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The Weight of the World Awaits

November 13, 2008 4:10 PM

Barack Obama had only been president-elect for a few hours when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev fired a warning shot across his Good Ship Lollypop.

Medvedev in a speech warned the U.S. that its planned missile defense shield to be established in Poland and the Czech Republic would be met with Russian missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania.

"The Iskander missile system will be deployed in Kaliningrad region to neutralize, when necessary, the missile shield," Medvedev said. "We are also planning to use the resources of the Russian naval fleet for these purposes."

Slightly more than a day later, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni suggested that Obama's willingness to speak to Iranian leaders is a terrible idea.

"Dialogue at this time is liable to broadcast weakness," she told Israel Radio. "I think early dialogue at a time when it appears to Iran that the world has given up on sanctions could be problematic."

The world scarcely waited a second to start testing President-elect Barack Obama, and it has not let up since. The Obama team has made it clear that they in no way want to even remotely be seen as subverting the authority of the current president. At a press conference last week, Obama dodged a question as to how soon he anticipated sending low-level envoys to hostile countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and Iran to see if the presidential-level talks he spoke much of on the campaign trail would prove productive.

"We only have one president at a time," Obama said. "And I want to be very careful that we are sending the right signals, to the world as a whole, that I am not the president and I won't be until January 20th."

He acknowledged receiving a congratulatory note from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but was cautious in his response to that letter.

"I am aware that the letter was sent," he said. "Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount a international effort to prevent that from happening. Iran's support of terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease. I will be reviewing the letter from President Ahmadinejad. And we will respond appropriately."

For its part, Iran is apparently expressing concerns about Obama's leadership as well. Some there don't think he's sincere.

"People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous," deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Taeb told the Mehr News Agency this week, according to the Washington Post. "The power holders in the new American government are trying to regain their lost influence with a tactical change in their foreign diplomacy. They are shifting from a hard conflict to a soft attack."

Since his election last week, Mr. Obama has spoken to President Hu Jintao of China, President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, President Lech Kaczynski of Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, President Dmitriy Anatolyevich Medvedev of Russia, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia, President Jose Luis Zapatero of Spain, Prime Minister Rudd of Australia, Prime Minister Harper of Canada, President Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Olmert of Israel, Prime Minister Aso of Japan, President Calderon of Mexico, President Lee of South Korea, Prime Minister Brown of the United Kingdom, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, to name but a few.

Obama and his aides have been besieged with calls from world leaders trying to set up face-to-face time with the man who will be the 44th American President while they're in town for the G-20 conference this weekend. Obama has opted out, but is making two advisers -- former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa -- available for any meetings.

Agendas lurk behind these messages of congratulations. Polish president Kaczynski spoke to Obama, then claimed on his official website that Obama had told him "that the anti-missile shield project will be continued," a source of great controversy in the region.

Senior Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough immediately issued a statement saying that "President Kaczynski raised missile defense but President-elect Obama made no commitment on it. His position is as it was throughout the campaign, that he supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable." An aide to the President of Poland, Michal Kaminski, later corrected the record, saying on TVN24 that Obama "made no declaration on missile defense." 

Medvedev, meanwhile, soon backed off some of his more bellicose language, telling the French newspaper Le Figaro today that "We are prepared to drop our decision to deploy missiles at Kaliningrad if the new American administration decides to abandon its anti-missile system... We hope to create frank and honest relations with the new administration and resolve problems that we were not able to resolve with the current administration."

- jpt

November 13, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (29)

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Posted by: like it or not here I come | Nov 13, 2008 4:59:50 PM

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