FORECAST

President-Elect Barack Obama has signalled his desire to continue outgoing lame duck President George W. Bush’s foreign policy agenda by floating candidates for top US security posts closely aligned with the latter.

At the top of the list is Hillary Clinton, the one-time rival of Barack Obama for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Recent leaked reports have indicated that Obama is set to announce Clinton as his choice for Secretary of State, the country’s top foreign policy post.  More astonishing than Obama offering the top Cabinet position, and third highest ranking in government, to his erstwhile adversary, is the fact that it was Clinton’s foreign policy, particularly her vote to authorize Bush’s Iraq war, that drew the ire of the Democratic Party’s core supporters, culminating in the defeat of her candidacy.

By choosing Clinton, Obama has indicated, contrary to his campaign rhetoric, that not only is he comfortable with the country’s top foreign policy position being filled by someone who aligned herself with Bush’s Iraq war, but that his own foreign policy agenda is not much different than hers.

Considering that Obama’s victory over Clinton was largely due to his rise as an early anti-Iraq war candidate, his post-election capitulation on the question of Mrs. Clinton’s foreign policy judgement is nothing less than shocking, if one actually believed the ‘change’ rhetoric.  However, if one accepts that Obama (never having been called upon to vote in favour or against the authorization of the Iraq war because he was not a member of the U.S. Senate at the time) utilized an anti-Iraq war speech as a campaign ploy to benefit from the anti-Iraq war sentiment prevalent amongst Democrats at the time, then perhaps his choice of Clinton is a public annoucement ending the campaign and returning to ‘business as usual’.

Nonetheless, the second leak this week, that Obama is considering retaining Bush’s Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, has raised even more eyebrows.  By allowing Gates to retain his position as the civilian head of the U.S. military, a military that is currently implementing Bush’s foreign policy agenda via a global war effort, Obama is indicating that foreign policy-wise, his first term will be a continuation of Bush’s last two terms.

It is not surprising, then, that Republican Party strategist and internationally renowned war hawk, Henry Kissinger (he of the Vietnam War) has publicly applauded Obama’s foreign policy choices.

On the other hand, left-wing Democrats, liberals, progressives and anti-Iraq war Americans (which are now the majority) are pronouncing shock at how quickly Obama has reversed course on his ‘change’ rhetoric and instead adopted ‘continuity’ as his foreign policy principle.  Anti-Iraq war citizens have noted with alarm that out of the 23 U.S. Senators and 133 House Representatives that voted against authorizing the Iraq War, not a single one is considered in contention for any foreign policy position with Obama’s incoming administration.

One can expect more of the same U.S. foreign policy, led by the same people leading it today, and implementing an agenda forged by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.  The tactics will no doubt have to be recalibrated (a post-unilateralist world with a resurgent Russia and ever-growing China will demand it, whether the Obama administration prefers it or not), but there seems to be an overall continuation in terms of long-term strategic goals.

It may not be a coincidence, then, that the US-Iraq Security Pact recently negotiated by the Bush administration so closely mirrors Obama’s foreign policy aspirations.

It appears that the ‘change’ candidate is anything but.

 

SUMMARY OF EVENTS: November 17 – 24, 2008

WORLD

Asian shares fell Tuesday on mounting fears of an extended global recession after US banking giant Citigroup announced 50,000 job cuts and carmakers on both sides of the Atlantic pleaded for help.

Global warming could be a boon to Russia, a European country could be overrun by organized crime, and the U.S. and its dollar could further decline in importance during the next two decades, says a U.S. intelligence report with predictions for the world in 2025.

News of fresh job cuts worldwide and a strong jump in US unemployment darkened the global economic outlook and sent financial markets into convulsions.

NORTH AMERICA

Mexico

Mexico arrested its head of Interpol on Tuesday for allegedly working for a powerful drug cartel and sent the military to take over police duties in the city of Tijuana in another step to flush out corrupt law enforcement.

United States

Senior intelligence officers are lobbying the outgoing president to look after the men and women who could face charges for following his orders in the war on terrorism.

A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on state charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County’s federal detention centers.

Wall Street hit levels not seen since 2003 on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging below the 8,000 mark amid a dour economic outlook from the Federal Reserve and worries over the fate of Detroit’s three automakers.

The Pentagon said Wednesday a military approach was not the answer to a surge of piracy off the Horn of Africa and suggested that shipping companies do more on their own to protect their vessels.

The senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee Thursday called for a criminal investigation into whether the CIA lied to Congress and withheld information from the Justice Department during its inquiry into the 2001 shoot-down of an American missionary plane by the Peruvian air force with help from a CIA spotter plane.

The United States said on Friday the first independent monitoring report on an alleged Syrian nuclear site had hardened suspicions that Syria was building a covert reactor and would raise pressure on it to come clean.

The United States and Russia Friday ended a week of talks on the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), but failed to make a decision to extend it, the U.S. side said in a statement.

US defense secretary Robert Gates said the United States wants to send reinforcements to Afghanistan before elections next year, adding the ballot is “maybe the most important objective for us in 2009.”

SOUTH AMERICA

Bolivia

Bolivia’s left-wing president, Evo Morales, accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday of trying to tap his telephone conversations instead of going after cocaine traffickers.

EASTERN EUROPE

Russia

Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov on Tuesday warned Georgia that any efforts to strengthen its military would be punished more severely than during the countries’ brief August war.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visits to Venezuela and Cuba during a week-long trip to Latin America look set to irk Washington, highlighting a foreign policy challenge facing President-elect Barack Obama.

MIDDLE EAST

Senior US and Iraqi officials differed on Tehran’s role in stalling a military accord that will allow US troops to remain in Iraq until 2011, as Iran on Tuesday sent mixed signals on the deal.

Iran

A second IAEA report Wednesday said that Iran has persisted in blocking the agency’s probe of its nuclear program and continues to defy U.N. Security Council demands to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that produces fuel for nuclear weapons.

Iraq

Iraq’s cabinet on Sunday approved unanimously the long-awaited security pact with Washington which would allow U.S. forces to remain in the country for another three years, an Iraqi official said.

Syria

Uranium traces found at a Syrian site bombed by Israel were not sufficient evidence of undeclared nuclear activity but Syria must be more open to help clarify the issue, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Monday.

EAST ASIA

China

China Tuesday denied it had illicitly sought technical data for space launch vehicles from the United States, after a physicist from Virginia pleaded guilty to illegally exporting the information to China.

SOUTH ASIA

Pakistan

Pakistan has accused the United States of pushing it closer to bankruptcy by witholding up to 1 billion dollars in aid in military contributions despite the country’s efforts to fight terrorism.

A militant Taliban group warned Thursday of reprisals in Pakistan if there was another US drone attack, as the government condemned the latest missile strike in its territory

Pakistani soldiers practiced shooting at pilotless “drone” aircraft Friday, the military said a day after the government lodged a protest with the U.S. ambassador over drone missile strikes in Pakistani territory.

AFRICA

Somalia

The hijacked Saudi-owned supertanker Sirius Star has anchored off the coast of northeastern Somalia while eight pirates escaped from prison in the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland, officials said Tuesday.

Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukrainian ship they captured, saying the money will go towards cleaning up the waste.

Manjit Singh is a contributor to Geopoliticalmonitor.com