Campaign promises difficult to fulfil

IT WAS an auspicious start to President Barack Obama’s new world order. By his second week in office he’d directed military leaders to end the war in Iraq, ordered the closing of Guantanamo Bay and witnessed Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki’s resounding victory that made it look like a 16-month exit plan is in the offing.

The administration then rolled out the big guns and dispatched Vice-President Joe Biden to the 45th Munich security conference this weekend where he exploited an opportunity to unveil a new foreign policy vision. In his keynote address, he announced business is no longer as usual in Obama’s multilateral world of diplomacy and co-operation.

While Biden tried to thaw frosty relations with Russia and Afghanistan, it became apparent that the new administration isn’t fighting a two-front war; it’s facing a multi-front quagmire. The impending crisis that Biden warned would test Obama’s mettle had arrived in the form of whole host of interdependent international problems that prove campaign promises are easily made but much harder to keep.

Obama’s campaign promise to refocus US foreign policy from Iraq to Afghanistan, double its troop numbers and garner more international support is already in serious trouble. At the MSC Biden called for greater co-operation in the region and announced the new administration is soliciting input from its allies as it conducts a strategic review of its policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“We are sincere in seeking your counsel,” said Biden. “As we undertake this review, there’s a lot at stake. The result must be a comprehensive strategy for which we all take responsibility.”

Whether his open hand will be met with unclenched fists is far from certain.

Last week Kyrgyzstan, a close Russian ally, decided to close the Manas air base that is a critical to the war effort. It was a serious setback for the Obama administration. The next day Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Russia and its allies “are ready for full-fledged, comprehensive co-operation” with the United States to stabilise Afghanistan. The combined incidents sent a clear message that Russia has considerable power in the region and is willing to help the US, but only on Moscow’s terms.

President Hamid Karzai, once considered a US puppet, is more critical of American military tactics and has been making veiled threats to shift his allegiance to Moscow. Rumours are floating in Washington that the US is frustrated with government corruption and may withdraw support for Karzai in the August elections. One official described him to the New York Times as “a potential impediment to American goals”.

More support is needed from other allies. Only Italy has responded to Obama’s call for more troops. Canada still plans to leave in 2011, and the role of British, French and German soldiers remains heavily restricted. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani seems powerless to combat the Taliban resurgence in the Northwest Frontier Province.

As the US tries to discern its friends from its enemies in the post-Bush era, warlords run most of the country funded by the lucrative opium trade, Taliban attacks increased by 30% last year and continue to rise. It’s estimated that 80% of the Afghan provinces have some form of Taliban shadow government.

Biden has called the situation in Afghanistan “daunting”. Defence Secretary Robert Gates called it the greatest military challenge for the US right now. Yet despite his promise to “forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan”, the Obama administration seems to be lowering its expectations of what can be accomplished in a country that has failed to produce anything resembling a “flourishing democracy” in seven years.

Last week Gates decided to delay the deployment of 17,000 American troops to allow for an ongoing reassessment of US strategy. He admitted America’s goals for Afghanistan “are too broad and too far into the future”.

With the region becoming increasingly unstable and players jockeying for either power or favour, the Obama-offence has retreated to the sidelines to devise more concrete goals to re-establish control in certain areas and beat al-Qaida, without repeating the Soviet mistake of the 1980s when 120,000 troops weren’t enough.

Until a viable strategy emerges from the White House, Biden’s criticism of the Bush Russia policy seems applicable to America’s Afghanistan policy today.

“Whatever our game plan has been, and I’m not convinced we’ve had one, it clearly isn’t working.”