Washington operates on its own logic (or the lack thereof) and its own myths about every major issues faced by any sitting president.  The current myth is that the Afghan conflict is resolvable on the U.S. terms.  And the U.S. terms include killing as many Taliban as possible, thereby persuading the remainder of the Taliban that their best option is to negotiate their continued survival with the U.S. government.  Since America’s leading politicians are driven by how best to define the American version of victory in Afghanistan, they tend to forget that the other side is equally capable of calculating the modalities of such a victory on its own terms. Therein lies the rub for several reasons.

First, the Taliban is not interested in negotiating peace with the U.S. on the terms that are best suited for the Americans.  Second, the war in Afghanistan has not reached a point when the Taliban as a group is convinced that their best option is to negotiate with the Americans.  In fact, an entirely contrary argument on the issue can be made.  The war is not going well for the Americans, and they, as usual, are watching the clock and are getting increasingly eager about a phased withdrawal from that country.  In fact, President Barak Obama’s chances of reelection in 2012 depend heavily (right behind his success in creating a high rate of employment inside the United States) on his ability to demonstrate to the American voters that he is indeed in the process of phasing out America’s continued presence from Afghanistan while winning the conflict.

Unfortunately for the American side, the Taliban know that fact very well.  As it becomes increasingly crucial for the Americans to get out of Afghanistan for electoral reasons, the Taliban can correctly envisage that situation as a harbinger of victory.  All they had to do is just prolong the battle and wait.

Under these circumstances, it is futile to expect a mass switching of the side by the Taliban.  Thus, stories on that topic in the American media remain anecdotal rather than portraying them as a rising trend among the Taliban, especially in the South, which is an area of strong Taliban presence and influence.

Is there any scenario when the American occupation forces of Afghanistan can bring about a successful conclusion of the conflict?  Given the intensity of the hatred, suspicion, and ill will that both sides hold toward each other, one cannot think of any such scenario.  Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban, who has been pursued as a “high value target” by both Bush and Obama administrations, is not expected to find any reason to negotiate with the  American side.  Besides, what makes the Americans or President Hamid Karzai to think that Omar would be interested in sharing power with the Karzai government, which has been the focal point of his contempt and anger since it came into existence?

On the basis of these factors, the successful end of the Afghan conflict has to be along the lines of a clear-cut defeat either of the Taliban or the Americans.  Given the fact that Afghanistan continues to serve as a graveyard of empire, at least the burden of history as well as the current ground realities are very much against the Americans.

One of the first impressions that a reader gets from Obama’s NSS is that he is quite sensitive about the remarkably transforming global environment where economic security, more than the fear of transnational terrorism, is driving America’s foreign policy. Even the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland – as horrible as they were – did not make even a slight dent in its global leadership. However, Bush’s Rambo-style “global war on terrorism” jeopardized the European consensus related to America’s leadership. In most Third World countries, that leadership was seriously questioned, and even rejected. The American phrase-makers, who applauded the “shock and awe” with which the regime of Saddam Hussein was dismantled in Iraq, were thunderstruck when the Iraqi insurgency created its own shock and awe for the lone superpower. The world came to know that shock and awe as the “Iraqi quagmire.”

Obama’s NSS is issued in the aftermath of the global meltdown of 2008-2009, which seriously challenged America’s global dominance, because, inter alia, it threatened to constrain its ability to pay for its global military interventions. The notion of “imperial stretch,” popularized by Paul Kennedy in the 1980s – but which remains highly relevant in the first decade of the 21st Century – became a reality more than ever before. What is also sobering is that the PRC, the erstwhile “proto-peer competitor” of the United States, is beginning to look more like another superpower in the realm of economic power and in terms of its success in building spheres of influence, even in far off places in Africa and Latin America.

One of the foremost strands of Obama’s NSS is that it underscores the fundamental connections between “our national security” and “our national competitiveness.” That is a highly nuanced statement, which requires the rejuvenation of “a whole of government approach” domestically, and multilateralism abroad. That will be done by “renewing America’s leadership” through “building at home and shaping abroad.” The unstated part of this phrase is that America’s ability to shape abroad has markedly diminished as the global arena witnesses increased hyper-activism from the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), the Group of 20 (G-20) nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – where China and Russia are dominant, with the Central Asian countries are becoming increasingly assertive, and where Iran, Pakistan, and India have joined as “observers.”

The second noteworthy strand of the new NSS is that the shrilled tone of Bush’s NSS has been replaced by a sober recognition that, only by implementing a series of nuanced policies rather than by adopting bumper-sticker-type slogans, will America resolve challenges to its global dominance.

The third major theme of the new NSS is its resolve of “pursuing comprehensive engagement.” China, India, and Russia will remain America’s focus of strategic engagement, but an interesting addition of G-20 countries is yet more evidence of the much-heralded pragmatism of the Obama administration in the new century. The neoconservatives – who were living in a fool’s paradise during the Bush administration and thought that the world would roll over and play dead while the United States built Pax-Americana – are likely to have a fit on this point, because it is a major departure from the conventional American spotlight on the G-8 countries. It is worth noting that those countries have not disappeared from the global economic scenes; however, they have certainly become palpably less relevant.

A list of conventional threats to America’s national security is appropriately included: nuclear proliferation, al-Qaida’s interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction (a more realistic mention ought to be that organization’s continued search for a “dirty bomb”), the Arab-Israeli conflict, the nuclear weapons-related to Iran and North Korea, etc.

