Close to fifty percent of my posts have the category tag "diplomacy," this one included. Having spent most of my adult life practicing that art, my blogging is a natural outgrowth of my previous calling. Note my words: "art," "calling." I might just have easily used "vocation," but my diplomacy was largely secular. I'll leave the messianic part where it belongs, in the rubbish heap of the Bush era, where War was his middle name (or was it Waterboard?).
Note the symbolism in the Great Seal of the United States: "the olive branch and the arrows 'denote the power of peace & war',” according to the State Department (the keeper of the official US symbol; 18th century image at left from the Library of Congress).
The power of peace...
Today's Roger Cohen piece in the New York Times, "The Mellow Doctrine," nicely sums up where President Obama, in his 100+ day march through foreign capitals, has brought the United States in its relations with the rest of the world:
Call it the mellow doctrine. Neither idealistic nor classic realpolitik, it involves finding strength through unconventional means: acknowledgment of the limits of American power; frankness about U.S. failings; careful listening; fear reduction; adroit deployment of the wide appeal of brand Barack Hussein Obama; and jujitsu engagement.
There he is again, our Pragmatic President, confusing the opposition by using the non-kinetic weapons of candor and "careful listening." This is exactly what we need, as both were lacking in a foreign policy that cost the United States much more - in moral terms - than simply the trillions devoted to the Iraq war-of-choice. It's nice that students - from 4th graders in Washington to Stanford University - remember that, and are putting the torture-enablers on the spot.
Obama can continue to gain much by appearing to "give" in on previously cherished positions (and possessions). As Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations suggested in yesterday's Washington Post, "Don't Just Close Gitmo. Give It Back." She reminds us that the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay started out over a century ago as a coaling station, that 19th century military "must" that was a corollary of gunboat diplomacy.
We've given up the battleships, but kept the coaling station. Just like the Maginot Line and the Siegfried Line are now just tourist attractions across the internal EU non-border, sometimes ratcheting down the military must-haves is a positive move for national security.
In what may become the toughest foreign policy challenge of his presidency - safely normalizing relations with Iran, a country whose Islamist government has been on a 30 year collision course with the United States - Barack Obama could do worse than some "careful listening" to Alistair Crooke of Conflicts Forum, profiled over the weekend by Robert F. Worth of the New York Times. Crooke, a former British intelligence officer, is spending his post-spying career building bridges with political Islam (another one of my subject tags). Crooke knows how difficult this is:
“George Mitchell once said to me, ‘you don’t even have a political process until you accept that the other side has a legitimate point of view,’ ” Mr. Crooke said, referring to Mr. Mitchell’s landmark 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland and relating it to the many obstacles between the United States and Iran.
Diplomacy is all about will and patience. We are certainly not "there yet," but notice where Obama Middle East envoy George Mitchell has been sent? The man whose "Mitchell Method" brand of quiet diplomacy brought peace to a centuries-old conflict is now applying his skills to a confrontation that is "merely" decades-old. Maybe the Obama Method will become known, in Roger Cohen's phrase, as "no-drama diplomacy."