Opinions

Four pressing issues for Obama the delegator

In print | February 12, 2009

I feel exhausted just thinking about being president.

As an opinions columnist, I have the luxury of browsing the web a few times each week, clicking on whatever topics pique my interest from The New York Times or Foreign Affairs or Wikipedia, and assimilating enough material from one tiny sliver of the international panorama to produce a thousand word column on the topic. The difficulty in this process stems from a basic consumer anxiety: the issues are so plentiful, how do I choose just one?

So far, I’ve managed to be selective. The United States government, on the other hand, has no such luxury. So this week’s topic is how the executive branch and its chief executive should go about confronting such a broad panorama of international issues without working itself to exhaustion or neglecting other important facets of executive leadership. It, and he, must do this by delegating.

Delegating is key because, realistically, there isn’t time enough in his four- (or eight-) year presidency for Barack Obama to micromanage the plethora of international and domestic issues that need to be tackled. The other day I was asked to summarize a few of these to a friend. So here, in radically condensed form, is a primer of what I understand to be some of the most pressing international issues:

A nuclear Iran. I discussed this in my previous column, so I won’t spend too much time on it here, except to say that the recent announcement by the politically moderate former president Mohammad Khatami of his intent to run in the upcoming presidential elections makes things a bit more interesting. Khatami — who is said to favor a policy of “detente with the West,” in stark contrast with current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme religious leader Ayatollah Khomenei — doesn’t seem to have much of a chance at winning the election. (The conservative mullahs may not even allow him to run, let alone win.) But he does represent a sort of forbidden fruit for the United States. That is, I fear we have too much of a vested interest in his political campaign. Desperate for any type of leverage in Iran, even a well-intentioned Obama might be tempted to “support” the moderate Khatami, just as we “supported” the pro-America Shah up into the 1970’s. Hopefully I am totally off base on this. Way, way off base.

China. Recently supplanting Germany as the third largest national economy in terms of overall GDP, China is carving for itself more and more international economic influence. Latin America, for example, long locked into a symbiotic, if asymmetric, trading partnership with the United States, is now littered with Chinese ports. One area of particular anxiety is Taiwan. Although some Chinese will argue that the island nation has no legitimate sovereignty, it has cultivated a modern democracy for over 30 years. But the time may come when China’s imperial ambitions spill out across the Taiwan Strait (often, the Chinese army runs training exercises on their side of the water, just so the Taiwanese don’t get too comfortable). I’m not implying that the United States must be the “protector” of all other liberal democracies, but it would be nice if we held onto enough regional power to at least deter such ambitions.

Russia. The assassination of a Chechen dissident in Austria a few weeks ago shined a spotlight on Chechnya’s president Ramzan A. Kadyrov, who was accused of personally taking part in the beating and torture of prisoners and the violent silencing of political opponents. All of this, it appears, was done with Vladamir Putin’s support. Yet for all the humanitarian concern about the harsh repression and internal violence in the region, we simply don’t have the clout to intervene. The true international threat in U.S./Russia relations lies along the Russian borders with NATO nations such as Latvia, Estonia, and Georgia. Political commentator Pat Buchanan, trenchant in his sometimes radically isolationist view, has written extensively about the hazards of adhering dogmatically to the NATO charter. What if Russia really does do something silly? (For example, what if Georgia’s pending invitation for NATO alliance had been accepted before the Russians invaded late last year?) NATO dictates that we must come to the military aid of any member state. Will the American people really send troops to die over a dispute in Latvia? After Iraq, I think not. And I would bet the Russians think not as well, which strengthens their hand. It is more likely that a Russian invasion into a bordering country triggers the dissolution of NATO than World War III.

Finally, Pakistan. (Discerning readers will notice that all of the issues I’ve highlighted concern nations that possess, or may soon possess, nuclear weapons, and I concede that this may be a personal selection bias. But more likely, it’s because nuclear weapons are just that scary.) In terms of U.S. relations, it can seem as if there are two Pakistans — the tribal area in the west along the border with Afghanistan, and the ostensibly pro-U.S. government seated in Islamabad — and the problem is integration between the two. The Pakistani government has failed to confront the issue of Taliban terrorists within their own borders, possibly because the government is riddled with sympathizers more loyal to local interests than to any Western-allied president. A weak and infiltrated central government means that the country’s nuclear arsenal, and nuclear information, is vulnerable. A.Q. Khan, recently released from house arrest, sold nuclear information to Iran, North Korea and Libya; the terrifying prospect is that other engineers could be selling similar information to even more malevolent customers.

Readers will notice that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the international economy (or the domestic economy, for that matter) are not on the list; neither is Medicare, education, or other campaign promises. These omissions only further underscore the point that Obama cannot singlehandedly lead on all these issues. Not directly.

A favorite book of mine growing up was Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card. In one passage, Card explains the successful strategy young Ender employed in leading his “Dragon Army” to victory: his army won not because Ender was a brilliant tactician, but because his officers were excellent leaders in of themselves. They were confident in giving orders without constant affirmation from the chief.

Like Ender, Barack Obama must be wise enough to put competent people in the right diplomatic positions and give them sufficient autonomy to get the job done. Robert Livingston vastly overstepped his bounds in France when he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, but only because he realized a tremendous opportunity when he saw one. And the more space American diplomats get to work with, the more vigorously and creatively they will work for peace in places where peace has been forsaken.

David is a first-year. He can be reached at dstern1@swarthmore.edu.