The United States remains determined to “broaden its engagement with Muslim countries around the world,” a challenge that the Bush administration attempted to tackle, but failed miserably, in view of its involvement in the humiliation of the Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib by American servicemen and women, the torture of prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay prison, the use of torture in questioning the terrorism suspects in general, and a regular practice by the CIA of kidnapping Muslim clerics and other individuals on suspicion of their involvement in terrorist organizations, and their subsequent rendition for questioning to Muslim countries, where the use of brutal torture was common practice.

Obama’s NSS is rightly focused on al-Qaida. Countering its threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and more to the point, to the domestic security of the United States, tops America’s strategic agenda. As an Islamist group – that is working as a movement in some regions, while still participating in the activities of other Islamist groups in Iraq and North Africa, or remaining very much alive as an organization in the Arabian Peninsula – America’s fight with that entity is far from over.

The overall reception of Obama’s NSS throughout different regions of the world is likely to be more positive than those issued by President Bush. Through this document, President Obama is categorically expressing this country’s resolve to lead, not as a global sheriff, but as a builder of regional and global consensus on all issues of high politics. Lest we forget, that modus operandi made America the world’s most durable superpower.

There is one important difference, however. By including a general outline of his exit strategy in his speech, Obama signaled, albeit unwittingly, to the Afghans that his country is not going to hang around in that neighborhood. They long suspected the United States of doing just that.

While the necessity of having an exit strategy may soothe Obama’s democratic base on the left, it only confirms the Afghan doubts about the earnestness of America’s staying power in their country. The Taliban-al-Qaida might have roundly applauded those lines from Obama’s speech.

President Obama’s chief problem in Afghanistan is that there is no winning in that country without permanently occupying it. And all the past occupiers were defeated in attempting to do so. Afghans are legendary in their abilities to unite to fight outsiders, but then turn against each other when they succeed in ousting the foreign occupiers to wage equally bloody battles. No wonder their country has the ominous moniker of “the graveyard of empires.”

His second problem is that there has not been a tradition of a strong central government in that country. So, creating one now is out of the question in the sense that it would take a long time for an occupying force to achieve that goal. Even the achievability of that goal is a highly dubious proposition. An alternative is to create a federal type of government, with strong provinces and a weak center. However, it is difficult to function with that type of arrangement, even in countries with a strong tradition of democracy, a high rate of literacy, and a powerful legacy of political compromise. Those traditions are totally alien to Afghanistan.

The third serious challenge for the Obama administration in Afghanistan is that Islam has a powerful presence there. In the post-Soviet Afghanistan, that Islamic presence became acutely political, with overarching features of Wahhabi Puritanism, militant Jihad, and suicide bombings. Even the old style Afghan politicians-and there are not too many of them left in that country–are befuddled about how to eliminate those characteristics that are so alien to their polity.

The United States has never shown even a slight evidence of having any capabilities of working with Islamist groups anywhere in the world, including in Iraq. George W. Bush was shocked to see the election of Islamists, when elections were held in Iraq in 2005. After that, the Iraqi quagmire left little hope for the United States to stay put and to develop a Western-style democracy. So, as a matter of last resort, it learned to live with Islamist democracy in Iraq, while hoping to extricate itself from that country in the next few years.

President Obama’s speech barely touched on the geopolitical intricacies of the Afghan war, which have made any realistic solution of that problem so elusive. He has decided to work closely with Pakistan, but has said nothing about the Indo-Pak rivalry, which is complicating that conflict. India has a huge supposedly diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, which Pakistan regards as a major challenge to its security. The United States not only has to reexamine that issue closely, but also must do everything to soothe Pakistani anxieties. Unless that happens, Pakistan is not likely to emerge as a serious partner of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Finally, President Obama has shown a lack of interest in nation-building in Afghanistan. Given the enormous expenditures that the United States is faced with in Iraq, and given his noble endeavors to come up with a national healthcare policy in the United States, one can fully understand his refusal to get involved in a mega-billion-dollar commitment of nation-building in Afghanistan. However, that is precisely what that country needs, once political stability starts to emerge there.

Afghanistan will serve as a crucial laboratory for this President to learn how to conduct foreign policy in a highly complex place. It will also become a country where he is not likely to encounter victory. However, the fact that he has decided to commit a large number of forces and to tie the fate of his presidency to stabilization of that country speaks volumes about the audacity of his courage.

What seems to be happening in East Asia—as elsewhere—is that the United States is trying to find a niche for multilateralism as a modus operandi for solving global economic problems, which are affecting the United States more than they are the PRC.  The latter, being a controlled economy, can manipulate its fiscal and monetary policies without much debate or tug-and-pull, which are idiosyncratic of American democracy and its system of separation of powers.  Another reality is that, despite America’s exhortations for an active leadership role in the management of global economy, the PRC has been very reluctant to be forthcoming.

It is not that the current leadership of China is still so hung up in following the 1989 advice of the late Deng Xiaoping who said “hide the brightness and nourish obscurity” (Taoguang Yanghui).  Rather, they have not decided how forthcoming they ought to be in “nourishing obscurity.”  The least discussed aspect of China’s current policy posture is that, in its spectacular rise, it has become a very conservative power.  That conservatism is also nurtured by the fear of Chinese leaders of the potential destructive aspects of their people’s wrath if their economic development falters or flops.  So, it opts for pursuing economic policies whose success has been proven.  In addition, China seems to be apprehensive that its assertive posture in economic affairs might be misinterpreted as a harbinger of its brazenness in military issues.  It should be remembered that China, unlike any other country in recent history, has to be constantly on the defensive about the purpose of its rise, by insisting that it will be of a peaceful nature.  

