Pakistan would decide Hillary Clinton’s success or failure!

Terror and trade would remain the focus of the new US Secretary of State in the next four years. When you talk about trade, China is the first country that comes to mind. Pakistan is obviously the winner when it comes to terror. Trade might take a back seat in 2009 because of the world-wide recession but terror is thriving in Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim world. When you hear the discussions about Israel-Palestine conflict, it is like watching a movie from the 1950s. New actors but the same old story!

Pakistan offers a much more contemporary theme. They offer a big-budgeted extravaganza like 9/11 with foreign actors to a low-budgeted classic like 26/11 with domestic rural actors. Their gadgetry also changes with each performance. The creative directors of Pakistan thought of using large airliners for their meticulously planned show in New York and Washington DC, while their performance was equally effective with ten AK 47s in Bombay. Osama bin Laden is like their Amitabh Bachchan, the ultimate performer of Pakistan and the biggest super-star of all times!

Condoleezza Rice has been the work-horse of this US administration, Hillary Clinton is going to be the show-horse of the Obama administration. Rice learnt from Colin Powell how to pussy-foot Indo-Pak relations. Hillary would not appreciate being manipulated by Pakistani sweet-talkers. She is not a dumb bimbo who would accept phony chauvinistic garbage from the Pakistani establishment. Brutality against women by Taliban in NWFP (North West Frontier Province) is going to set her off. Besides, she has enough experience from her days as former First Lady!

Have you ever wondered what do Pakistani people look forward to in life? Do the parents plan to send their children to the PITT (Pakistani Institute of Terror Technologies), since they do not have any IITs? Alternatively they could compete in the entrance exams for the ‘Osama bin Laden College of Jihad’ or even the prestigious ‘Mullah Mohammed Omar School of Torture”. What exactly are the Pakistanis planning to do in the next 10 or 20 years? What kind of civil society are they developing? What is the future of Pakistani children? Pakistan needs to THINK about this!

Obama could squander strategic gains!

President-elect Barack Obama has focused primarily on the domestic issues since he entered the Presidential race in 2007. He made ‘War in Iraq’ as his major foreign policy platform and trashed the Bush administration for getting involved without any national interest at stake! Majority of Americans agree with him on that position. He has also proposed a much more robust engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. People by and large do not dispute his analysis. His position on Iran is far more reconciliatory than most of his colleagues. Obama is very much in tune with the rest on Israel-Palestine conflict. These issues are least of America’s problems. The United States has been facing a growing challenge from China and Russia for the past decade or more. President Bush has managed China rather well but not the Russian threat. Barack Obama appears oblivious of the growing dilemma of dealing with Russia, China and India. He did not find the time to call either of the big-three in the first one week! Instead, he did not waste a day in calling the 9 Western Allies.

Where is the change? All his predecessors for the past 100 years have done the same thing! The world has changed since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The traditional ‘Trans-Atlantic Alliance’ does not have the same value as it did even 10 years back. The growing influence of China is making India and the rest of Asia nervous. Russia is likely to join China in forming an anti-American alliance. India could feel insecure and make unwise commitments in the region. America needs to provide an immediate leadership in South Asia and the Far-East. Barack Obama does not have the luxury of screwing up like Bill Clinton or George W Bush in their first year. What is alarming is the choice of Obama’s advisers on foreign affairs. He appears to have summoned the counsels of Warren Christopher, Sam Nunn, Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke to advise him on his State Department appointments. Add to these luminaries, you have the likes of Senator John Kerry, Tom Daschle and the dim-witted Bill Richardson. What more can you ask for?

Richard Holbrooke – Leslie Gelb-FOREIGN POLICY AFTER 9/11

Richard Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus / Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. (GUEST HOST); Leslie Gelb, President, Council on Foreign Relations; Richard Haass, Director of Policy Planning, State …

Rahm Emanuel is needed in Congress, not the White House!

