TRIGGER-SHY OBAMA? – September 16, 2008

I had this privilege to listen a few weeks ago to a speech by a young American lawyer, who told the audience a compelling story of his life as it has been so far. He graduated from a college and shortly thereafter went to war in Afghanistan. He was patriotic and after 9/11 felt compelled to serve in the army of his country. He spent in Afghanistan 2 years and it proved to be a very intensive experience for him. After coming back, he went to Alaska to engage in commercial fishing, but more likely to find some solitary confinement to figure out what to do next in his life. So, he decided to become a lawyer and fight for implementation of the rule of law around the world and also in America, where there is still a lot to do in that field. He encouraged everybody to pay more attention to what is going on around us and to devote some time to try to understand the U.S. national politics and the American political process. I agree that there is no better time to do so than during this season's presidential election.

It is truly remarkable experience to live in America during this election. It is a historic time for the U.S. and for the world because of many things. Yeah, it will be either the first black president ever or the first female vice-president ever. Media are so thrilled about it, although I see the exceptionality of it in a somewhat different way.

EUROPEANS FOR OBAMA?

One often hears the opinion that the Europeans are for Obama. But are they really?

If that’s the truth then why didn’t Obama visit, for example, countries like Poland when he went for his European trip? One may say, Poland is not important enough, but that’s not the case. Relative importance of Poland to the U.S. may be measured by the following facts. Poland sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, signed a deal with the U.S. for purchase of a number of F-16 jetfighters and recently also signed a deal to place the U.S. missile defense shield on its territory. American companies have been investing billions of dollars in Poland and have been using this country to advance its interests in the region and within the EU.

For Obama, more important would be even a different fact. There is a big Polish community in Pennsylvania, which is a battle ground state in the November election. He has been unsuccessfully courting this community during the primary season. Polish Americans in Pennsylvania are estimated to be in the number of approximately 824 thousand (Americans of Polish descent), but in the primaries they overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton, even after Obama dispatched on the campaign trail such prominent Polish emissaries as Mark Brzezinski (the son of Zbigniew Brzezinski's, who was the National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter).  

If there were so many things at stake for Obama, then why didn’t he stop in Warsaw even for a couple of hours? Well, the answer is quite simple. He is not the favorite U.S. presidential candidate over there. He has very negative coverage in Poland where many important experts on foreign policy and international relations openly wonder whether it is a joke that a politician with so little experience in policymaking and national security is seriously considered as a pretender for the president of the United States - a country on which the global security depends so heavily. For the European countries like Poland the conclusion is simple: if Obama is the best what America can offer then perhaps there is a reason to worry.

There is deep contrast between the Western and Eastern European approach to Obama’s candidacy. Western Europe would love to see a trigger-shy president of the United States, who is more focused on energizing the community organizers in America than on managing international crises and placing the U.S. on advantage in complex situations around the globe. Eastern Europe would be terrified of such kind of a president, whose main objective could be to avoid collisions with strategic interests of countries like Russia, even for the price of worsening relationships with the U.S. allies.

THE GEORIGAN CRISIS

The best way to illustrate the trigger-shyness of which the Eastern Europeans are historically so sensitive about is through the analysis of how Obama and McCain responded to the Georgian crisis.

It is a common rule that when one is a presidential candidate he can afford saying more than after being elected the president. Therefore candidates use to exaggerate their statements to some extent to get new voters. That was the case with Bill Clinton in 1992, when he promised to send U.S. troops to end Serbian concentration camps in Bosnia. He never did, but still undertook some diplomatic endeavors to end the war afterwards.

Applying the rule that in real life the candidates do less than they promise during the campaign season, we have John McCain, who expressed a very strong opposition to Russia’s invasion of Georgia and Barack Obama, who for a couple of days didn’t have any opinion at all about the crisis and called upon the United Nations to take care of it. Eventually he came out with a very moderate, if not soft, calling upon both parties to stop the war and start peace talks. Therefore, we could assume that after being elected McCain would opt to a moderate option against Russia (dropping his hawkish attitude from pre-election period), while Obama would propose similarly soft or perhaps even softer approach to Russia to avoid tensions at any price.

