home > the think tank > tanusmes > publications > The Essence of Diplomatic Engagement
Email
| Author: |
|---|
October 7, 2009
The Boston Globe
As the Obama administration charts its foreign policy, there is increasing unease about its lack of achievements. The Iraq war lingers, Afghanistan continues to be mired in its endless cycle of tribal disarray and Islamist resurgence, Guantanamo remains open. Still, Obama has introduced important changes in both the style and substance of US diplomacy. An honest dialogue with the international community has at times led the president to acknowledge our own culpabilities and shortcomings. Even more dramatic has been Obama's willingness to reach out to America's adversaries and seek negotiated solutions to some of the world's thorniest problems.
It is Obama's declared engagement policy that has raised the ire of critics and led them to once more take refuge in the spurious yet incendiary charge of appeasement. Columnist Charles Krauthammer recently exclaimed, "When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom." Acknowledgement of America's misjudgments is derided as an unseemly apologia while diplomacy is denigrated as a misguided exercise in self-delusion. After all, North Korea continues to test its nuclear weapons and missiles, Cuba spurns America's offers of a greater opening, and the Iranian mullahs contrive conspiracy theories about how George Soros and the CIA are instigating a velvet revolution in their country. Tough-minded conservatives are urging a course correction and a resolute approach to the gallery of rogues that the president pledges to embrace.
Such views miscast the essence of diplomatic engagement. Diplomacy is likely to be a painstaking process and it may not work with every targeted nation. However, the purpose of such a policy is not to transform adversaries into allies, but to seek adjustments in their behavior and ambitions. North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and Iran would be offered a path toward realizing their essential national interests should they conform to global conventions on issues such as terrorism and proliferation.
Should these regimes fail to grasp the opportunities before them, then Washington has a better chance of assembling a durable international coalition to isolate and pressure them. One of the problems with a unilateralist Bush administration that prided itself on disparaging diplomatic outreach was that it often made America the issue and gave many states an excuse for passivity. The Obama administration's expansive diplomatic vision has deprived fence-sitters of such justifications. An administration that has reached out to North Korea, communicated its sincere desire for better ties to Iran, and dispatched high-level emissaries to Syria cannot be accused of diplomatic indifference.
The administration's approach has already yielded results in one of the most intractable global problems: Iran's nuclear imbroglio. The Bush team's years of harsh rhetoric and threats of military retribution failed to adjust Iran's nuclear ambitions in any tangible manner. A country that had no measurable nuclear infrastructure before Bush's inaugural made tremendous strides during his tenure. Unable to gain Iranian capitulation or international cooperation, the Bush administration was left plaintively witnessing Iran's accelerating nuclear time clock. In a dramatic twist of events, the Obama administration's offer of direct diplomacy has altered the landscape and yielded an unprecedented international consensus that has put the recalcitrant theocracy on the defensive. Iran's mounting nuclear infractions and its enveloping isolation caused it to recalibrate its position and open its latest nuclear facility to inspection and potentially ship out its stock of low-enriched uranium for processing in Russia. Deprived of such fuel, Iran would not have the necessary resources to quickly assemble a bomb. In a short amount of time, the administration has succeeded in putting important barriers to Iran's nuclear weapons aspirations.
The United States will persistently confront crises that require the totality of its national power. The tumultuous Bush years have demonstrated the limitations of military force. Diplomatic interaction requires mutual concessions and acceptance of less than ideal outcomes. Moreover, as the United States charts its course, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging past errors. Instead of clinging to its self-proclaimed exceptionalism, America would be wise to take into account the judgment of other nations that are increasingly central to its economy and security.
This article appears in full on CFR.org by permission of its original publisher. It was originally available here
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.