Obama's big week: Rolling into period of high diplomatic stakes
Published: Sunday | September 20, 2009
In a span of four days, Obama will plunge into the politics of the United Nations (UN) and host a summit in Pittsburgh on the world's wobbling economy. The international stage is coming to him, and no one standing on it with him will have higher stakes.
Obama is under pressure to push along stalled Mideast peace talks, prove the United States (US) is serious about climate change and rally allies against the nuclear threats of Iran and North Korea. Restless leaders in Europe and elsewhere are pressing Obama to reform risky US financial behavior and get Congress on board.
He also bears the load of two inherited wars that now bear his imprint - the one he's winding down in Iraq and the one that's widening in Afghanistan. Eight years after the September 11 attacks, Obama must hold together international will as he tries to keep Afghanistan from becoming an al-Qaida launching pad again.
The talks have the potential to be galvanising moments or opportunities lost.
"Leadership is not just telling people what you want, as the Bush administration discovered. Leadership is getting people to do what you need them to do," said Jon Alterman, a senior fellow in Middle East policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former State Department official in President George W. Bush's first term.
Obama will have his chances.
first speech
His first speech to the 192-member General Assembly will outline his view of leadership, emphasising a new brand of cooperation as if to underline he is not Bush. As UN ambassador Susan Rice described the message: "Everybody has a responsibility. The US is leading anew. And we are looking to others to join."
Obama will be the first US president to be chairman of the Security Council, whose rotating presidency happens to be in US hands this month during the annual meeting of the General Assembly. He expects to emerge from that special summit on arms control with a resolution that advances his goals of a nuclear-weapons free world.
The measure will try to put heat on Iran and North Korea without singling out any country.
With his domestic agenda consumed by health care reform, Obama is under pressure from world leaders to put more muscle into fighting climate change. He will seek to do just that this week, too, with a speech at a UN climate conference.
Time is short, though, for the US to have leverage. An international conference is set for December in Denmark on a new global climate pact. In the US Congress, the House has passed a bill to limit greenhouse gases, but Senate action may fade until next year.
Perhaps as important as the speeches will be the conversations the world never sees.
private meeting
Obama, who arrives in New York City tomorrow for the annual UN gathering, will meet privately with the leaders of Russia, China and Japan. Less formal sessions will take place all week.
The showcase for the new US president is getting familiar.
In just his first year, Obama has made it through summits with heads of both the world's 20 top economies and eight major industrial powers, as well as Western Hemisphere heads, Russian leaders and NATO. The president hasn't been shy about calling for the UN to take on "big, tough" problems more effectively.
When the focus shifts to Pittsburgh, Obama will run the Group of 20 summit of the rich and developing countries that represent 80 per cent of world economic output. Although their united, expensive efforts earlier this year helped halt the economic slowdown, there is enormous work left and wide divisions about how to proceed.
frustrated leaders
European leaders, for example, are frustrated about the lack of US action on financial regulation and restricting how bank executives get paid. Just ahead of Obama's travels, details emerged of a Federal Reserve plan that would for the first time police how banks pay executives to minimise reckless investment gambles.
Obama himself is pushing Congress to get moving - he just went to Wall Street to say as much. But that effort is unlikely to satisfy his fellow leaders.
"You're hearing very strong concern that the lessons haven't been learned," said Heather Conley, who served in the Bush State Department and now runs the Europe Program at the CSIS think tank. She said Europeans fear a sense of urgency has been lost, and they are asking, "Americans, what are you doing about it?"
The events of just the last few days will influence Obama's agenda, too.
The president has penalised China over tires exported to US, citing trade rule violations. The move has infuriated a major economic partner and stoked fears of further protectionism.
