Diplomacy of retreat?

Feb 9, 2010 — Arkansas Democrat Gazette

JACKSON DIEHL WASHINGTON POST

LITTLE ROCK -- Is a wounded Barack Obama withdrawing from the world? Europeans could be excused for speculating as much. The White House announced last week that the president would not attend a U.S.-European Union summit planned for Madrid in May, forcing its cancellation. The spurned host, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, also failed to get a meeting with either Obama or Vice President Joe Biden during a two-day visit to Washington.

Israelis and Palestinians also have reason to wonder. Obama’s 70-minute State of the Union made no mention of Israel or a Middle East peace process.

Then there are the leaders of Iraq. Two of them-Kurdish regional president Massoud Barzani and Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a leader of the Sunni minority-have visited Washington in the past two weeks. Both told me they were deeply worried about whether the Obama administration would remain committed to a stable and democratic Iraq. That’s partly because Obama’s public rhetoric has centered on U.S. troop withdrawals, rather than any vision for the future of the country. “I understand you are totally focused now on withdrawing the troops by 2011,” said Hashimi. “But what willcome after that?”

So are all these people right to be upset? Is Obama reacting to political trouble at home by turning his back on foreign affairs? The White House could fairly argue that he is not. Though he skimped on foreign policy in the State of theUnion and has been visibly focused on domestic affairs since Scott Brown’s election to the Senate, Obama’s diplomacy still looks reasonably vigorous.

His envoys are busy trying to round up votes for a UN Security Council resolution imposing stiff sanctions on Iran. Obama has a visit to Australia and Indonesia scheduled for next month, and a summit meeting on disarmament is being prepared for Washington in April.

Yet it’s not just Zapatero who has trouble gaining traction in this White House: Unlike most of his predecessors, Obama has not forged close ties with any European leader. Relations between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are tense at best. George W. Bush used to hold regular videoconferences with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Obama has spoken to them on only a handful of occasions.

Obama’s personal popularity in many parts of the world remains strong. Zapatero told the Post’s editorial board that “in Spain, [Obama’s] election was experienced as if it was an election in our own country.” But in his first year the new president did not make the same connection with the leaders of America’s principal allies. Now he is sending the message that he is cutting back his time for them. Maybe, as Zapatero diplomatically put it, this will be “no problem.” But I doubt that’s what the Spaniard was really thinking.

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Jackson Diehl is deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post.

Editorial, Pages 10 on 02/09/2010