quote:

Originally posted by Lucas:
Have East Asia been consulted about this shift in the US foreign policy? Of course, white master does not need to consult with anyone.

]Obama drags Middle East baggage to Asia
By Peter Lee

The signature event in United States-Chinese relations last week was not the anti-climactic release of the US Defense Strategic Review, which re-emphasized the Barack Obama administration's widely touted ambitions to perform a strategic pirouette from the Middle East to East Asia. It was the murder of another Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran.

The assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan by forces unknown serves as a message that the Obama administration will find it difficult to reinvent itself as the savior of Asian peace and prosperity; instead, the United States will find itself reprising its dreary and detested role in the Middle East soap opera as defender of the pro-Israel/anti-Iranian status quo.


In some respects, the 2012 campaign against Iran is a rerun of

Dilbert


the drama of 2010 (which itself was a re-run of the George W Bush sanctions push of 2008, which in turn was a reprise of the sanctions push begun in 2006), with the US badgering China to jump on the anti-Iran bandwagon, and Washington brandishing the stick of sanctions against the Chinese banking system while simultaneously dangling the carrot of sweet, sweet Saudi crude before Beijing.

But there's a big difference as well.

In 2010, Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama could hold out the hope that hope that coercing Iran on its alleged nuclear ambitions would be balanced by an integration of Israel into the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime and a nice, geo-friendly win-win outcome for the Middle East (including Iran) and the world.

In 2012, pressure by the Israeli government and its US allies, enablers, and opportunistic supporters; Saudi Arabia's post-Arab Spring anxiety and aggressiveness; and the demands of the upcoming presidential campaign have combined to compel Obama to abandon his dreams of Middle East denuclearization, peace, and rapprochement with Iran.

Instead, Obama joins the dismal, unbroken series of recent US presidents whose only option is to demand Iran's head on a plate as part of a zero-sum win for Israel's Likud and the House of Saud ... and unambiguous loss for the People's Republic of China (PRC). Certainly, Obama has done his best to escape his Middle East conundrum, if not solve it.

Recent statements of the White House, State Department, and, with the announcement of the Defense Strategic Review, the Pentagon have been filled with the Obama administration's palpable yearning to refocus the United States as the indispensable counterweight to rising China, the welcomed champion of militarily weak East Asian free market democracies (plus handy ally communist Vietnam, of course), and deserving piggy at the trough of runaway Asian economic growth.

Indeed, there is a decent fit between the Asian ambitions of the United States and the needs of China's smaller and put-upon interlocutors in Asia.

The idea of a nuanced dance between the American eagle and Chinese dragon, not driven by ideology or security anxieties, but a realist tango of interest orchestrated by the intellectual brilliance of Beltway international relations wonks has understandably engaged the fancy ... of Beltway international relations wonks.


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