One area where China has been quite proactive, indeed assertive, is in finding energy reserves and in acquiring equity oil by offering lucrative contracts to the owners of energy reserves.  That policy has been a source of constant criticism from Western countries, many of which have notorious records of their own in coddling up to the dictators of the Middle East to ensure guaranteed access to oil. 

The goal of finding assured access to energy sources is one of the vital interests of China.  At the same time, finding solutions to economic problems, though that is quite important, they will not become vital to China as long as the United States remains willing and able to play a dominant role in attempting to solve them.  So, the argument that China might be acting as a “free-loader” on economic issues is not at all wrong-headed.

The question, then, is whether the United States is being irrational in expecting China’s leading role in world affairs.  What Washington might not have considered at this point is whether it really wishes China to become a co-equal in resolving global economic issues, because the Chinese are quite busy calculating why they should bear the burden of leadership, when, in the final analysis, the United States might steal most of the limelight once these problems lose their current obduracy and attendant urgency.  In thinking along these lines, the Chinese are not being petty, they are only being coy.

There have also been suggestions that President Obama has an ambitious strategic agenda of extracting cooperation from China.  That includes putting pressure on Pakistan to be more resolute in defeating the Pakistani Taliban; and on Iran to close down its nuclear program, which Washington suspects of leading to that country’s emergence as the next nuclear power.

Obama’s best bet is to concentrate on seeking China’s cooperation on global economic matters.  That is the only area where the deft Chinese leadership sees much benefit in cooperating with the U.S. at this point.  Their ties with Pakistan are inextricably linked with their rivalry with India.  The United States has not even begun to comprehend the intricacies related to that issue.  Iran is an important partner of China in the realm of energy supplies and an important customer of its military weapons.  No amount of U.S. persuasion is likely to bring those ties to an end.

In the final analysis, Washington is well-advised to understand that China’s regional and global ties are becoming almost as cumbersome as its own.  That very reality enhances the element of selectivity, which the leaders in Beijing will increasingly use in dealing with the United States in the days ahead.

I read Roy’s first two books when they first came out.  While reading The Failure of Political Islam, I felt then, as I do now, that Roy’s conclusion about the alleged failure of that movement was premature.  Movements—especially ideological or religious-based ones—have a long duration and a variety of phases through which they pass over a long period of time before a somewhat meaningful—but still premature—judgment can be passed regarding their success or failure.  Social scientists, to the contrary, are like judges in an Olympic competition–too much in a hurry to measure the performance of the participants in order to declare winners and losers.  One of the most interesting studies of the phases of a movement is Crane Brinton’s, The Anatomy of Revolution.[1]  An interesting approach for the study of Roy’s thesis on political Islam is to examine it through an application of Brinton’s framework.

The title of Roy’s book, Globalized Islam, as Professor Hroub also notes, “contradicts…[Olivier’s] own failure thesis” of his previous book.  How can a failed movement become globalized and still be depicted as “failed”?  My own explanation is similar to the one that Hroub touches on, but is elaborately discussed in the Islamist literature under the rubric of fighting the “far enemy” (i.e., the “infidel-in-chief,” meaning the United States) versus the “near enemies” (Arab and Muslim governments) among many Islamist groups.  That debate was settled temporarily between 1999 and 2001.  As a result of which the audacious decision of attacking the lone superpower on its own homeland was taken.  As one tracks the “global” rhetoric of today’s “Jihadists,” one gets the sense that they are driven by the goals of fighting the U.S. as well as destabilizing the “near enemies.”

I lean toward the proposition that al-Qaida and other pan-Islamist groups were shocked about the scope and intensity of the U.S. response, which was also accompanied by George W. Bush’s ominous caveat that was especially aimed at the Arab leaders:  “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

In the aftermath of America’s global war on terrorism (GWOT), in order to survive, al-Qaida was forced to transform itself into a movement.  There also ensued the decision of regional and sub-regional Islamist groups to develop their own campaigns of terror in agreement with Mus’ab al-Suri’s operational slogan: Nizam la Tanzim.  That, in my estimation, is the beginning of the making of global Jihad.[2]

To argue that there is such a thing called globalized Islam is belaboring the obvious.  “Islamic internationalism” is an old idea.  In today’s parlance, that very idea is repackaged as “globalized Islam.”  The notion of nationalism and citizenship has always been alien to Islam.  The global promotion of that idea, especially starting in the 1990s, was easy because it was very much in harmony with the theological concept that states: “Islam is a religion of all ages.”  The global reach of the Internet has turned out to be a perfect tool for the globalization of a notion that was intrinsically global to start with.

Political Islam’s temporary failure—temporary because, as I stated earlier, it is a premature judgment on the part of Roy—stems from two very important variables.  The first one—as only touched upon by Professor Hroub but not fully developed—is that it has failed to offer nuanced and comprehensive solutions to what ails Muslim polities.  Answers to that question are hard to develop even in a whole book.  Even Bernard Lewis, after asking the right question in his book, What Went Wrong?, desolately failed to provide  persuasive answers.[3]

Secondly, because all Muslim polities are non-democratic, there was no chance of Islamists capturing power through an election.  Even in countries where limited electoral practices existed, elections are characterized by the odious practices of ballot-stuffing by the cronies of the regimes in order to ensure that there should be no transfer of power.  We have recently witnessed this phenomenon in the elections of Iran and Afghanistan.

