At first glance, the meeting that took place in St. Petersburg late Friday evening deviated from the norms of international diplomacy. Its participants, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov, were both due in Geneva the next day to participate in the meeting on Syria organized by U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan. So why do they need to meet one-on-one in Russia’s northern capital the night before? To be fair, it would have been tricky to maneuver arriving in Geneva an hour early and talking then.
President Clinton?
Upon closer examination, it appears that the St. Petersburg meeting was planned long before the announcement, if not even the conception, of the Geneva meeting. The truth of the matter is that Clinton was already in town for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum on “Women and the Economy,” and how well it turned out that it was the night before the meeting in Switzerland!
At this time, we cannot say much about what the two diplomats discussed on July 29. Lavrov has stated that the Geneva meeting about Syria presents a “very good” opportunity to find a “common denominator” and “the way forward.” The United States appears to understand Russia’s position and willingness to cooperate. Indeed, Lavrov and Clinton were spotted in St. Petersburg laughing and joking. It seemed that they had settled on something, but nothing has been confirmed regarding the possibilities of Moscow’s promise to not supply renovated helicopters to the Syrian government, or demand — to what would surely be America’s joy — the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. For President Obama, the looming elections mean that the only criterion of success is Assad’s resignation. In general, diplomacy ordinarily consists of constant meetings and the stealthy crafting of positions, and the St. Petersburg meeting between Lavrov and Clinton appeared to be business as usual.
However, there is nothing ordinary in Clinton’s situation. The American secretary of state skillfully uses the ambiguous status of her future position to her advantage. The question at hand is where she will go when she leaves her post, whether into retirement or onto something bigger.
Clinton led the American delegation to the APEC forum on “Women and the Economy” in St. Petersburg. Russia’s year-long chairmanship of APEC ends in September with the annual summit in Vladivostok, and a large portion of APEC’s events in 2012 wound-up being held on the banks of the Neva. Indeed, it was on these banks on Friday that the American secretary of state was awarded a prize for her contributions to the field, the good example that she sets, and so on and so forth. And this is where Sergei Lavrov came in.
While the Washington rumor mill has long been churning over Clinton’s future careers plans, it has really kicked into high gear since the secretary recently talked about her departure from the State Department for the first time in over a year. But now the conversation is somewhat different.
According to Clinton, she will leave her post sometime after the end of President Obama’s first term. However, recently the idea has popped up that she might run for the vice-presidency in place of Joseph Biden, a change that would be announced in the fall before the November elections. Moreover, Hillary is highly esteemed in America — she currently boasts the highest rating among current politicians and could possibly swing the current dead heat between the Democrats and the Republicans.
And now consider the fact that it is one thing to find a “common denominator” on Syria with the American secretary of state, but an entirely different thing to do the same with the future American vice president. By the way, there is still another presidential election in 2016. Obama will not run because of term limit restrictions and the Democrats will need a good candidate. Clinton will then be 69 years young.
100 Countries
Hillary constantly makes it known that she has tired of diplomatic work and even work in general. Even if that is the case, why not list some of the successes in the four years of international diplomacy headed by the woman who was almost the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate instead of Barack Obama?
For a start, the day before her trip to St. Petersburg she landed in Latvia and set a new record. Never before has an American secretary of state visited 100 countries (over half the world). This brings something important to mind, namely that Hillary Clinton has been and still is the secretary of state in the era of America’s geopolitical decline, because otherwise she would not have traveled the globe with such frequency.
She beat the previous record of Madeline Albright, who visited 96 countries in her tenure as secretary of state. However, Albright engaged in diplomacy in the golden years when it seemed that there were no limits to American power. And now, after the administration of President George W. Bush, the picture has become quite the opposite. Wars have been lost, goals have not been reached, the constraints on American power have become painfully obvious to everyone (however, this is not to say that America has lost all power), and the United States has become the single biggest debtor in the world.
Hillary seemed to be in a virtually impossible position when the situation for the United States on the international stage changed, and unfortunately the American public has yet to adapt to the times. They still prefer to vote for politicians who act as if the United States is still an omnipotent superpower.
This phenomenon is all too familiar to Russians. We all remember the hysteria of the ‘90s, when things became sadder and the more Russia ceased to be noticed by the rest of the world, the more enraged our patriots became as they thought back to Catherine the Great and Chancellor Gorchakov. Gorchakov, it should be noted, was also a diplomat who worked in a very unfortunate climate for his country.
The journal Foreign Policy recently published a multi-page article with the playful title “Head of State” (“State” refers to both the government department headed up by Clinton as well as the more general definition of “government”) that also enumerates Clinton’s achievements and hints at her future plans. However, the article predominantly discusses her constant diplomatic dilemma: If she works the public and smashes bargaining partners as if it were still 1999, she will muddle up American economic interests abroad. Problems lie ahead, and while Foreign Policy’s article mainly discusses American relations with China, the situation is all too similar in many other countries.
Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton will somehow manage to simultaneously deliver angry speeches in the American style and achieve real results in spite of them. She likes it when things turn out well, and fortunately she is a very good diplomat. A simple but pressing question remains as to whether the position and reputation of the United States in the world improved or worsened after George W. Bush. If only someone out there could forget the Bush administration…
What the two foreign affairs leaders agreed upon in St. Petersburg will be made clear at the Geneva meeting on Syria, but it could be even later. Incidentally, a few hours before the meeting between Clinton and Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Ministry published a detailed summary of what Russia would say in Geneva, and appeals to Bashar al-Assad to leave his post are nowhere to be seen in the report.
As an American citizen, I hope her choice is retirement.