Tight timetable to handle Iran, China

There is a dizzying array of conflicts and crises unfolding around the world for which the steadying hand of the United States will be required in the year to come; that's the inescapable fate of a superpower.

Still, there are two crucial challenges which are guaranteed to preoccupy the US next year: the security map in Asia, and what Washington is prepared to do to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Both problems have been with us for some time. But in both cases, a decision no longer brooks delay, and 2014 will be the year during which the US will be forced to make some irreversible strategic choices.

One explanation for this compressed timetable is the very nature of the US electoral cycle.

A second-term US president has, at best, a two-year window of opportunity to push through key foreign policy decisions before he becomes a "lame duck", a man who constitutionally still holds all the levers of power but is, in practice, increasingly ignored by both Congress and other decision-makers in Washington, all of whom are far too busy either identifying or cosying up to the next potential White House occupant.

President Barack Obama has already devoted the first year of his second term to domestic matters, such as confronting his lawmakers over the US budget, or implementing his national health-care scheme.

He now has not more than eight months left to devote to international security issues before the Nov 4 mid-term elections take place; that's the cut-off point after which, historically, the decision-making powers of all US presidents rapidly decline, especially since, according to current opinion polls, the Republicans are likely to retain control over the US House of Representatives.

The Iranian conundrum

NOR is it obvious that some of the critical strategic decisions which the US has to make can be postponed much beyond the end of the coming year. The timetable is particularly tight in the case of the nuclear talks with Iran.

For, although the Obama administration is still eager to claim credit for recently concluding an interim nuclear agreement with the Iranians, there is a growing realisation in other Western capitals that the price which the US may end up paying for this deal could be far higher than its potential advantages.

In pushing through the Iranian agreement, Mr Obama has succeeded in forfeiting US credibility with all the Arab states as well as Israel, a unique "feat" which no previous US president in living memory has accomplished.

He lost that trust not so much because of what he did but because of what he did not do. President Obama failed to be truthful to every single one of his Middle Eastern allies, who only recently discovered that secret negotiations between the US and Iran went on for years, something which Washington always promised would not happen.

And, by concentrating on just tackling the nuclear dimension, Mr Obama ignored Iran's growing conventional power in the Middle East, which is as menacing to key Arab nations as the nuclear bomb.

President Obama can reclaim his Middle Eastern allies if he sticks to the terms of the current deal with Iran, which envisages that, should a permanent and durable resolution to the nuclear stand-off prove impossible six months from now, tighter sanctions and the military options will be reconsidered.

But the fear throughout the Middle East and in quite a few European capitals is that no deal which will dismantle Iran's nuclear capabilities looks likely, although the Obama administration will find reasons to continue the discussions with Iran endlessly.

For, despite its protestations to the contrary, the US can live quite happily with an Iran which is a threshold nuclear power. Yet neither Israel nor the Arab states would tolerate such an outcome so, by the middle of next year when the term of the current interim deal with Iran expires, all eyes will be on Washington.

Even if Mr Obama makes no decision on Iran and simply allows the negotiations to drag on, the consequences for the Middle East will be irrevocable: The region will be condemned to a new deadly arms race which the US will no longer be able to control or even influence.

China's ambitions

AND an even bigger yet equally urgent strategic conundrum faces the US in Asia. It is wrong to claim - as some pundits are currently doing - that Washington simply does not understand the motives behind China's territorial demands in waters around its coastline.

The US fully understands the seriousness of these claims, and their impact on regional stability: In effect, these disputes are not about the ownership of some rocks, access to supposed underwater resources or different interpretations of history, but about China's aspirations to gain a decisive position of influence in Asia, and Beijing's determination that the US will no longer be the only pre-eminent power in China's backyard.

Nor is this surprising, for this is a classic example of what happens when overall strength is transferred from one superpower to another. The US and China find themselves at opposite ends of the equation, with one global power feeling its advantage slip away while the other is the rising challenger.

In all previous historic cases, the established power often remained arrogant, lecturing the rest about how they should behave and manage their own affairs, oblivious to the sensitivities and fears of others. The established power also resents intimation of its mortality, while the rising power grows impatient.

Such transfers of power often result in wars; World War I is largely explained by this phenomenon.

Yet there is nothing preordained about this: Britain relinquished its role as a superpower to the US during the first half of the 20th century without firing a shot so, at least in theory, the process can be replicated equally peacefully between the US and China.

For nobody envisages the sudden collapse of American power but, rather, just a gentle realignment between the US and China.

And Mr Obama may be uniquely well-placed to achieve this: His is the first administration in more than a century to speak openly and without inhibitions about the relative decline of the US, and the need to keep away from fresh military entanglements.

But making space for China by accommodating the rising giant on the global stage or even in just the context of Asia is easier said than done.

The US cannot achieve this by hinting that it is willing to water down US security guarantees to Taiwan or Japan, as some leaders in Beijing may be hoping; even the hint of such an offer would lead to a catastrophic deterioration of security in Asia, as nations race to equip themselves with the latest military technology.

Nor can the US buy regional peace by merely adopting an accommodating stance to China, regardless of the circumstances; that, too, would only complicate matters.

So, incorporating China's growing stature without crassly dividing Asia into new spheres of influence similar to those which sliced Europe up during the Cold War will require many years of deft diplomacy and cool heads not only in Beijing and Washington, but also in Tokyo and Seoul.

A new Asian policy

FOR the moment, the US continues to act in Asia as a supposedly impartial regional umpire, by preventing nations from "flying at each other's throats", as Lord Salisbury, a British prime minister, memorably described Britain's similar role a century ago.

But the strategy no longer works, producing the worst of all worlds: One of the most significant recent regional developments is that both challengers and upholders of US hegemony are frustrated with the Obama administration in almost equal measures.

The time has therefore come to elaborate a more coherent Asian policy, one which seeks practical measures for eliminating petty US-China disputes, but also explains plainly the limits of the United States' regional patience, the "red lines" which nobody should cross.

In a recently published searing criticism of the Obama administration, Professor Walter Russell Mead, one of the top foreign policy specialists in the US, referred to the current period as the final demise of the "End of History" theory, the era of the supposedly effortless and uncontested US global hegemony.

"We shall have to prioritise the repair and defence of our alliances in ways that no post-Cold War presidents have done," he argues.

The coming year will decide whether Mr Obama is able or willing to rise to these inevitable challenges. For a man who showed no particular interest in foreign policy questions, that won't be easy.

Jonathan.eyal@gmail.com

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