Islamists have long known that merely shouting, “Islam is the solution!” is never enough.  They needed to develop comprehensive programs of political and economic development.  Muslim theologists failed to become experts in contemporary economics, global trade, international politics, or other contemporary disciplines, largely because they rejected them as “failed” and “godless” disciplines, without offering alternatives.  Even now, I am unaware of any theologist who has offered alternatives.   All countries that explicitly call themselves “Islamic”—Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Sudan, or Iran, for instance—are failed and corrupt polities and are characterized by backward economies.  When a Muslim youngster looks for an “Islamic solution” to problems that ail his/her society, he/she finds an immense vacuum.  So, the failure of those states to emerge as stable polities or strong economies becomes a credible indicator that other Islamist groups would also fail, if or when they capture political power.

But, what are the chances of the Islamists capturing power in any country in the coming years?  With the exception of Hamas, I would say none.  Even Hamas, by remaining intransigent about changing its stance regarding Israel, has condemned itself to failure.  The United States, the EU, and other countries, by denying economic assistance to Palestine, have been serving as leading players in ensuring that Hamas does not succeed as a political entity. 

Most importantly, an unspoken aspect of the Western actors’ systematic attempts to ensure that Hamas fails is also related to their fear that, if Hamas succeeds in stabilizing Palestine, other Islamist groups will be encouraged to capture power and then hang on long enough to become victorious.  However, when Hamas’ rule comes to end in Palestine, that development will not necessarily persuade other Islamist groups to stop their endeavors to capture political power in their own countries.  

I was once of the view that, perhaps, the Islamists should be given a chance to come to power through elections, and be allowed to fail.  However, after watching the performance of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, I have changed my mind.  In the absence of comprehensive programs to stabilize their polities and to strengthen their economies, their chances of success are none. 

A few words about the Islamic Republic of Iran:  that country could have been an example of the success of an Islamic government; Iran has had a reasonable amount of democracy and ample oil and gas reserves to introduce ambitious programs of modernization;  and the Iranian leaders encountered serious problems from the United States in the 1980s, when the US sided with Iraq in the bloody war between the two neighbors. 

Undoubtedly, the United States wanted Iraq to do America’s dirty work by getting rid of the Ayatollahs through that war.  However, both Washington and Baghdad failed miserably in fulfilling their objective of terminating the Islamic government in Iran.  From Iran’s point of view, it was correct to state that their revolution was not given a chance to succeed. 

The Iranian fraudulent election of last June does not bode well for the Islamic Republic.  Iran seems to be steadily edging toward chaos for which the hardline Islamists of that country are substantially responsible.

What does the continuing saga of the Islamic Republic say about the future of political Islam in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world of Islam?[4]  It has not found its niche as a movement, largely because it has not yet developed a comprehensive framework for governance.  However, the concept of eternity that is related to Islam as a religion is one reason why the Islamists (or political Islamists) will continue to try and fail, but will not stop until they have a successful recipe for governance.  When will they succeed?  An answer to that question is not within the realm of Social Science.

The administration of President Barack H. Obama has started the highly intricate process of developing its own strategy with a bang in different regions of the world.  Here are the ingredients of that strategy: multilateralism, looking for a fresh start—which promises to be substantially different from the preceding administration—search for common ground involving Russia, invitation of negotiations with America’s traditional adversaries like Iran and North Korea, and at least the initial hope that approaches toward Palestine, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are likely to be radically different than the one the Bush administration pursued unsuccessfully.  This is a huge agenda.  But Obama’s administration has the enormous characteristic of freshness, metaphorically as well as substantively, in the sense that it is not carrying any baggage that had so infamously bogged down George W. Bush in an ostensibly endless inertia.

President Obama has insisted in talking to everyone, especially to America’s traditional adversaries.  Talking is better than not talking, he uncomplicatedly observed during the presidential campaign.  America’s strict observance of this principle promises to open a lot of doors.  It will also lower the feeling of fear and paranoia on the part of Iran and North Korea, who were simplistically and wrongly depicted by the Bush administration as members of an imaginary “axis of evil.”

Multilateralism has served America’s interest in its entire post-World War II history.  The United States led the Herculean task of rebuilding global economic institutions and regimes like the United Nations, the Bretton Woods Agreement, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.  America had the required economic prowess while other global actors—the Soviet Union, the U.K. and France—were simply exhausted with their economies devastated by the ravages of war.  But it was the frame of mind and global vision of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt more than America’s economic power that enabled the United States to become the leader of the so-called “free world,” a position it has never really relinquished, even today.

America’s leadership position was seriously—and hopefully not permanently—damaged in the post-9/11 era, when unilateralism and the hubris of the Bush administration acted like termites,  voraciously eating up most of the goodwill that the United states had created all over the world.

Obama is off to a good start.  He already has spoken to the world of Islam, stating that America will deal with it respectfully and on the basis of pragmatism; he has invited Iran to unclench its fist and initiate an era of negotiations on the basis of mutual respect; and he has appointed George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke as special envoys for Middle East and South Asia, respectively.  He has sent his Vice President, Joe Biden, to talk to the Europeans and to the Russians. 

Cumulatively speaking, this is a radical departure from the Bush administration.   Now, an intricate series of negotiations must start.  What the Obama administration must keep in mind is the fact that although it is approaching a number of actors with an open mind and unclenched fist, it may not get an immediate enthusiastic response or positive results.

