Obama’s Diplomatic Team Facing Internal Conflict, Disorder In Pace and Positions

Obama’s diplomatic team and policies are in disorder in pace, caliber and positions. This situation was very obvious on Jan. 14 this year, at the funeral of senior diplomat Richard Holbrooke. On that day, the memorial speakers were sitting in a row, except for Mrs. Holbrooke and her two sons; the speakers included Obama, the Clintons, former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, former President of the Council on Foreign Relations Gelb, former Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner and White House advisor for Human Rights Samantha Power.

All the speakers remembered Mr. Holbrooke’s contributions, achievements and life stories. Holbrooke was the chief diplomatic advisor to Hillary during the 2008 Democratic primaries. Everybody said that if Hillary were elected president, Holbrooke would be secretary of state, but Obama was elected president instead. Obama revealed that the day after the elections, Holbrooke flew to Chicago to visit him. When talking about how the Bush administration shuffled U.S. foreign policy during its eight years in power, Holbrooke couldn’t help but speak in a tearful voice. Obama said that he then realized that Holbrooke shouldn’t be a wallflower but instead be returned to the diplomatic battlefield. Later Hillary strongly recommended Holbrooke to Obama, who then appointed Holbrooke as the special advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

However, Washington power circles and diplomatic media all knew that Holbrooke was working very hard and unhappily; his largest resistance and setbacks came from the National Security Council in the White House and Obama didn't support him 100 percent, either. It can be said that the talented and larger-than-life Holbrooke was consumed by grief. Allegedly, the White House meant to force Holbrooke out ages ago, but Hillary insisted on supporting him.

Examples of disagreements on diplomatic personnel and policy between the White House and the State Department have occurred a lot in the past two years. After Hillary came to power, she desperately wanted to develop soft power and appoint the famous Harvard scholar Joseph Nye as ambassador to Japan, a move that was rejected by the White House. This time, in regards to the political turmoil in Egypt, a series of conflicting statements and contradictory claims between the White House and State Department were produced.

Under Hillary’s vigorous promotion, Obama urgently dispatched Frank G. Wisner, who had a personal friendship with Egyptian President Mubarak, to Cairo to talk Mubarak into abdication, but he failed. Several days later, Hillary flew to Munich to attend a security conference, demonstrated that Egypt ought to make an orderly transfer instead of rushing the process and emphasized that a transfer of power needed time. The worst thing was that Wisner emphasized in a video that Mubarak not only should not step down at this moment but that he was an indispensable person who could accelerate reform as a leader. After hearing Wisner’s speech on Feb. 5, Obama was extremely angry; he immediately asked White House Press Secretary Gibbs to publicly state, very clearly, his wish for Mubarak’s abdication.

Why would 72-year-old Wisner sing a different tone after being assigned as Obama’s special envoy? The reason was that gifts blinded his eyes. He’s not only the main lobbyist for Mubarak in the U.S. but also on the board of the largest bank in Egypt: the wrong person for Obama and Hillary. But Wisner should not take all the responsibility. At the beginning of the Egyptian turmoil, the Obama administration issued different signals, sometimes hard, sometimes soft, sometimes supporting Mubarak, sometimes responding to the protest. Obama was in the middle of discreet, cautious discussions with the State Department (including Vice President Biden and Defense Secretary Gates) and the young National Security Council, which advocated the abdication of Mubarak. Such a situation made it difficult for him to make a move. He could not be too conservative but also could not ignore the overwhelming power of the people. However, after hearing Wisner’s reactionary remarks, Obama immediately joined Biden to request that Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Kerry make a public claim during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” during which Kerry stated that Wisner’s opinion couldn’t reflect the White House’s position. Biden, who always has a lousy choice of words, also put his foot in his mouth by saying that Mubarak was not a dictator; he later regretted what he said.

In the White House, there are three people who support the abdication of Mubarak. One spoke during Holbrooke's memorial service, the White House Advisor on Human Rights Samantha Power. The Irish scholar was a professor at the Kennedy School at Harvard; she is 40 years old and won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for her book “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.” After reading this book in 2005, Obama immediately got in touch with her and invited her to assist him in his presidential campaign. But during the elections, Power was dismissed and apologized to Hillary for calling her a monster. After Obama took office, Power was asked back and lived in the White House with her new husband, a law professor at the University of Chicago, Cass Sunstein. This time the person who stood with Power is Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough (who also frustrated Holbrooke) and the writer of Obama's 2009 Cairo speech, Benjamin Rhodes. They strongly stated to Obama that the U.S. should not go against the flow of history and trends in the face of peaceful and democratic revolution in Egypt.

For 200 years, there have always been conflicts between idealism and realism in the democratic history of the U.S. Obama called himself a pragmatist. Facing external pressure from Israel, Saudi Arabia and other allies who support Mubarak and the internal confusion of the opposing positions between the White House and the State Department, Obama finally gained a firm foothold after staggering for a while and responded to the roar of the Egyptian people for change.

Obama’s Cabinet team allegedly consists of a group of political rivals, and after more than two years, this “team of rivalries” hasn’t found a harmonious sound, but rather more cacophony especially on diplomatic issues. As a result, the diplomatic strength of Obama’s team was compromised.