Obama’s vision of peaceful relations with every considerable power around the globe has ominous potential of accelerating Russia’s appetite for rebuilding its orbit of interests and influence not only in Caucasus but also in Central and Eastern Europe. It is remarkable that for the analysis of the Georgian crisis Obama called a couple of times the Polish foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, although this fact hasn’t been much publicized in the U.S. or Poland.

THE OBAMA STANDARDS

Recently there has been an interesting discussion in Poland about the forthcoming presidential elections, which are to be held in 2010. The incumbent President Lech Kaczynski is quite unpopular for his style of conducting politics, so some members of the Law and Justice Party came out with this proposition to nominate Zbigniew Ziobro instead, the former Minister of Justice and presently a member of the Parliament, who would be 40 years of age at the time the elections are held. When elected, Zbigniew Ziobro, would have 8 years of legislative experience and 2 years of former executive experience as the Attorney General. Applying the Obama-standards, Ziobro would seem to be overqualified. However, the idea was quashed very soon. Firstly, the prospective candidate did not show any intent to run for the office so early in his political career and, secondly, the Party eventually concluded that Poland cannot afford a 40 years old, “inexperienced” president. The combined 10 years of Ziobro’s experience in public service was deemed not enough.

So, if Poland cannot afford a 40 years old president because of the complexity of its relations with other countries, can the U.S. afford a 47 years old one? Perhaps, it’s not a question of age but of good judgment. It is said that good judgment is a result of experience and experience is a result of one’s mistakes. How good can one’s political judgment be after one serves merely year and a half as a national legislator? 

THE U-TURN

It is very possible that the Americans will cast their votes in November in overreaction to the presidency of George W. Bush, who is very unpopular over here. In voters’ minds, trigger-happy Bush has been an irresponsible choice therefore they could make a u-turn to a trigger-shy Obama, believing it to be a more responsible pick.

To be honest, I am slightly afraid of trigger-shy presidents as I find them dangerous to the international order and security. Let’s take, for example, the presidency of Bill Clinton, whose trigger-shyness arose from his youthful opposition to the Vietnam War. Although President Clinton openly aspired to the global leadership role, it was under his watch when two horrible genocides happened, one in Bosnia (300,000 people exterminated) and the second one in Rwanda (where almost one million died). President Clinton disregarded even the J. F. Kennedy’s rule that the U.S. should either militarily act in remote countries (potential allies) to protect their interests or should allow those countries to shape their own future and to protect themselves. However in Bosnia, Bill Clinton neither decided to intervene to put the end to the Serbian concentration camps (as he publicly promised), nor did he allow the victims to defend themselves, as he enforced embargo on them.

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN?

Obama, just like Clinton in 1992, tried to run his campaign on the notion of “change”. I purposefully say “tried”, because I believe it is already a mystification. I recall Obama’s great speech after the Iowa caucuses in which he promised, among other things, to assume leadership in ending the genocide in Darfur. The U.S. has no national or strategic interests in Darfur therefore such a commitment seemed courageous and definitely signaling change. Nevertheless, it proved to be an empty phrase, after later on he was confronted with the Georgian crisis.

In Georgia the U.S. doesn’t have so obvious strategic interests either, but still it has some interests at stake. There are American companies investing in Georgia, there is an issue of diversification of the energy supplies (which he formerly pushed in the Senate with Richard Lugar), and the security of the Eastern European countries, which became endangered by the resurgence of Russia (if you remember Russia threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on Poland).

However, Obama showed no compelling leadership under these real circumstances even though there were plenty of reasons to act. So, if he didn’t find any incentive to lead in this serious crisis, then how is he going to do it in respect to Darfur?

Sebastian Aulich