Maybe I’ve been too harsh on the Obama administration’s foreign policy efforts. While I think his proposal on Iraq can be filed under the heading of “too little” and his Afghanistan plan should go under “too much,” he has signaled a hefty shift in direction by reaching out to Iran, meeting with Russia to talk nuclear weapons and planning to meet with the Chinese.
On the Russia front, for instance, moving beyond President Bush’s silly “look into his eyes and see his soul” approach already is yielding fruit — as this story from The Washington Post makes clear:
President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev launched negotiations on a new nuclear arms treaty today, even as they agreed to pursue new and broader cooperation across a wide range of policy areas.
In a statement after a closed-door meeting, the two leaders pledged to begin work immediately on a new treaty on offensive nuclear weapons to replace the 2002 Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, which expires at the end of this year. They committed to reducing their nuclear arsenals to levels lower that those mandated by the START treaty, which calls for both nations to have between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by Dec. 31, 2012.
“The Presidents decided to begin bilateral intergovernmental negotiations to work out a new, comprehensive, legally binding agreement on reducing and limiting strategic offensive arms,” the statement says. Obama told reporters that he will travel to Moscow in July, the date by which the two leaders said their negotiators should report progress on the new arms reduction treaty.
He also “met Wednesday with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chinese President Hu Jintao. The closed-door sessions focused on the global economic crisis, and Obama announced plans to visit China during the second half of this year.”
A joint statement from Obama and Hu after their session said the two nations were launching new strategic and economic dialogues as part of an effort to pursue closer relations. The strategic dialogue will be led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the United States and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, the statement said. The economic effort will be led by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan.
The statement commits the United States and China to better military-to-military relations and to a resumption of consultation on nuclear nonproliferation and international security. Obama and Hu also pledged to work together to help rescue the world economy and reform the financial regulatory system.
So, to be clear, the Obama administration is making legitimate efforts to ease tensions that have increased in recent years with both Russia and China, is taking a less confrontational approach to Iran and is refocusing on the Israeli-Palestian conflict and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area.
It is too early to know if any of this will bear fruit or what kind of policies and changes will result, but this new tack certainly is encouraging.
Hank Kalet 