In the case of Russia, the United States is faced with a country that has decided to become significant by taking the wrong route of unilateralism and hubris, which were hallmarks of the Communist superpower.  Russia cannot assert itself in that manner toward its neighbors, who have the bitter experience of being the captives of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) throughout the Cold War years, and then wonder why they so eagerly seek the shield of NATO.  Russia’s neighbors are watching warily, and with dismay, the incessant de-democratization of that country.   They do not know what to make of Russia’s energy-related assertiveness, which has taken the form of neo-mercantilism.  They watched in horror Russia’s clear over-reaction to the stupid decision of Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia to confront it militarily.

While Vice President Joe Biden is suggesting that the United States wants to “press the reset button” of ties with Moscow, Russia was busy working up a deal with Kyrgyzstan, whereby its President, Kurmanbek Bakiev, invited the United States to get out of the Manas air base, a development that will complicate America’s logistical problems of keeping the supply lines open to its forces in Afghanistan.  However, the stateship of Russia also works like an aircraft carrier: it changes its direction rather slowly.  Thus, it will be awhile before positive responses to the U.S. overtures might emerge.  While it does not pay to be overly pessimistic about Russia’s response, one does not have to hold ones breath for a long time to envisage such a development.  The signals regarding Russia’s willingness to cooperate, or not, will come soon enough.

The U.S.-Iran ties have mammoth complications of their own.  The first hurdle is the bad blood related to America’s support for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from 1953 through 1978.  That era has the same legacy of shame and bitterness for Iran as China’s memories related to the “decades of humiliations” at the hands of the West and Japan.  At the same time, the United States has not forgotten the ignominy it had suffered during the “hostage crisis” of the late 1970s.  That crisis also played a dominant role in making Jimmy Carter a one-term President. 

The second hurdle is America’s Iran-Libya Sanction Legislation, which Iran envisions (quite correctly) as aimed at bringing about “regime change.”  All such legislation has to be categorically nullified before any serious negotiations take place between Washington and Tehran.  The United States has to accept the legitimacy of the Iranian government if it wishes to give real meaning to negotiating with it from the position of “mutual respect.”

The third hurdle is Iran’s nuclear research program, which the United States regards as aimed at developing nuclear weapons.  While it is hard to categorize America’s concerns as baseless, one must also fully understand Iran’s security concerns.  Iran has the same sense of insecurity that drove India to seek nuclear weapons.  At least India had the tacit support of, and some semblance of security guarantees from, the FSU while it was around.  Iran had no such support or guarantees from any major power.  What country would come to its assistance if the United States were to decide to bring about regime change in Iran?  What great power came to Iraq’s rescue when Iraq was similarly threatened by the Bush administration?  Could Iraq have gone through the bloody process of regime change if it had had nuclear weapons?  These questions are uppermost in the minds of the Ayatollahs, who are cavalierly and regularly demonized in America’s press and academic journals.

The negotiations between the United States and Iran have to seriously address Iran’s security concerns.  Given the nature of hostile attitudes that have prevailed between the two actors, it is hard to imagine a scenario when the lone superpower can believably guarantee Iran’s security and foreswear all actions aimed at regime change.  Even some European countries’ attempts to give verbal security guarantees to Iran will not do.  Thus, the nuclear issue remains a very obdurate problem between the two.  The Obama administration must summon all its creativity to resolve this aspect of U.S.-Iran conflict before any semblance of “normalcy” is restored between the two.

If one were to believe North Korea, it is already a nuclear power.  It has had a legacy of confronting a number of U.S. presidents who have threatened it with the use of nuclear weapons.  About the only realistic possibility under which Pyongyang might unravel its nuclear weapons is if it is protected under the nuclear umbrella of the People’s Republic of China.  That angle has not been pursued either by the U.S., the Chinese, or the North Koreans, at least in their unclassified diplomatic meetings.  In the absence of a nuclear umbrella, it is well-nigh impossible to imagine a circumstance under which Kim Jong Il would give up his nuclear weapons.   It might not be a bad idea for the Obama administration to consider pursuing that angle in future negotiations with the North Koreans and the Chinese.

The Palestinian-Israeli issue is a hostage to the upcoming Israeli elections.  If Benjamin Netanyahu is elected, then all bets are off about any resolution that is acceptable to the Likud and Hamas.  These two parties are equally fundamentalist and bull-headed about pursuing their respective version of the solution.  George Mitchell is likely to forget how complicated the Irish conflict was while he will tries to find common ground between the inflexible positions of Hamas and Likud.  On this issue, the U.S. strategy is likely to face frequent impasses. 

Regarding Pakistan and Afghanistan, the challenge for the Obama administration is no less daunting than the preceding issues.  Those two countries are places where al-Qaida has emerged as a major force.  The question is how to deal with the rising tide of religious extremism and problems of failing and weak governments.  President Obama wrongly considers that the immediate solution is in increasing the number of troops, since that approach supposedly helped lower the spiral of violence in stabilizing Iraq.  The fact is that it is much more complicated than that.  It was the fortuitous confluence of the decision of the “Sons of Iraq” to cooperate with the U.S. military against al-Qaida, along with the U.S. military’s decision not only to strengthen its number, but also to implement the “clear, hold, and build” strategy that helped stabilize Iraq.  The question is whether the Obama administration has correctly understood what actually transpired in Iraq, or is it merely repeating the process of raising the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan as a panacea for stabilizing that country.  The burden of evidence thus far is that it has not understood the intricacies of Afghanistan and is about to commit itself with the wrong-minded approach of using the military tool of America’s national power to resolve an enormously complicated situation.

