Obama's Confused Reaction To Certain Events Last Tuesday

The president is finally off on his oft postponed and modified trip to Asia.  He is going to India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan.  In addition to the country visits, he will be making a pitch for currency and trade reform at the G20 meeting in Seoul.  Up until now, the trip was all about international security, international trade, that old reliable, Muslim outreach and its dark side, the struggle with certain unnamed "extremest elements."

Now, having partially digested the unpalatable results of the midterm election as well as the most recent and, as expected, lackluster report on employment, the Nice Young Man From Chicago has decided quite suddenly that the real goal of the trip will be job creation.  He is proposing to schlep a bunch of corporate heavies along with him in order to "open markets" in Asia and thus, create jobs in the US.  (Oh, and dragging the movers and shakers of whatever passes for American industry today will also prove that the Most Progressive President Ever has gotten over his hatred of free enterprise.)

One has to wonder just who Mr Obama believes he is fooling with this rather transparent gambit.  India is not particularly closed to American goods and services.  And, thanks in large part to federal government policies is a major recipient of jobs once occupied by Americans.  Beyond that, Indonesia has already been well and truly penetrated by Chinese manufacturers and merchants such that the place has become the frontline in conflict between traditionalist Muslims and goody loving Indonesians.  The pie is only so large given the relative poverty of most of the Indonesian population and the Chinese got there with a very big fork years ago.

South Korea is not a destination for American made consumer products--if there are any more being made here even though it has a very healthy appetite for industrial durables with the Made In America label.  That segment is large but unlikely to grow markedly in the short run no matter how much the smooth talking Guy In The Oval may wish otherwise.  Since the US already does well there even in the face of Japanese and, to a lesser extent, Chinese competition, South Korean industrial demand is not going to force the hiring of too many new workers in the US.

Even if the Japanese could be convinced to drop some of their barriers against American imports, the nature of the deflation predicated economy there is not one conducive to an enhanced demand for US products.  A little increase in the import of agricultural produce will not translate into decreased unemployment here.

There is little doubt but the G-20 meeting is important to the American economic future.  Questions of currency valuation and trade asymmetries directly and substantially impact American employment.  Here the elections last Tuesday may play a role.  But, not a role which will add luster or influence to the Obama stance.  The undercutting of the president's perceived functional legitimacy provided by the election will in no way serve to convince the Chinese (for example) that a revaluation of their currency is necessary.  Indeed, support in the G-20 for the dethronement of the dollar may gain strength given the perceived weakness of the American president as well as the US economy.  Of course, dethronement might not be all bad for the US in the longer haul much as the prospect of weaker dollars equally increased imported oil costs may be disturbing short term.

The real deal for the trip has not changed regardless of presidential protestations to the contrary.  India is a crucial country for American interests short-, mid-, and long-term.  Stripped to the essentials, India is a viable strategic partner in the ongoing Afghan Affray.  It is even more important as an ally in overall regional dynamics, a counterweight to Pakistan, China, and even Iran.

Given the number of coinciding national interests as well as a wide array of common political and economic norms, the fit of India with the US is tolerably good.  As a consequence, a positive engagement with India on topics ranging from the real and pressing such as regional stability to the distant and tenuous such as climate change is in our mutual interests.

Then there is the problem of Pakistan or, more accurately, the Kashmir Question.  As Pakistan sees all foreign affairs through the prism of conflict with India, so also does India.  Obama will refuse to take a position on Kashmir, which means he will not push the Indian government on its Cold Start doctrine.  The existence of Cold Start provides Pakistan with the justification necessary to reject committing sufficient forces in the anti-Taliban campaign in the FATA.

At some point the president and his "team" will have to confront Cold Start.  Kashmir will have to be factored in to our diplomatic equation if the relation with India is to mature and meet its potential.  In its way, Kashmir is as intractable a problem as that presented by Palestine.  Not only are there the rival claims of India and Pakistan.  Not only is there the history of recurrent and ultimately indecisive warfare.  There is also a large and growing independence movement within the Kashmir population on both sides of the Line of Control.

Given the almost infantile intransigence of the Pakistani government, which has shown the diplomatic ineptitude typical of the Palestinians, it is the existence of an independence movement which provides a window of opportunity.  The Indian government might not like the notion of "surrendering" its portion of the disputed land to an independent state but is realistic enough to see this move as a rational alternative which would liberate it from not only Cold Start but the other risky and expensive features of perpetual readiness for potentially nuclear war with Pakistan.

Mr Obama would not be out of line to bring up the potential resident in an independent Kashmir--which could not exist without the cooperation of India.  Contrasting the maturity of India which has been so strikingly evident over the past decade with the unconstructive and primitive role played by Islamabad in Kashmir and elsewhere in the same period would go some way to orienting the Indians in the right direction.

(Such a demarche, even in a most preliminary way would get back to Islamabad without a doubt.  That would be good.  It would put the Pakistanis on notice that their never ending extortion game had come to an end.  The government would have to choose sides finally and permanently: Violent political Islam or civilized state.)

Having been the beneficiaries of a "tilt" in American foreign policy for so many of the past fifty or sixty years, the Pakistanis are well equipped to understand just what would be meant by a tilt in favor of India.  A reversal in the direction of American favors would portend far more than the mere ending of the dollar gusher.  Nor could Islamabad comfort itself with believing it could replace US patronage with Chinese on a one to one basis.  The Chinese calculate far more shrewdly than do the Americans, so they will seek advantage only on the cheap.

Indonesia presents problems of a different sort.  The optics from the Obama administration will be at an automatic sharp contrast with the notion that the trip is all about jobs.  The president is scheduled to make a major speech at a mosque.  The speech no doubt will be very well attended.  It is debatable that one more genuflection before the Muslim alter will play well back in the US, particularly as there is no credible way it can be associated with creating either jobs at home or peace in the world.

It is often proclaimed that Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.  True.  Also it is repeatedly said that Indonesia is a beacon of tolerance and peace, a true tribute to Islam's pacifistic and open minded nature.  Not true.

Thanks in large part to Wahhibist outreached fueled by Saudi petrodollars, there are large pockets of believers who have accepted the notion of violent political Islam.  While true international terror attacks have been absent since the Bali bombing, the use of violence and its twin, terror, domestically has grown.  The Mighty Warriors of Allah have singled out Christians and denominations of Islam falling outside the austere purview of Wahhibism as targets.  In Aceh, Shariah has been adopted to the extent that there exists a dual track judicial system.  Most recently there have been Islamist attacks on Chinese owned malls and stores.

Violent political Islam is alive, well, and growing in Indonesia.  The government and its supporting elite know this and are dreading the inevitable confrontation.  The long history of internal conflict which was widely believed to have ended is showing its demise to have been premature.  The president is going to have to address this ground truth at least in private meetings and would be well advised not to go out on too long a branch publicly, not to praise Indonesian peace and tolerance too effusively.  The words might come back to bite before too long.

It is most unfortunate that Mr Obama repackaged his Asian tour as one of jobs promotion.  While the lack of jobs may have been the single most important cause of the "shellacking" received by Obama's party, it was not the only one by a long shot.  Also important was the president's long standing tradition of not being completely honest with We the People.  It seems pathetic at the least that one of his first responses to defeat was to lie.