Prize-winning diplomacy

“Smart power” in action:

BEIJING (Reuters) – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned major powers on Wednesday against intimidating Iran and said talk of sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear programme was “premature”.

Putin, who many diplomats, analysts, and Russian citizens believe is still Russia’s paramount leader despite stepping down as president last year, was speaking after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Moscow for two days of talks.

“…[I]f now, before making any steps (towards holding talks) we start announcing some sanctions, then we won’t be creating favourable conditions for them (talks) to end positively. This is why it is premature to talk about this now.”

Clinton failed to secure any specific assurances from Russia on Iran during her visit, leaving her open to criticism at home that she had not received anything from Moscow after earlier U.S. concessions on missile defence.

Meanwhile, the President’s award-winning diplomacy isn’t bringing much “cooperation between peoples”

Russia is weighing changes to its military doctrine that would allow for a “preventive” nuclear strike against its enemies — even those armed only with conventional weapons. The news comes just as American diplomats are trying to get Russia to cut down its nuclear stockpile, and put the squeeze on Iran’s suspect nuclear program.

[...] Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s security council, said the new doctrine offers “different options to allow the use of nuclear weapons, depending on a certain situation and intentions of a would-be enemy. In critical national security situations, one should also not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor.”

What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to repel conventionally armed attackers, “not only in large-scale, but also in a regional and even a local war.”

Here you have Russia essentially saying that it has no problem using tactical nuclear weapons on relatively defenseless “attackers”.    The Secretary of State is being embarrassed at nearly every stop she makes.   She comes back from Russia with a pat on the back and some vague notions of cooperation.  In other words, on the President’s biggest foreign policy issue next to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—-Iran, Clinton comes back empty-handed.

I understand it’s only been less than nine months of the Obama administration’s self-proclaimed “smart power” diplomacy—the notion that American interests like eradicating terrorism will require more talk and Marshall Plan-like financial support, rather than threats/use of force. 

The question of sanctions against Iran will come to a head in a few weeks.   I’m curious to see how long after the fact, does the media or either political party have the courage to admit that these diplomatic initiatives were failures.

Hillary waiting patiently in the wings

Several weeks ago, the New York Times ran this story on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and how she was acclimating herself to her role at Foggy Bottom.  This excerpt stuck out:

There are other vestiges of Mrs. Clinton’s political life: her Senate campaign committee remains in existence and will hold on to a list of donors to her presidential campaign, a tantalizing clue that she contemplates a use for them in the future.

I have always been completely cynical when it comes to Hillary Clinton (and Barack Obama, for that matter).  The Times piece just fed my cynicsm even more.  Hillary wants wanted to be President.  Plain and simple.  In her mind, Barack Obama got in the way and quite alarmingly, put a halt to those plans, albeit temporarily.

Indeed, Hillary has managed to keep a low profile at the State department, and by all accounts she is content for it to be that way, while she makes her mark.  But occasionally, I see things like this which just confirm to me that all is not so rosy with the perceived Clinton/Obama love-fest:

When it comes to foreign trips, President Obama is “making a habit” of not taking Secretary Clinton along, asserts an Asian News International article ahead of Clinton’s trip to India next week. The article says that “according to Fox News,” it’s customary for the secretary of state to accompany the U.S. president when he travels overseas. Apparently, however, Obama has spent far more time traveling without his secretary of state than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did at the same points in their four terms. 

And then there’s this next story.  After being sidelined with an elbow injury over the last few weeks, Madame Secretary was scheduled to make a heavily publicized speech regarding US relations with the Mideast earlier today.  The speech was billed as her “comeback” in a relatively low-key tenure at State.  All was going according to plan until….wait for it…President Obama preempts that with a Rose Garden “statement” about health care reform.  Guess which speech received the most media coverage?  Oops:

Not surprisingly, the cable news networks carried Obama’s remarks live as Clinton began to speak. Fortunately for Clinton, at least one cable network eventually flashed to Clinton, but not until after the President stopped speaking.

Naturally, the White House said it was sheer coincidence and there was no intention to play dueling speeches.

…

But one veteran of the Clinton White House tells The Mouth, “In other administrations when the President was speaking no one else in the administration was allowed to speak. Alternatively, if another administration official was already scheduled to speak at an event, the White House press office made sure the President spoke either before or after and not during.”

Our source puts the blame mostly on the White House. “At the very least it’s complete non-coordination between the White House communications and press operation and Cabinet agencies — in this case a high profile department and Cabinet secretary giving a major address outlining the President’s agenda,” the source said. “It does not make sense for the President to drown out his secretary of state when she is trying to line up influential and public support for his foreign policy. Scheduling matters.”

Ed Morrissey thinks that either it’s a stab at triangulationfor the Obama administration or Hillary growing a little weary about what has turned out to be political exile so far.  (Interesting note, he implies that she may be making a run for governor of New York.)

As I noted earlier, Hillary always had the ambition to be president and nothing less.  That is why she relocated to New York and run for Senator and why she took a prominent role in her husband’s administration.  The media pundits all but coronated her as the Democratic nominee in 2008, until the Obama campaign outmaneuvered her during the primaries. 

Selecting her as Secretary of State was most definitely part of Obama’s plans—-he was able to be rid of Hillary as a political enemy in the Senate, while gaining a political, if not superficial ally in his cabinet (one who also garnered nearly 18 million votes during the 2008 primaries).

I always believed that Hillary accepting the post at State was just a way for her to pad her resume with some credible foreign policy experience, priming herself for her next big move which is…a run at the presidency (at this point, a 2012 run is out of the question for most, if not all, Democrats).  In the meantime, I can’t help but think that Madame Secretary would feel a tiny bit of schadenfreude with each domestic policy misstep by the Obama administration—not to mention recent falling poll numbers.  It must be eating her up inside knowing that Obama is leading the charge on her signature issue—-health-care reform. 

I also wouldn’t rule out a clean break from this administration altogether, citing irreconciable differences, so to speak.

Either way, I always believed, and I still believe, that Hillary is in this for herself and her legacy.  Working at Foggy Bottom is just another means to that end.

UPDATE.   From Peggy Noonan’s latest column:

But you know, one thing Mrs. Clinton’s learned is how to wait. Things turn on a dime, you wake up in the morning and there’s a new headline that changes everything. Sooner or later Mr. Obama is going to get in trouble, sooner or later the trouble will take hold and settle in, and sooner or later she will be the unsullied one who quietly did her duty in spite of the slights to which she’s been subjected. And when that happens, she will emerge—reluctantly, painfully—as the Democratic alternative. The one who almost won, who knew—who learned the hard way—that you can’t do everything all at once, that it’s the economy, stupid.

They will look like kids playing with history. Hillary isn’t a kid. She’s experienced, and has been roughed up by history. Watch. She’ll roll right back.

She read my mind.