Unkie S, Sober Again

Obama’s Re-election

• Through diplomacy and the efficacious use of soft power, the US can become a moral world leader once more
• In Obama’s second term, it should actively look to do so in the current power crisis
• Tackling the troubles in West Asia is an ideal place to start

***

To be effective in the world, America must find a key to renew the appeal of its democracy. The war against Iraq, in 2003, which was based on fraudulent claims of there being weapons of mass destruction stashed in that country, has undermined the United States’ position. While America’s prestige is high, it is not at this moment as compelling a moral force as it could be.

The United States, and President Barack Obama, now have an enormous second chance.

Understanding the direction of contemporary history, as the president does, he can focus the administration’s efforts to implement a strategy that will revitalise the West and reconcile tensions in the East, making the US and the rest of the world safer from economic and political strife and, even, from wars.

West Asia, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is the place to start. According to public opinion polls, most Israelis and the majority of American Jews would support a comprehensive compromise—a two-state solution based on adjusted frontiers derived from the 1967 lines, with some sharing of Jerusalem. The same seems to be true, albeit to a lesser extent, of the Palestinians. The continuation of the conflict and the continued expropriation of land in the Palestinian territories by the Israelis remains a source of much hostility in the region towards Israel.

If that problem is not resolved in this Obama term, it may be beyond resolution. That, in turn, means that 40 years from now, or maybe even sooner, Israel is going to be in mortal danger. Only by moving decisively and firmly—without favouring one side and discriminating against the other—will the US be able to mediate a two-state solution. That will also involve facing a difficult fact: that it was Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on building settlements in order to colonise the West Bank that made it impossible to arrive at a compromise during Obama’s first term.

If the situation gets tragically out of hand, Israel will become an isolated island in a politically awakened West Asia, a region in which its peoples are prepared to pay the high physical price required for sustained warfare. But if the US moves now to broker a real peace, before too long, Israel and Palestine could become the Singapore of West Asia.

The US can play a creative and constructive role both in Europe and Asia too—but in different ways. Europe needs American involvement on its mainland, in the form of nato; conversely, one could say, Asia should not have an American involvement in its mainland problems.

Fire in Rafah, Gaza Strip, after a reported Israeli airstrike. (Photograph by Andrea Bruce)

In the long run, the US cannot continue its military support for Taiwan. Under President Richard Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger itself, the US had more or less conceded that Taiwan is a part of China. There’s no way to renege on that without precipitating a real conflict with the mainland. However, China’s policies are evolving. While Hong Kong, for example, has complete internal autonomy, elements of the Chinese army are stationed in Hong Kong as an integral part of China. But with regard to Taiwan, the Chinese have made it clear that unification could involve “one China and several systems”. Unless China’s nationalism or the US’s ineptitude stimulates intense conflicts between China and its other Asian neighbours, the Chinese will try to parlay their remarkable economic achievements into more flexible social-political arrangements. Deliberately and skilfully, they may be able to accelerate that process from the bottom up and thereby loosen the authoritarian aspects of the regime to permit greater social participation in national decision-making.

China also has the added benefit of having much more access to the world than the Soviet Union did at a comparable phase of its development. Literally hundreds of thousands of Chinese travel or study abroad, including 1,00,000 in the US. Access to the internet is an effective reality for the middle class—if not for the rural classes—and that in itself is a token of very substantial political change. Supporting such outside contact for the Chinese will benefit the US.

Europe needs Turkey because if Turkey ceases to be a rapidly westernising and modernising country with European overtones, Europe itself will become more vulnerable to some of the seductions and violence surfacing in the Near East. Turkey, in turn, needs to be embraced by Europe so that it can consummate ongoing efforts that were started under Ataturk almost a century ago and have been ambitious in scope and successful on the whole in execution. The Europeans would be making a fatal mistake to abort the process of Turkish association with Europe.

Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency may delay Russia’s becoming part of the European Union, but it’s unlikely to permanently scuttle the process. While Russia, superficially, is an authoritarian and increasingly nationalistic state, with Putin clearly driven by nostalgia for Russia’s imperial past, the underlying reality is the emergence of a new middle class. There is not much probability of Russia recovering its once-imperial status; however, the new middle class—rather western in its orientation—will reach out for power in a context of closer association with the West.

For the first time in Russia, in the realm of politics, there is no longer public fear of consequences if one is openly critical of the government. It is perfectly all right—in fact, it is even “good form” to ridicule those in power. The young women of Pussy Riot, who sang against Putin at a church and were arrested, went further than the regime was prepared to tolerate, but that is not stopping others. Ridicule in politics is a very powerful tool for discrediting leadership, and it is increasingly prevalent in Russia.

Closer home, the US can help the Mexicans deal with their pressing drug-trafficking problems. The pri, under Mexico’s new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, is a rejuvenated and redefined party, with a higher emphasis on civic responsibility and also on the rule of law. As the Mexicans launch a really comprehensive effort to deal with a challenge—which ultimately is absolutely fatal in its potential consequences—for them more than anybody else, the US as a good neighbour can support their efforts, avoiding any overstepping that could reawaken past Mexican-American antagonisms.

Through such diplomacy and efficacious use of soft power, the US can become an effective leader in the world once more, positioned to support an eventually more effective United Nations to seek shared solutions to the world’s common interests in its “strategic commons”: the sea and air, space and cyberspace, and nuclear proliferation.

(This article is based on a conversation between Zbigniew Brzezinski and The New York Times Syndicate that took place on November 12, 2012, only days after the US presidential election)

Zbigniew Brzezinski is the author of numerous books on US foreign policy and served as the national security adviser to president Jimmy Carter