"The Obama Imperative"

Greg Djerejian in the "Belgravia Dispatch", here

"...Overseas the picture for the U.S. is just as ugly, perhaps even worse. The surge in Iraq was undertaken in a near total strategic vacuum, so that whatever hard-won security improvements have been achieved have had a negligible impact on the larger neighborhood. Has the short-term stabilization in local security conditions there been worth the blood and treasure expended? I doubt it, sad to say.

Meantime, Iran’s march towards nuclear weapons continues apace, but save an Undersecretary of State haphazardly hurled into a meeting on occasion with no real follow-through, the United States continues to have no serious diplomatic contact with the Islamic Republic of Iran. What has been achieved by this? One must scratch one’s head in puzzlement, as a freeze in uranium enrichment can’t reasonably likely occur absent direct discussions (it still mightn’t, but is at least worth a try), and this very goal seems in the short-term our main priority vis-à-vis Iran. So why the lack of high-level contact? Lack of imagination and intellectual cowardice, presumably.

In other parts of the neighborhood, lately the U.S. has taken to allowing border incursions to messily spill over into Pakistan with increasing frequency (a depressing reality born of a losing war in Afghanistan where we are—much like Iraq—bogged down increasingly in nation-building where instead discrete commando anti-terror missions are what is more required), albeit cross-border raids seem to be ending some in favor of less politically volatile Drone-powered missions. To the west in Syria, we have recently seen more cross-border adventurism (seemingly a parting shot aimed at Asad from the predictably bovine Bush quarters—while meantime the French, Turks, Israelis, Qataris etc are engaging Damascus not unproductively).

Amidst all this—the fundamental issue of the Arab-Israeli peace process—formerly a priority of every American President since at least Richard Nixon—has become a ribald joke as handled by the current Administration, save alas the real world consequences of this abject neglect are anything but funny.

And what about beyond this strategic morass we face in the Middle East? Well, it is only too clear we are at another ‘Who Lost Russia?’ juncture, where are pitiable ‘support’ of Georgia accomplished little to nothing, while creation of a real, mature Russia policy under supposed Russia expert Condoleezza Rice has gone woefully unachieved, now a good half decade on from the hilarious conceit of some warm and fuzzy Spirit of Ljubljana...."

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