COMMENTARY
by Gordon Hahn
The
Washington Post
recently produced a harsh and unprecedented critique of President Barak Obama’s
early foreign policy steps written by Charles Krauthammer. The harsh words, leveled against the
liberal president on the pages of the liberal paper, were most striking. Even more striking was the deal,
implicit or explicit, that must have been cut. In return for allowing Krauthammer to vent against the
president, the Washington Post got an attack on its favorite enemy, Moscow.
Whether
Krauthammer understood apriori that the vitriol of his article required
attaching an additional critique that the Post’s editors would approve
of, or whether there was a quid pro quo demanded by the editors remains unclear
but in the end is unimportant.
What is important is a harsh critique of a liberal and non-Republican
U.S. president appearing on the Post’s pages with the proper ‘compensation.’
The
Krauthammer article delivered that and then some 462 words were devoted to
criticizing Obama’s Russia policy and Russia, but only 288 were left for
Obama’s other foreign policy mistakes.
Krauthammer focused particularly on “Obama's single most dramatic
foreign policy stroke -- the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements
with Poland and the Czech Republic
that Russia
had virulently opposed.” In the Post’s and Krauthammer’s
mind, this ‘mistake’ outweighs Obama’s “national self-denigration” policy,
Clinton’s dropping human rights in forming America’s China agenda and the absurdity
of the Nobel prize Committee accepting Obama’s nomination as a prize recipient
mere days after his inauguration and then awarding him that prize in lieu of
any accomplishments.
The
Post’s
editors likely attributed great value to Krauthammer’s mischaracterization of
missile defense policy change as “a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence
over a region that thought it had regained independence under American
protection.” A close reading of
this phrase reveals that in the view of the article’s author and purveyors
Eastern Europe received independence “under American protection.” In fact, Mikhail Gorbachev provided the
protection that led to their independence from the Soviet empire. To be sure Western, especially American
resistance to Soviet communism helped pave the way for that liberation, but the
U.S. role in the 1980s was probably secondary to that of the divided Soviet
leadership commandeered by Mr. Gorbachev.
The article is replete with much else from the Post’s obsessive brief against Russia. Indeed, the author uses rather incestuously a Post headline as data to support his line of reasoning: "Russia Not Budging on Iran Sanctions; Clinton Unable to Sway Counterpart." Krauthammer adds: “Note how thoroughly Clinton was rebuffed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that "threats, sanctions and threats of pressure" are "counterproductive." Note: It's not just sanctions that are worse than useless, but even the threat of mere pressure.” But note that a reading of the Post, AP and other sources reveals the truth for once; Lavrov said Medvedev's statement last month about sanctions “sometimes are inevitable” meant that they should be considered only after all political and diplomatic efforts are exhausted (see, for example, Owen Matthews, "Russian FM: Iran sanctions threats won't work" Washington Post, 13 October 2009.) The Post’s editors let through Krauthammer’s mischaracterization of not just the facts but of their own reporting as well. Thus, the journalistic incest continues between the liberal WP and neoconservatives on Russia. In short, no Pulitzers deserved for this genre of journalism.
ARTICLE IN
QUESTION:
Washington Post
October
16, 2009
Debacle in Moscow
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
About
the only thing more comical than Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was the
reaction of those who deemed the award "premature," as if the
brilliance of Obama's foreign policy is so self-evident and its success so
assured that if only the Norway Five had waited a few years, his Nobel
worthiness would have been universally acknowledged.
To believe this, you have to be a dreamy adolescent (preferably Scandinavian and a member of the Socialist International) or an indiscriminate imbiber of White House talking points. After all, this was precisely the spin on the president's various apology tours through Europe and the Middle East: National self-denigration -- excuse me, outreach and understanding -- is not meant to yield immediate results; it simply plants the seeds of good feeling from which foreign policy successes shall come. Chauncey Gardiner could not have said it better. Well, at nine months, let's review.
What's come from Obama holding his tongue while Iranian demonstrators were being shot and from his recognizing the legitimacy of a thug regime illegitimately returned to power in a fraudulent election? Iran cracks down even more mercilessly on the opposition and races ahead with its nuclear program.
What's come from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taking human rights off the table on a visit to China and from Obama's shameful refusal to see the Dalai Lama (a postponement, we are told)? China hasn't moved an inch on North Korea, Iran or human rights. Indeed, it's pushing with Russia to dethrone the dollar as the world's reserve currency.
What's come from the new-respect-for-Muslims Cairo speech and the unprecedented pressure on Israel for a total settlement freeze? "The settlement push backfired," reports The Post, and Arab-Israeli peace prospects have "arguably regressed."
And what's come from Obama's single most dramatic foreign policy stroke -- the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection.
But maybe not gratuitous. Surely we got something in return for selling out our friends. Some brilliant secret trade-off to get strong Russian support for stopping Iran from going nuclear before it's too late? Just wait and see, said administration officials, who then gleefully played up an oblique statement by President Dmitry Medvedev a week later as vindication of the missile defense betrayal.
The Russian statement was so equivocal that such a claim seemed a ridiculous stretch at the time. Well, Clinton went to Moscow this week to nail down the deal. What did she get?
"Russia Not Budging on Iran Sanctions; Clinton Unable to Sway Counterpart." Such was The Post headline's succinct summary of the debacle.
Note how thoroughly Clinton was rebuffed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that "threats, sanctions and threats of pressure" are "counterproductive." Note: It's not just sanctions that are worse than useless, but even the threat of mere pressure.
It gets worse. Having failed to get any movement from the Russians, Clinton herself moved -- to accommodate the Russian position! Sanctions? What sanctions? "We are not at that point yet," she averred. "That is not a conclusion we have reached . . . it is our preference that Iran work with the international community."
But wait a minute. Didn't Obama say in July that Iran had to show compliance by the G-20 summit in late September? And when that deadline passed, did he not then warn Iran that it would face "sanctions that have bite" and that it would have to take "a new course or face consequences"?
Gone with the wind. It's the United States that's now retreating from its already flimsy position of just three weeks ago. We're not doing sanctions now, you see. We're back to engagement. Just as the Russians suggest.
Henry Kissinger once said that the main job of Anatoly Dobrynin, the perennial Soviet ambassador to Washington, was to tell the Kremlin leadership that whenever they received a proposal from the United States that appeared disadvantageous to the United States, not to assume it was a trick.
No need for a Dobrynin today. The Russian leadership, hardly believing its luck, needs no interpreter to understand that when the Obama team clownishly rushes in bearing gifts and "reset" buttons, there is nothing ulterior, diabolical, clever or even serious behind it. It is amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity. In short, the very stuff of Nobels.
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