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Iran: Spinning Wheels and Ticking Clocks
Despite winning a new round of U.N. sanctions and unprecedented extra European
measures to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, a diplomatic solution
remains as elusive as ever. Last year, Iran's internal power struggles put the
kibosh on a confidence-building deal to exchange uranium, but the election
result may bring U.S. internal politics into play as a further complicating
factor. The U.S. and its allies have not formulated their position on the
terms of an acceptable compromise with Iran, and doing so just became a lot
harder. President Obama will face pressure from a hawkish legislature to get
more confrontational with Iran, even if that threatens to destroy the
carefully crafted international consensus. Sanctions are not changing the
game, and pressure is mounting on Obama as Iran draws closer to being able to
build a bomb, yet he knows that military action could carry consequences more
dangerous than any current threat from Iran's nuclear program. Iran, too, is
less likely to offer an opportunity for Obama than to present him with a
headache.
Who Lost Afghanistan?
Obama has been trying to extricate the U.S. from an unwinnable war in
Afghanistan since he took office, although he was boxed in by his generals
into escalating U.S. involvement via a troop surge. The President hopes to
begin drawing down by next summer, but military commanders believe that would
be ill-advised. Now, they'll have a powerful ally in the new Congress, where
the specter of U.S. defeat will be used to paint Obama as weak on national
security, which will also raise the domestic political cost of progress toward
the inevitable political
settlement with the Taliban.
Who Lost Iraq?
Obama has declared the Iraq war over, and is sticking to the timetable negotiated by the Bush
Administration to withdraw all U.S. forces by the end of next year. The fact
that the Iraqis are largely ignoring Washington's efforts to break their
political stalemate through a power-sharing arrangement between incumbent
prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and his top rival, Iyad Allawi, demonstrates
just how little influence the U.S. now wields in Baghdad. Former U.S.
Ambassador Ryan Crocker predicted last week that a new Iraqi government
would ask Obama to extend the stay of U.S. troops beyond the agreed deadline.
Perhaps, but only if Iran is agreeable.
Not For All the Tea in China...
Beijing was the bogeyman of a lot of anti-Democrat campaign advertising in the
midterm election, and President Obama is certainly under pressure to get tough
on Beijing. But global economic power has shifted in ways that make it
difficult for the U.S. to pick fights with its most important creditor without
putting the prospects for America's own economy at risk. As for military
posturing to contain China's regional muscle flexing, the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan may have revived a belief in Beijing in Mao Zedong's dictum that
the United States "in appearance... is very powerful but in reality it is
nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger." Difficulties elsewhere will
prompt the Administration to strengthen ties with China's regional rivals
ranging from India and Japan to Vietnam. But mindful of the stakes, neither
Washington nor Beijing is likely to make moves that disrupt the stability of
their relationship and that means more business as usual rather than any
game changer for Obama.
It's the Economy, Stupid
President Obama has been struggling against the austerity tide among Western
nations to caution about the danger of a premature curtailing of economic
stimulus amid a tepid global recovery. But the U.S. election has effectively
ended any possibility of further stimulus spending by Washington, too. The
global financial management mechanisms put in place in response to the 2008
financial meltdown particularly the upgrading of the G20 forum will
be tested by tensions over currency and balances of trade in the coming
months, while U.S. leadership has been undercut by the view that Washington's
regulatory failures helped cause the crisis. The most immediate challenge
facing the new Congress will be whether to raise the U.S. debt ceiling early
next year, because the Treasury is a few months away from reaching the limits
of its permitted borrowing. Expanding a national debt already equivalent to
more than 90% of GDP will go against every instinct of the Republican majority
in the House, but declining to do so would risk potentially cataclysmic
consequences in the global financial system.