Why Obama’s Russia sanctions are doomed

The new Cold War was the last thing on the US President Barack Obama’s mind as recently as when dusk fell on October 22, 2012 at the Lynn University campus in Florida. That was the night of the long knives when the famous foreign policy debate in the presidential campaign took place during which Obama rubbed his Republican opponent Mitt Romney’s nose in the dirt by ridiculing his contention that Russia constituted the biggest geopolitical threat for the US in the 21st century.

This is how Obama administered that famous snub to Romney: “Governor, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida’s a threat because a few months ago when you were asked, what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia - not al-Qaida — you said Russia. And the 1980s are no calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years. But, Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s.” (here).
Throughout his re-election bid, Obama flagged the US’s ‘reset’ of relations with Russia as the most shiny foreign-policy achievement of his first term in the Oval Office. He proudly trotted out the START agreement on disarmament with Russia; Russia’s valuable help in creating the web of transit routes known as the Northern Distribution Network and in other areas relating to the Afghan war; and Russia’s curtailment of military sales to Iran and its willingness to move in tandem with the US’ sanctions against Iran, et al, as some of the substantive gains of his foreign policies.
We don’t know exactly when Obama changed his mind and decided to become a camp follower of Romney. Obama attributes his metamorphosis entirely to Ukraine developments, which makes it a 4-month old affair following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But in this short period Obama has swung to the other extreme, and as his remarks, here, on the latest sanctions on Tuesday against Russia testify, he is taking a vicarious pleasure that he is “setting back decades of genuine progress” in Russia and has “made a weak Russian economy even weaker.”
Obama exults that “projections for Russian economic growth are down to near zero.” It betrays a rancor and mean spirit that blots America’s image in the world community. Make no mistake, there is a whole world out there beyond North America and West Europe and it is viewing Obama’s trademark flip-flop with disbelief and a sense of exasperation.
That hefty slice of the international community, the silent majority, also would have a few things to know from Obama. To begin with, how can he arrogate to himself the prerogative to interpret international law whichever way it suits him at any given point? How does he explain the US’ aggression against Iraq and Libya resulting in the destruction of these countries — or, its blatant interference in Syria? Who is really responsible for triggering the turmoil in Ukraine late last year?
Alas, Obama doesn’t realise he is scoring a self-goal and undercutting the credibility of US policies and that it is having a strange effect.
Take, for instance, the alluring rhetoric by Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday, here, hoping to set the right tone for his impending visit to Delhi two days later. But it fell flat on the Indian ears.
In fact, the foreign ministry spokesman in Delhi made it a point on Wednesday to confirm that the Indian minister is expected to take up with Kerry the stunning disclosures by the ex-CIA employee Edward Snowden regarding the DSA’s snooping activities in India. He said, “You are also aware that there is considerable disquiet in India about the authorizations provided to the American agencies in terms of contravening the privacy of individuals, entities and the Government of India. So, obviously if there is considerable disquiet, these issues are likely to figure without me getting into a detailed elaboration of what.”
The Indian newspapers have generally portrayed Kerry’s mission as one of crass Philistine instincts — aimed at selling more weapons to India and at seeing how to remove the impediments for export of American nuclear reactors to the Indian market. Kerry has been made to look like a sweaty salesman in an Arthur Miller play.
Why do such things happen? India was a country that fell over heels in love with Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush. But somehow, somewhere, an impression has formed in the Indian consciousness which is now difficult to erase — that Obama is a cynic and a self-centred opportunist who is singularly devoid of any rooted convictions, and therefore he’s highly susceptible to flip-flops.
This is where the latest twist to his Russia policies will hurt US interests. Suffice to say, India won’t even touch with a barge pole the US’ rebalance strategy in Asia.
Obama doesn’t get the point that the world is not interested in isolating Russia or in wrecking the Russian economy at a juncture when the world economy is in dire need of growth centres, especially outside the Western world.
So, if Europe wants only Russian gas and will ban Russian oil, that’s fine with the fast-growing economies such as India or China or Vietnam. If Europe doesn’t want to purchase Russian weapons anymore, that’s also fine with India, Iraq, Egypt, Venezuela, Brazil, etc which will still have arms deals with Russia. Most certainly, BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization are not going to wither away.
What Obama overlooks is that the instruments of the Cold War era have outlived their utility. It’s plain arrogance on his part to delude himself that he’s something of a magical Pied Piper and the rest of the world simply follows him. Why should the world fight America’s war to salvage the pristine status of the US dollar so as to preserve America’s global hegemony — despite being a power inexorably in decline?
The BRICS bank, which is destined to rival the World Bank and the IMF — signifying “the end of western dominance of the global financial and economic order,” to quote, here, a prominent Indian strategic pundit who heads the National Security Council Advisory Board — is an immutable fact of life already. India, Brazil and China are not going to be frightened by the West’s restrictions on Russian banks.
Posted in Diplomacy, Politics.