Home
|
Trend Lines
|
Obama So Far: Iran, Russia and China
By Judah Grunstein
|
27 Jul 2010
There have been a couple of "confirmed" inflection points in the Obama administration's approach to Iran, Russia and China in the past few weeks, and the contrast between the outcomes is revealing, both about the relative challenges of the three portfolios, but also about the relative development of the three countries.
With regard to Iran, although there are not yet any concrete outcomes, the Obama administration's strategy of open-ended engagement accompanied by staged sanctions has clearly isolated Tehran, to an extent that many critics of the Obama approach -- myself included -- did not anticipate. In the past week, Iran has reiterated its desire to continue fuel swap negotiations with the Vienna Group, and has essentially accepted EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's invitation to direct talks, at the same time that the EU was announcing a new round of stiff unilateral sanctions. Meanwhile, Iran finds relations with Russia increasingly chilly, with Moscow formally rebuking President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his recent criticism of Russian support for U.N. sanctions, calling his remarks unacceptable" and "irresponsible."
The shift in Russia's approach reflects a qualitiative reassessment by Moscow of the goals of Iran's nuclear program, which John McCreary discusses here. As he notes, it's impossible to know what information was shared behind closed doors. But in the context of broader bilateral relations, the Obama reset seems to have had a convincing effect in terms of Russia's short-term calculus of the cost-benefit analysis of cooperation with the U.S. As I've argued before, the benefits of cooperation, with the U.S. and Europe, remain structurally driven for Russia. And the mid-term calculus still presents many possibilities for divergence, especially since Iran is an important commercial partner for Russia. But the space offered by the reset has certainly reduced the short-term costs of cooperation.
Finally, with regard to China, the results are more mixed and much more volatile. There seems to be a cyclical variation between cooperation and tension that is in part determined by the political and diplomatic calendar (Taiwan arms sales, currency depreciation). But this Taiwan News editorial about the choices facing Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in the recent South China Sea back-and-forth is also a revealing indicator of the U.S. strategic calculus as well. Essentially, China is in the process of defining its version of the Monroe Doctrine, both geographically and symbollically. So far, the U.S. has formulated its response on a case-by-case basis, based on a pragmatic flexibility that reflects the complexities of being a global hegemon addressing regional strategic shifts. But as always, the risk of pragmatism and flexibility is that they very closely resemble incoherence and weakness, both at home and abroad.
So far, the Obama approach on three of the five hot portfolios it faced upon taking office (the Middle East writ large and North Korea being the other two) has run the gamut from well-conceived and successful (Russia) to uninspired but successful (Iran) to necessary but unconvincing (China). That has been a function of the range of options available, but also the respective stages of development of the three countries involved. Past its prime and with a rusting industrial capacity, Russia is most receptive to a thaw. Not yet ready for prime time and facing an abrupt shift in regional dynamics following the unforced errors of the Bush administration, Iran is most vulnerable to a freeze. And reaching the limits of its economic rise if not its ambitions, China is most sensitive to perceived constraints.