Pakistan is a larger challenge than Afghanistan, in the sense that it not only negatively affects the stability of Afghanistan but also similarly affects the internal stability of India.  The Mumbai terrorist attacks have proven that fact.  The most ignored—and an extremely important—fact of South Asia is that neither India nor Afghanistan will be stable or peaceful places as long as highly visible measures are taken to soothe the security-related concerns of Pakistan involving India.  An important aspect of that concern is the lowering of India’s presence in Afghanistan, which Pakistan (rightly or wrongly) perceives as foreboding to its own security.  The Bush administration ignored that fact; and the Obama administration will ignore it at the risk of damaging its own interests in South Asia.

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President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have emphasized America’s resolve to use pragmatism, cordiality, realism, and firmness in its foreign policy toward the troubled regions of the world and about soothing the security-related concerns of America’s friends and especially its competitors and adversaries.  The coming months will be crucial to test their authenticity of purpose.

President Obama has already captured the world’s attention for his youthful pragmatism, his attention to detail, his fervor to take on highly intricate conflicts, and his zeal to resolve them.  One only has to recall how the world leaders were eagerly positioning themselves to be close to him during the photo-op of the G-20.  President Obama, while enjoying his moments of popularity, appeared cheerfully gracious and humble.

The Western pundits are making too much of the fact that, despite his star-like popularity, Obama did not get much from the world leaders in the form of concessions. Such criticism minimizes the fact that only the interests of nations determine whether or how its leaders will cooperate or not cooperate with their counterparts.  However, in the final analysis, the kind of mutual affinity these leaders were developing toward each other during the G-20 Summit would only maximize the chances for cooperation and the search for common ground on issues of enormous intricacy.

Obama definitely created a positive impression on President Hu Jintao of China, Dr. Manmohan Singh of India (who requested an autographed picture of the President for his daughter), and a slew of other world leaders.  The initiation of the U.S.-China strategic dialogue was a momentous decision both for China and for the U.S.  It was important for China to be recognized by the lone superpower as a fledgling superpower not out of sheer good-will, but because of the fact that China will have a large say in the modalities of future solutions to pull the world out of its global economic meltdown.

European leaders who were watching that development were figuring out, in their own collective minds, the implications of the U.S.-China strategic dialogue for the EU, which until now has been regarded as a mega entity that will co-facilitate, with the U.S., the managing of global economic and trade order.  

Aside from China, the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) were also jockeying for their own advantage with a U.S. President who was not hamstrung by the psychological baggage that most (if not all) of his predecessors carried as “builders” and “managers” of a global order.  

The G-20 was the beginning of an era when brown and black leaders will take charge of creating and recreating the destinies of their nations and the white leaders would only share that process with them.   Thus, that Summit will be remembered, not for failing to pass high-minded resolutions which are usually ignored anyway, but for creating the precedence of leveling the global economic playing field and for creating precious moments from whence a new hierarchy of global order will emerge to make the world a more governable place.  President Obama’s frame of reference played a major role in it by accepting peer competitors (China, India, and Russia) as such, and still by remaining resolute about developing multilateral solutions to the problems of the globalized world.

President Obama’s decision to approach Iran with an “unclenched fist” was a major change.  Even if Iran were not to show major signs for imminent compromise—which it may not because it is genuinely concerned for its security—it definitely sees America in a far better light than it did when Bush appeared to “concoct” plans for attacks on Iran.

Opening toward Cuba is another radical change.  Then, President Obama shook hands during the recent Summit of the Americas with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a man who envisions himself as Castro of the 21^st Century.  However, when Castro is made irrelevant—not by illness but by the antiquated nature of his ideas—Obama is clearly signaling the Cuban and Venezuelan governments to change their ways and to join the quest for economic productivity that is on in all corners of the world.  By shaking hands with Chavez, Obama has signaled, “let’s not quibble over the ‘injustices’ of the past, and let’s break new paths of progress, productivity, and prosperity for our respective peoples.”  At the same time, Chavez is increasingly hearing the chant from the protestors:  Chavez no se va (“Chavez is going nowhere”).

It is only in Afghanistan that Obama will have to be very careful about not personalizing that war, as his predecessor did in the case of the war in Iraq.  Afghanistan and Iraq are two places where Obama might come face to face with his Waterloo, if he is not careful.  His PakAf approach is a good one, but it has to rely less on using the military tool of national power and more on nation-building.  Pakistan and Afghanistan are two ticking time bombs.  Defusing them will take enormous amounts of skill and a high degree of pragmatism.  There are no military solutions for those two countries.  The tide of Islamism has to be lowered by indigenous leaders, not by American or Western ones.  Thus far, there has not been a credible solution to Islamic radicalism from within the world of Islam.  Unless that happens, the U.S. or the West certainly cannot impose one.  In the meantime, President Obama has started the process of a “dialogue” with the world of Islam.  That, indeed, is a good start.  Results are slow in coming.  But they are most likely to be positive ones.

That is not an acceptable choice.  But one has to keep thinking about how to win in Afghanistan.  The victory is not going to be either quick or without a radically different approach toward that troubled country.

