The Guardian view on the US-Cuba breakthrough: more US diplomatic creativity is needed elsewhere
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Version 0 of 1. It is no surprise that Barack Obama is attempting to make use of his final two years in the Oval office to try to polish his legacy, especially in foreign policy. Other US presidents have gone down this road. Bill Clinton tried desperately to clinch a deal on the Israeli-Palestinian issue during marathon talks in Camp David – to no avail. George W Bush tried to erase some of his earlier unilateralism by reaching out to Europe – but then left it to deal mostly on its own with the outbreak of war in Georgia. In the aftermath of midterm elections that handed Mr Obama’s Republican adversaries control of Congress, it was anticipated that the president would seek some solace on the international stage. What came as a surprise was that this should happen so spectacularly over Cuba. And if the president is now ready to act boldly, what other thorny issues might be tackled with a big dose of creative diplomacy? It is tempting to draw a wish list, from the Iran nuclear talks to Syria, to Russia’s relationship with Europe. The paradox of Mr Obama’s Cuba success is that many of the crises that have led to much criticism of his leadership style now appear, in contrast, even more painfully unresolved. Yet decisive action is what we have seen on several occasions recently. Liberated from electoral constraints, Mr Obama has made swift moves on some of the trickiest issues. This is a “lame duck” president who has made use of the powers that the constitution bestows on him to try to find solutions and get things done. There was the unexpected bilateral agreement with China on limiting carbon emissions. There was the executive order on immigration. And now Cuba. This has been a clear illustration of Mr Obama’s preferred way of doing things on the world stage. The thaw in relations with Cuba comes as a vindication of his initial policy of the outstretched hand towards hostile regimes or rogue states. It demonstrates that patience and secrecy can bring results – as it took two years of hidden negotiations, and the help of the pope, to get this far. It is also about pragmatism: it made no sense indeed to pursue a US policy of 50 years that has brought none of the desired results. Now the Obama administration will be on a better footing with Latin America, in the runup to the 2015 summit of the Americas. Can such an approach now be applied to other intractable problems? We know there has been much bilateral contact – some of it secret – between US and Iranian officials. The ongoing nuclear talks are about stopping proliferation but there is also a larger historical ambition at stake. Mr Obama would certainly like to make history with Iran in much the same way that Richard Nixon did with Mao’s China in the early 1970s. At this stage, and although the deadline for reaching a nuclear agreement has been pushed back, there are still powerful reasons to doubt he can pull this off. Creative diplomacy is still much required in the Middle East, where it is hard to see how a dominantly military strategy against Islamic State can in itself, and even over time, bring a solution to the region’s woes. It might be a good time to rekindle the idea of genuine political transition in Syria, and make use of Russia’s recent economic weaknesses to try to persuade President Vladimir Putin to deliver on this. That, after all, was the Russian promise in 2012 during international negotiations in Geneva to try to find a solution to the Syrian impasse. Mr Obama can only be aware that the failure to resolve the Syrian crisis and to prevent the mass atrocities will weigh heavily on how history judges his presidency. Mr Clinton wrote in his memoirs that his biggest regret was his failure to intervene to stop the Rwandan genocide. The wish list could go on, of course. If the US joined the UN convention of the law of the sea it might find it easier to get China to adhere to an agreed set of rules as it pursues its power games in the Asia-Pacific region. Mr Obama could also do more to make the US part of the international criminal court, giving a major boost to the fight against impunity. But a lot of this would depend on the acquiescence of the Senate. It was one of Mr Obama’s younger, less experienced advisers on security matters, Ben Rhodes, who did the groundwork on the Cuban deal. There was certainly audacity there. And now there is hope for more. |