OBAMA’S BETRAYAL OF MISSILE DEFENSE ALLIES POLAND AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC
http://www.israel-commentary.org/
Obama’s Missile Defense Betrayal of America’s Allies
The President’s abrogation of his predecessor’s agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic inaugurates a new era in which America’s word will not be its bond.
Redacted from an article by Kejda Gjermani
COMMENTARY December 2009
IT WAS NOT uncommon for a pharaoh to deface the monuments of his predecessors, insert his name in their inscriptions, or impose his likeness on the heads of their statues. The enterprising ruler—whoever he might have been—responsible for introducing this practice debased the respect tradition accorded to a Pharaoh’s postmortem, opening the door of precedent for successors to usurp his monuments and achievements in turn. Fiddling with the performance of the past in exchange for artificial boosts to a leader’s legacy tends to be self-defeating.
Today the Obama administration is behaving as if its mandate—conferred by a majority of voters frustrated with the Bush administration, carries sufficient authority not only to break with the past but also to undo it. The new man in the White House is bringing retroactive changes to foreign policy and showing scruples about reneging on the long-term commitments of his country when they interfere with his own plans. On September 17, President Barack Obama officially announced that he would abandon the Eastern European missile-shield program thus scrapping the treaties Gorge W Bush had signed with Poland and the Czech Republic
The decision has drawn expressions of dismay from the governments of both countries “Catastrophic for Poland†is how a spokes woman at the Polish Ministry of Defense described the suspension of the program. Mirek Topolanek, the former Czech prime minister who had gone out on a limb with his own electorate by signing the missile-defense treaty two years ago, interpreted the decision as another sign that “the Americans are not interested in this territory as they were before.†He added ruefully “this is not good news for the Czech state, for Czech freedom and independence.
Lech Walesa, the former president of Poland and founder of Solidarity, observed with bitterness: “I can see what kind of policy the Obama administration is pursuing toward this part of Europe. The way we are being approached needs to change.â€
Such rancor should not be surprising It was the US that had asked Poland and the Czech Republic to host components of a defense system designed to protect against long-range ballistic missiles from Iran and other rogue States, When, in 2006, George W Bush broached the subject in concrete terms, he found a hospitable political climate in both countries. Each was led by fiercely pro-American and Euro-skeptic nationalist-conservative coalitions.
… IT CANNOT be said that the treatment of Poland and the Czech Republic by this administration is an isolated instance of undoing Bush policy. Israel, too, has reason to regret trusting the U.S. for more than one president at a time. In carrying on the Middle East peace process—if process it may be called—the Obama administration has also thrown out understandings between his predecessor and the Jewish state. In the wake of the second intifada, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to withdraw from Gaza, preferring that Israel retrench to manageable borders of its choice. Bush supported this strategy by isolating the incorrigible Yasir Arafat and backing Israeli measures against terrorism.
He also endorsed the idea of creating a Palestinian state—but only once the Palestinians embraced democratic institutions and abandoned violence. President Bush assured the Israeli government that in the event of a final peace agreement with the Palestinians, the U.S. would not expect Israel to retreat to the 1949 armistice lines and would support Israel’s retention of major settlement blocs.
Five years later, the Obama administration has reneged on these commitments. Current U.S. officials, including two spokesmen and one assistant secretary of state, have refused—on 14 separate occasions—to answer whether this administration considers itself bound by the letter outlining the change in attitude toward settlements that Congress endorsed and Bush handed to Ariel Sharon in 2004. Obama compounded this reversal by insisting that a “freeze on settlement expansion†previously agreed to by Israel be interpreted in the strictest sense, not allowing even for natural growth in the population of existing settlements.
This decision created an unnecessary breach with Jerusalem that served to isolate an already beleaguered Israel even further. But, it did nothing to advance peace, because it encouraged the Palestinians to demand even greater concessions from Israel as a precondition for resuming peace talks that have little prospect of success.
Diplomacy by “reset†damages our alliances in the long run and may do even worse to our relationships with hostile countries. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s response to how the new administration will approach unfriendly Latin American leaders like Hugo Chavez has been “Let’s put ideology aside; that is so yesterday?’ Clinton should not be surprised if pragmatism, or whatever she has abandoned ideology in favor of, becomes “so yesterday†as soon as tomorrow, given the evanescence she ascribes to the guiding principles of foreign policy. The main problem in treating the world as if it began with Obama is that it doesn’t end with Obama, and our foes know it.
As U.S. administrations come and go, the same strongmen, oligarchs, despots, theocrats and absolute monarchs continue to rule most countries hostile to America. Given their long planning horizons, why should they make any irreversible concessions in return for only temporary commitments from America? The next US president might offer a better bargain, back out on a joint project or forgive all past sins, elementary principles of game theory dictate that foreign despots stay their course. When trust—the paramount currency of diplomacy—starts to erode, only force retains full purchasing power.
It is ironic that Obama an eager champion of “smart power,†is pioneering methods of diplomacy that, adopted by future presidents, will render military intervention more necessary, and more likely, by undermining their only alternative—namely, trust and long term agreements,
Granted, elections carry consequences, and every new president brings his own tactics and strategies to the White House. But inherent in two-party politics is a temptation—to which both parties have succumbed on occasion—for the opposition to undermine whatever the administration attempts. This contrarian impulse spares nothing, not even foreign policy. The penchant for cannibalizing rival administrations has built to a crescendo since the end of the Cold War and is now reaching a climax in the retroactive undoing of Bush initiatives.
In justifying the abrogation of the missile-defense treaties so casually, Obama cannot but do his own legacy a disservice. No American president gets to have the last word. For the blank slate he has cleared for himself at his predecessor’s expense, Obama will pay by seeing future presidents undo his work on a whim. In addition, because of his revisionist stunt, neither this country’s friends nor its enemies can know what to expect from the United States.
KEJDA GJERMANI is assistant online editor of COMMENTARY
Comments are closed.
