Obama’s Top Foreign Policy Challenges

The new president plans to focus on the U.S.’ domestic problems initially, but he won’t have the luxury of putting the rest of the world on standby.

By Andrew C. Schneider, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter

January 20, 2009

Barack Obama takes office with an enormous amount of international goodwill, in part because many nations are hoping for a more constructive, less one-sided relationship with the U.S. The risk is that the global expectations are so high that disappointment is inevitable, the more so because there are plenty of areas of foreign policy where Obama differs from outgoing President George W. Bush more in rhetoric than in substance.

Obama’s star power, if used well, will make a difference in achieving U.S. goals. “He has to appeal to the self-interest of other nations, and he's an extraordinarily persuasive man,” says Richard H. Kohn, an expert on the presidency and a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kohn says the new president will be particularly well served by having Hillary Clinton in the State Department. “Between the two of them, they have more buzz, more visibility and more international standing and respect than any duo you could name, probably going back to Truman and [General George] Marshall.”

The western European allies are likely to give the new president a lengthy honeymoon. They recognize that there are things they’d like the U.S. to do that Obama won’t be able to accomplish immediately -- closing the Guantánamo Bay detention camp being a prime example. They can also expect tension with Washington as the new administration asks for more support in Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, the change in style will go a long way toward smoothing transatlantic relations. U.S. leadership in resolving the global financial crisis and U.S. participation in global efforts to combat climate change will help extend that good mood.

But there are plenty of regions where Obama will find little, if any, patience. In the wake of the Gaza war, Arab countries will be looking for the new U.S. administration to jump into the Middle East peace process early. And while this fits with the new president’s own plans, it’s unlikely the Arab street will find much consolation in the U.S.’ position. No U.S. president is likely to be as resolutely pro-Israel as Bush has been, but Obama won’t lean on Israel to take any steps that would put its security at risk.

With Obama shifting the U.S. military’s main effort away from Iraq and toward fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari’s government in Pakistan will both be nervous. Obama will demand that Karzai crack down on the rampant corruption in the Afghan government, and he’ll press Zardari to step up the fight against Islamist militants on his own soil. Such moves by either will put their fragile governments at risk, and neither will thank Obama for putting them in such a position.

Farther afield, the new administration will face not just impatience but active opposition. “Most world leaders, particularly those antithetical to the U.S., see Obama as a neophyte and will be playing serious hardball,” says Peter Zeihan, vice president for analysis at Stratfor, a private intelligence firm. On this front, Iran and Russia will be among the hardest to deal with.

Obama, no less than Bush, wants to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power. At the same time, he needs to keep Iran from stirring up trouble in Iraq as he draws down U.S. forces there. And he’ll want Iranian cooperation in Afghanistan, which has a significant Shiite Muslim, Persian-speaking minority.

Iran wants U.S. recognition of the Islamic Republic, including a formal repudiation of any threat of regime change, and acceptance of its position as a major regional power. How Obama can manage this while keeping up the pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear capabilities is a puzzle. Many U.S. allies in Europe and the Arab world are nervous about any change in U.S. policy toward Iran that would potentially strengthen Tehran.

From Russia, Obama wants cooperation in keeping Iran from going nuclear as well as acquiescence in U.S. use of Central Asian supply routes for its troops in Afghanistan. But he also wants the Kremlin to pull its troops out of Georgia and to stop threatening its other former Soviet neighbors. “The Obama administration will have a very hard choice to make: the war in Afghanistan or laying the foundations for a restoration of the Soviet empire,” says Zeihan, “a fun prospect to have drop on your desk on day one.”

Even in areas where Obama might expect to have some grounds for agreement with the Kremlin, such as on a new round of arms control talks, he faces problems. As part of any such negotiations, Russia would demand that the U.S. ditch plans to build missile shield facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic. In the context of Russia’s expansionist behavior, such a move by the U.S. would leave the eastern European members of NATO feeling vulnerable and would potentially damage U.S. ties with the region.

Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela will prove a lesser but persistent thorn, as far as Obama’s relations with Latin America go. Obama’s recent criticism of Chávez over the latter’s support for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) prompted Chávez to level the same accusations of imperialism against Obama that he has routinely done against Bush. But Chávez will have a harder time winning support elsewhere in Latin America, particularly if, as expected, Obama loosens restrictions on travel and monetary remittances to Cuba from relatives in the U.S.

Much of the rest of the world is simply holding its breath. China, Japan, India and others that got on well with the Bush administration are prepared to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, but no more or less so than they would any other new U.S. president. Kim Jong Il’s North Korea, while no friend to any U.S. administration, appears to be reserving judgment in much the same way.

Invariably, some countries will wind up disappointed, in part because Obama cannot deal with every crisis simultaneously. “The problem is that the in-box is so full,” says Paul J. Saunders, executive director of the Nixon Center. “How do you pick what to do, and how do you minimize the damage in the areas where you just can't focus, for lack of time? This makes the process of setting priorities one of the most important decisions the new administration will make coming in.”

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