust Still Runs High
NPR
President Obama’s policy of engagement with Russia has paid off in several concrete achievements, including a nuclear arms control agreement and greater cooperation on Iran and Afghanistan.
But both supporters and critics of the so-called reset policy worry that further victories will be harder to win. Both nations are distracted by presidential politics, preventing policymakers from talking seriously about matters such as missile defense.
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Moscow Martyr
When David Cameron arrives in Moscow this month for the first visit by a British prime minister since the Litvinenko murder five years ago, both sides will be keen to downplay the issue of human rights. In his talks with President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, there will doubtless be echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s remark when she first met Mikhail Gorbachev in 1984: “We can do business together.”
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