President-elect Barack Obama should resist the temptation of carrying Chicago to Washington! He must learn from the mistakes of Bill Clinton and George W Bush. Both made a cardinal error in carrying their home-town to their Presidencies. The appointment of a Chief of Staff sends an early signal to friends and foes alike! The President needs an experienced manager in his Chief of Staff and not an activist. Rahm Emanuel is not a slick manager; he is an aggressive ‘whip’ in the House of Representatives. He would be missed in the Congress to keep a check on Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. She might be the biggest problem for the new President! Another major problem would be an early entanglement with Israel-Palestine conflict. Rahm Emanuel is not just the son of an immigrant from Israel; he is a vocal activist for the Jewish state. Barack Obama would have bigger things to worry about!

The White House Chief of Staff is the highest-ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President. The U.S. President’s Chief of Staff is a very powerful position, sometimes dubbed “The Second-Most Powerful Man in Washington”. The Chief of Staff supervises the White House staff, manages the President’s schedule and decides who meets the President. Therefore, he is dubbed as the “Gatekeeper” to the Oval Office. An impulsive choice could undermine the President’s agenda as the Chief of Staff has the power to insulate the incumbent. This is not unusual, and there are plenty of examples like former Governor John H Sununu who was the Chief of Staff to President George H W Bush and did not serve his President well! John R Steelman was another example of a manipulative Chief of Staff who undermined the Presidency of  Harry S Truman. He got America committed to Israel.

The position of the White House Chief of Staff is a recent development. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not have a Chief of Staff at the White House. His Secretary handled most of the duties, but he also had Edwin Watson as his Appointments Secretary who was responsible for all the scheduling. It was in 1946 that President Truman had to appoint a formal ‘Assistant to the President’ to handle the rapid growth of the executive office. President Obama should appoint a savvy manager to handle the office of the Chief of Staff, rather than a political operative. James Baker and Leon Panetta were the two most effective Chiefs of Staff in the White House in recent memory. They both were consummate, behind-the -scenes political operatives and sound public statesmen. Ken Duberstein was another fine Chief of Staff to President Reagan. The idea is to have open channels of communication. It is essential for a successful Presidency in the first term!

What is America’s Foreign Policy?

The Foreign Policy of the United States has become skewed since September 11, 2001. You ask either Presidential candidate about the US foreign policy and he would talk about Iraq, Afghanistan and now Iran and the emerging threat to the world. If you happen to ask McCain about his foreign policy vision, he would add the Israel-Palestine conflict and maybe trade with China. Conversely, if you happen to ask Obama the same question, he would mention Pakistan and Kenya to show his better credentials. The worst thing about the whole conversation is the knowledge of the person who is asking the questions in the first place. How did we reach here?

United States of America has followed an isolationist foreign policy for most of it’s existence. The first major international entanglement occurred during the First World War. America joined the Allied Powers to defeat the Central Powers but refused to Join the League Of Nations after the Treaty of Versailles. This engagement was driven because of America’s self interest rather than any moral obligations. The United States was facing the threats from German U-boats to it’s maritime trade and was therefore driven to protect it’s vital national interests. Once an uneasy peace was negotiated in Europe, Americans went back to its isolationist posture.

There has been no real debate about America’s lack of international participation during the period between the First and the Second World Wars. This isolationist attitude, in my opinion, resulted in the rise of Nazism, Fascism and Communism in Europe and Russia. The British Empire was not in a position to handle the events in Europe and beyond. There was a power vacuum at the international level and Hitler filled that space with tragic consequences. I believe this resulted in creating the environment for the Second World War. With this, America was back at the table.

The election of 1932 and the takeover of the United States Presidency on March 4, 1933 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought the American isolation to an end. Roosevelt, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Navy was no nativist. He was not only familiar with South America but also acutely aware of the growing European dilemma. The US congress tried everything to continue with it’s paranoia with international affairs, but Roosevelt was educated enough to reject that and built foreign alliances. These initiatives served him well during World War II.