Strategic Paradigms by Ehsan Ahrari

The reported choice of Hillary Clinton as President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State does not make much sense. All presidents come to office with a definite worldview and a vision of America’s foreign policy during their term. Assuming that Obama shares these characteristics with his predecessors, his worldview was not quite similar to that which Hillary conveyed during her campaign to defeat Obama for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

One may argue that the preceding reality is not important because, as Secretary of State, she is bound to promote Obama’s agenda. But the fact of the matter is that a successful Secretary of State has to share the agenda and worldview of his/her president before entering into office. That was certainly true in the case of Henry Kissinger. He did not like President Richard M. Nixon; however, regarding the dynamics and modalities of America’s foreign policy, both of them were of the same mind. That fact was largely responsible for the emergence of Kissinger as one of the most successful Secretaries of State of America.

James Baker was a personal friend of President George H. W. Bush. As Secretary of State, he was successful, but he certainly was not in the same league as Kissinger as an effective Secretary of State. Dean Acheson was a stranger to President Truman, but is considered as one of the highly successful Secretaries of State.

One reason why Acheson and Kissinger are regarded as highly successful Secretaries of State is because both of them were promoting foreign policy agendas that could be purely depicted as belonging to their respective presidents. Truman was not particularly well versed in the foreign policy issues of his day, but he had a lot of regard for the capabilities of his Secretary of State.

In the case of Richard Nixon, it is hard to see which part of his foreign policy did not belong purely to Nixon and which issues were purely Kissingerian in nature. In other words, as a unique coincidence of history, both Nixon as a professional politician and Kissinger as one of the premier strategic thinkers of his age, came together to promote the same foreign policy agenda in which the United States was to use the “China card” against the highly contentious Soviet Union. These two American officials developed a highly nuanced foreign policy for their country in which they were to pursue detente in a compartmentalized fashion. The Soviet Union was to learn that the United States was eager to use the China card in order to extract diplomatic concessions from the Communist superpower, whenever it suited its purpose. One can argue that the Soviet Union, on its own part, became equally Machiavellian in terms of supporting and opposing the United States on different issues as they suited its own intricate foreign policy objectives worldwide.

In the process, détente, as a chief approach to America’s dealings with the Soviet Union, came into severe conflict with the neoconservatives of the 1970s. They could not quite fathom the complicated system of “rewards” and “punishments” both superpowers were pursuing. In retrospect, the foreign policy of the Nixon-Kissinger era is still regarded as highly sophisticated and multidimensional in nature, much in the manner of the foreign policy that Acheson promoted and pursued for Truman right after the conclusion of World War II. In that era, the United States presided over the making of the post-WWII global order and emerged as the most durable superpower.

President Barack Obama is coming into office at a similarly remarkable time. That reality is becoming increasingly familiar when one considers the fact that the global economic meltdown is very much in progress. The age-old notion of deregulation of the capitalist economy has come under intense scrutiny. Now, the question is how much regulation of national and global economy is warranted. Another question is whether presiding over of the global economy should be limited to the so-called Group of Eight (G-8) nations, or should it be expanded to include the Group of Twenty (G-20) nations.

There is no doubt that a new global economic dialogue will take place, starting with the initiation of the Obama Presidency. The chief question from the U.S. side is how much power the United States is or ought to be sharing with the G-20 countries. Another question is, as the G-20 increase their role in running the global economy, whether at least some of them should be included as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. There is little doubt that the old Perm-5 (U.S., China, Russia, U.K., and France) are not likely to expand their ranks, because a considerable amount of power—largely the power to use the veto in the Security Council—goes with being a permanent member.

Hillary Clinton will have little problem in promoting this aspect of Obama’s agenda, especially if President Obama were to remain careful about not being overly generous regarding sharing power with other members of the G-20.

But if he were to become an overly “out of the box” thinker in terms of allowing the deflation of America’s power globally, then there is likely to be tension between him and Hillary.

Obama’s chief problem in having Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State will come in dealing with Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and especially regarding the PLO-Israeli conflict.

Regarding Iraq, Obama will be forced to slow the pace of the withdrawal of American troops. He has already altered his rhetoric regarding how fast he wishes to get out of Iraq as President. Still, there is likely to be tension between the two on that issue.

Regarding Iran, even though both of them have already found common ground in Obama’s elaboration that he will let the dialogue with Iranian officials start at a lower level before escalating the level of engagement and widening its scope at a later stage, one has to watch closely how warm Hillary will remain on that issue. One reason for concern is that, as a presidential candidate, she sounded very similar to a typical Bush neoconservative in terms of her harsh rhetoric regarding Iran.

Regarding U.S. dealings with Syria, there is not much reason for concern, for Syria seems to have defused further complications by negotiating with Israel through the use of the good offices of Turkey. The United States will wait and see whether or if major breakthroughs will emerge in those negotiations.

It is in the PLO-Israeli negotiations that Obama and Hillary Clinton are likely to see things differently. After all, Hillary, as a Senator from New York, has been a loud proponent of the Israeli hardline. Whether she will bring about palpable changes in her rhetoric or approach on that issue as Secretary of State will have a lot to do with her future ambitions regarding the presidency. At this point, it is quite premature to state that she has abandoned her ambitions to run for presidency in 2012. Much will depend on how successful a president Barack Obama turns out to be at the end of his first term.

Given these potential complexities, it is hard not to ask why Obama has decided to choose Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State. While it is noble to emulate Abraham Lincoln in selecting your adversaries to serve you and to promote your agenda, from the viewpoint of realpolitik, one has to wonder why the president-elect has decided to be so magnanimous regarding a highly ambitious person like Hillary Clinton. Why is he giving her such a highly visible platform to remain as a potential challenge to him? Maybe, for Barack Obama, the Lincolnian example is hard to overlook or not to emulate. Maybe it is the highly competitive nature of Obama, or, in the final analysis, his self-assured personality that compels him to take chances. In any event, it’s his choice, and one hopes that he will not come to regret it.