Afghanistan: Is Obama Administration Using "Community Organizer" Policy Approach?

December 1 could well end up being D-Day for President Barack Obama. After an extended period of deliberation, Obama finally prepared to unveil his strategic plan for Afghanistan in a speech to be delivered at the US Military Academy at West Point. Success in Afghanistan would go a long way toward assuring Obama a second term. But if the plan fails to stem the Islamic militant insurgency, Afghanistan could cease being seen as a case of Bush-administration bungling and go down as an Obama-owned quagmire.

Obama was widely expected to approve the dispatch of 30,000 or so additional troops to Afghanistan. The main question prior to the address was: to what extent would the president go toward setting criteria for success, and in defining an exit strategy? Overall, the plan is designed to enable US and NATO forces to regain the initiative in ongoing efforts to quell the Islamic militant insurgency.

No one inside the Beltway can accuse the Obama administration of proceeding in haste. White House officials consulted a wide array of experts and generals over a period of months before settling on a specific reinforcement number. But this fact wasn't stopping analysts and pundits from expressing concern about the future - even before the specifics of the plan had been publicly pronounced.

In particular some have questioned whether 30,000 troops would be enough to accomplish the task, especially given the fact that the commanding general in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, had originally asked for 40,000 troops.

Others have questioned the underlying premise guiding Obama's approach to foreign policy. An early November analysis piece published by the Washington Post, for example, described Obama as practicing a "community organizer" approach to foreign policy, an outlook rooted in the president's past experience with mobilizing citizens in Chicago neighborhoods. Such a strategy presumes that all parties have common interests and will be empowered by working together.

In Afghanistan, the Post article stated, the Obama administration's "efforts to reinvigorate the relationships neglected by the previous administration have yielded few tangible results on the battlefield."

Some analysts think such a characterization, when it is applied to Afghanistan, is off the mark. One such expert is Mark Katz, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University.

"The community organizer approach does not characterize Obama's policy toward Afghanistan at present," Katz said. "For it to do so, he would have to be trying to talk to the Taliban and reassure it about how it could have good relations with the United States if it ditched al Qaeda."

"There were some indications that the Obama Administration was thinking along these lines last spring," Katz continued, "but the Taliban wouldn't play along. Of course, if it ever signaled that it might be willing to talk, the Obama Administration might well respond positively."

The Post article also contended that the "community organizer" approach was not working when it came to the Iranian nuclear issue. On this particular policy dilemma, Katz concurred that the "community organizer" label might be applicable to Obama's policy course.

In a November 18 lecture given at New York University, Katz examined the Obama administration's handling of US-Russia-Iran triangle. The chief problem, he said, is that Iran and Russia benefit more from their rifts with the United States than they do from shared interests. "Much of whatever legitimacy and popularity [Russian and Iranian leaders] do enjoy depends on their successfully stoking nationalist resentment against America and the West," Katz said.

There have been some high-profile agreements between the United States and Russia over the past year, but Katz maintained that the actual level of commitment does not run deep. For example, Washington and Moscow publicly partnered this fall to reduce Iran's nuclear capabilities. In a tentative agreement forged October 1 under UN auspices, Iran pledged to send a majority of its stockpiled uranium to be processed into fuel by Russia and France and then returned to the nation. But by mid-November Iranian officials had backed away from their earlier commitment.

On November 26, Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing head of the International Atomic Energy Agency sounded a particularly downbeat note on the prospects of a nuclear deal. "We have effectively reached a dead end," ElBaradei said, referring to nuclear negotiations.

Russia's willingness to refine Iran's uranium was not an act of collegiality toward the United States, Katz suggested. Instead, it was a way for Russia to benefit from the process. Moscow is worried about a nuclear Iran, but not as much as Washington is. When the time comes to consider sanctions, Katz said, Moscow likely will not comply. If it does, the sanctions will not be so harsh as to injure the Kremlin's own relations with Iran.

Moscow fears that a potential rapprochement between Iran and the United States would seriously harm Moscow's own special access to the country, Katz said. Iran, for its part, was spooked from any interest in closer ties to Washington by last summer's election-related protests.

It is this fear of democratic revolution in both Moscow and Tehran that will cause them to ultimately rebuff the United States' friendly overtures, and why going forward with the "community organizer approach" to foreign policy won't work, said Katz.

As for Iranian nuclear proliferation, Katz sees that as inevitable - but not apocalyptic. "The technology is over 60 years old," he said. "I think at some point we will face a nuclear Iran. And it won't be the end of the world. ... The Soviet Union had nuclear weapons - and what happened? [It] fell apart."