The Obama administration has the right approach of coupling Afghanistan’s security with that of Pakistan’s.  The appointment of Richard Holbrooke as Special Envoy is also a good thing, provided that he does not adopt a “bull-in-the-china shop” approach toward creating a winning strategy.  Holbrooke needs to take time in his long and boring journeys to South Asia to read the history of the great power involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Afghanistan has been an historical burial ground of all mighty warriors of the past, from Alexander the Great to the second superpower of the Cold War years—the Soviet Union.  Secondly, as much as the Afghan’s unity against the invaders and occupiers of their homeland is legendary, so is their internecine war among themselves once the occupier is expelled.  That is just another reason Afghanistan needs a helping hand to evolve itself into a stable place, which will require a lot of patient involvement of the United States and enormous economic and knowledge capital.

The United States is increasingly being viewed as an occupier of Afghanistan. 

That notion has to be defeated by conducting elections and by developing an approach that enhances the legitimacy of the next elected government.  As unpopular President Hamid Karzai has been inside Afghanistan, prospects of someone’s election as his replacement might not be too bright.  Thus, U.S. strategy must be focused on enhancing the legitimacy of whoever is the next elected president of Afghanistan, including Karzai. 

In this context, Washington must revisit the political strategy that was applied toward enhancing the legitimacy of the government of Prime Minister Noori al-Maliki.  Karzai is not Maliki, but the next elected president (even if it is Karzai) must operate by adopting a new governing strategy.  A starting point for that strategy ought to be nullification of the rule of the warlords and eradication of the opium trade.

A popular suggestion inside the U.S. is to destroy the opium crop and thereby take away the livelihood of poor Afghan farmers.  An alternative is not to destroy that crop, but only to purchase it, or use it in legal worldwide use for medicinal purposes.  That approach is likely to get a lot of criticism inside the U.S., but the option of destroying the opium crop without providing a substitute crop or an alternate way of living for Afghan farmers is also a recipe for disaster.  On this particular issue, the United States needs to heavily rely on the expertise of Afghan specialists in Asia and Europe in order to develop policy options.    

The Obama administration’s consideration of offering massive economic assistance to Pakistan is an approach in the right direction.  Senators John Kerry and Chuck Hagel have already made a good start by endorsing a “strategy” for Pakistan that was developed by the Atlantic Council. 

Pakistan needs massive economic assistance, but with high standards of transparency and accountability.  A large part of that assistance must go to revamping the educational institutions in that country, especially religious schools.  The issue of reforming religious curricula has been a highly controversial one.  However, Islamists should not be given a free hand in implementing their half-baked theological perspectives as the only correct interpretation of Islam. 

Pakistan has a large number of religious scholars whose expertise in this regard should be fully utilized.  This issue will probably lead to intense controversy, and even violence.  However, it has to be tackled with the same vigor as the highly contentious objectives of the Islamization of Pakistan that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and General Zia ul-Haq implemented.  As a secular politician, Bhutto adopted the Islamization policy only to appease the Islamists in the 1970s, and to counterbalance the powerful Army.  Zia was most resolute in following up the precedent of Bhutto, except Zia had no problem in becoming a hero of the Islamists, who were pursuing the same agenda at that time.

Another thrust of educational reforms of the Pakistani educational institutions ought to be insertion of a massive dosage of modern scientific and technological education.  The future stability of Pakistan is largely dependent upon its continued emergence as a modern state and not a place where religious obscurantism prevails.

Regarding the military aspect of a winning strategy, the solution is not just in providing 30,000 more American troops, even though that approach, in tandem with other measures, is likely to be helpful, but definitely not by itself.  The United States has already recognized the fact that the security of Afghanistan is intrinsically linked with that of Pakistan’s and vice versa.  But the Obama administration has not gone far enough. 

The next step is to involve India in the security-related negotiations.  India has been paranoid about the possible American decision to reintroduce the “hyphen” in its handling of the Indo-Pak ties, which India abhors.  However, no negotiations regarding the security of Pakistan and Afghanistan is complete without insisting on the reentry of India into such negotiations.  This is not tantamount to reentering the “hyphen” in the Indo-Pak ties.  It only ensures Pakistan that the U.S. comprehends Islamabad’s legitimate security concerns and is determined to take it fully into consideration by getting India involved. 

The Obama administration has to recognize the fact that Pakistan is as much concerned about cross-border “shenanigans” from the Indian side as India has been of similar activities initiating in Pakistan.  In the Indo-Pak power games there are no “good guys.”  Both countries have a record in destabilizing the other side.

The U.S. invitation to Iran to participate in the impending March 21, 2009 conference is also remarkable.  It sets up the first face-to-face meeting between the Obama administration and Iranian officials.  More to the point, it creates ample stakes for Iran regarding the stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In terms of defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan, the United States needs a version of counterinsurgency strategy that is markedly different from the one implemented in Iraq.  Such a strategy requires opening a negotiating front with the Taliban and attempting to drive a wedge between them and the al-Qaida forces.  There is no negotiating with al-Qaida elements who only know the language of death and mayhem.  They should be dealt with by implanting the tactic of “fighting fire with fire.”

The very proposition of winning in Afghanistan is not just a paradigm shift; it is, indeed, an earth shattering proposition, and the potential creation of a new historical precedence.  That approach also requires highly unique measures.  Fortunately, the United States has a President who appears to be much more revolutionary in his actions than he sounded in his rhetoric as a presidential candidate.  The only question is how resolute will he remain in his sustained departure from using “conventional” and tired old approaches of stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan.  He has a number of ill-wishers inside his own country.  But the most important reality is that the entire world wants him to succeed in South Asia and everywhere else.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States required not only a military response to the perpetrators, but a detailed and introspective look at its foreign policy.  But no such examination of foreign policy was carried out.  One right question was asked: “Why do they hate us?”  But that question got lost in the search for recrimination only.  The assumption underlying that question was that “they” were wrong in hating us because we did nothing wrong in the world, especially in the Muslim world.  Several wrong answers that America’s civilian leadership gave as a self response to the aforementioned question were that “they hate us because we are free and we love freedom.”  Or, “they hate us because of our way of life.”  Such responses made the Americans feel good about themselves.

However, the trouble with such “feel good” answers is that the leadership remains totally oblivious to the need for taking a hard look at the real policy-related reasons for any disgruntlement or hatred of America abroad.  Consequently, under the administration of George W. Bush, the United States went in a wrong direction in a big way.  The first step taken to punish the terrorists by dismantling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was the right one.  But America took a series of wrong steps for wrong reasons. 

The first was the invasion of Iraq.  At first, the rationale was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.  But, once those weapons were not found, various other convenient justifications were made on a regular basis.  That action transformed Bush’s warning to the world—“either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”—into an ominous threat to countries that were on America’s list of “bad actors,” “rogue states,” or members of an imaginary “axis of evil.”  The only good thing that came out of that threat was Libya’s abandonment of its ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons.  However, Kim Jong Il of North Korea and the Iranian leaders took the notion of “regime change” to heart.  Consequently, North Korea acquired nuclear weapons, and Iran may be well on its way to do the same.

America’s image was tarnished immeasurably from its continued occupation of Iraq.  As any occupying force would do, it indulged in prison abuse, humiliation of the proud Iraqis by indulging in all activities that an occupying power deems necessary in the name of “security.”  But those activities made an enemy out of countless citizens of Iraq. 

The United States systematically sent “detainees” from Afghanistan and Iraq to various Arab countries where torture of prisoners is a way of life.  Much worse than that, the United States used torture as a regular tool for extracting information from the prisoners.  And America’s leaders at the highest levels of government approved the use of torture.

The most nettlesome thing that happened to the American hubris was that Iraq became a quagmire from which it was rescued only as a result of cooperation from the “Sons of Iraq.”  That comprised disgruntled Sunni insurgents who were tired of becoming the target of the murderous tactics of al-Qaida in Iraq.  They decided to cooperate with the occupiers and fight al-Qaida.  That development turned out to be a god-sent help to the American military, which was struggling in the Iraqi quagmire.  There was a recommendation from the prestigious Iraq Study Group that the United States cut its losses and get out of Iraq.  It should never be forgotten that what was known as the “surge” strategy inside the United States was a success only because of the timely cooperation from the Sons of Iraq.  

The Iraqi quagmire highlighted the limits of America’s military power.  That reality further emboldened North Korea and Iran.  One also has to recall the dissension caused by America’s invasion and continued occupation of Iraq in Europe, which is traditionally a friendly place for the United States.

Afghanistan, where the United States left the unfinished business of eradicating the presence and influence of al-Qaida, became a nightmare of the Bush administration.  When the worsening security situation made Pakistan a failing state, Washington got a wakeup call.  But the Bush presidency had already become a lameduck one.

Then the United States was hit by the economic meltdown, a reality that further exposed the limitations and growing vulnerability of the lone superpower.  The global chatter grew about the post-American world and its demise as the lone superpower.

The most important aspect of such suggestion is that presidential candidate Barack Obama’s clarion call for the need for change and “yes we can” were given new meaning on the part of the American electorates.  They were not only clamoring for new presidential leadership, but also were growing scared about the escalating personal economic decline related to the subprime mortgage crisis and other crises that hit Wall Street in 2008.

The election of Obama was the resounding call of the American electorates for a fresh start.  It was their resolve to give their new leader the mandate to bring about sweeping changes which would restore America’s global leadership, and, more to the point, transform America’s economic decline into progress and development on a steady basis. 

The inauguration of President Obama’s presidency is national hope—which started with the slogan of “yes we can”—for restoring American leadership, by making a clean break with the exercise of arrogance and hubris in the international arena.  It is the mark of a new era when numerous springs of new policies will start flowing from Washington in domestic and foreign policy.  It is about giving the American pluralism new meaning by empowering minorities, a process that began during the turbulence of the 1960s, but has been in dire need of broadening its scope.  It is about dealing with America’s allies with dignity, and conducting dialogues where the United States listens as well as talks.  It is about dealing with the world of Islam as a true friend, who wishes to see the development of democracy and equality in that part of the world, but not by issuing threats.  It is about the beginning of a new age when America will make a clean break from all failed policies of the past.  This is indeed a tall order, but that is that the only way of rejuvenating the “American spirit” and of restoring America’s global leadership.

The world of the 21^st Century is very different from the one from the preceding century.  The information revolution has entered into an era when it has empowered the East as well as the West.  It is an era when no powerful nation-state will be allowed to dictate its agenda to the weak.  The need for solving the increasingly complex economic problems is bringing together nations from different regions of the world.  It is an era when the economic meltdown has brought the rich and the not-so-rich nations together.  It is an era when Obama’s call of “yes we can” has a global meaning and is a source for hope.  There are no longer just American, Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, or Arab problems.  Now, the world is facing truly human problems, which require all the best and brightest to get together and find solutions.  In that sense, Obama’s presidency appears most qualified to be in the lead.  If it succeeds in finding solutions to human problems in a humane and collective fashion, then American leadership will be restored decidedly.  Let us hope that “yes he will.”