What America's Weakness Makes Possible

After much bickering, the superpowers suddenly succeeded in coming up with a Syria resolution; even those archenemies Iran and the United States are talking with one another once again. And once again, foreign policy now seems possible. What brought this about sounds paradoxical.

For the first time since the Iranian Revolution 34 years ago, an American president has talked to an Iranian president by telephone. With this spectacular gesture, Barack Obama closed out a truly remarkable week in which he adjusted his foreign policy course and, with near desperate determination, reclaimed authority as helmsman of superpower America’s foreign policy. Whether he will win this high-stakes game is still uncertain, but his predecessors rarely invested so much in so short a span of days.

The stage for this performance was the United Nations, but the only role the international community played in it was as the audience. What was being played out was a sort of weight lifting competition in which the superpowers hefted their sacks of apples onto the scales in the cider mill. The weighing process showed that this autumn’s harvest would be profitable for all parties — if they were able to come to necessary agreements.

So the cooperative harvesting began: Russia and the United States struggled for weeks to come to agreement on the Syrian resolution and were finally successful in reaching a respectable compromise. Syria’s ruler, Bashar al-Assad, proved to be remarkably flexible, and the first thing a chastised Obama did was to give a speech announcing another change to the most recent change in U.S. foreign policy: The U.S. is taking its main focus off China and again refocusing on the Middle East. And as the crowning achievement, Iran and the United States went beyond agreeing to hold meetings directly between their foreign ministers concerning Iran’s nuclear program, something for years thought to be impossible until now: No, the leaders of both nations actually had a telephone conversation. The great Satan and the evil wannabe nuclear power! Was it all due to a heavenly confluence of the stars?

Foreign policy astrologers look to national interests if they want to explain any unusual phenomena in the international political skies. And just look: These national interests can already be seen in magnificent bloom. Assad wants to avoid an attack from the air and sees himself militarily ahead in Syria’s civil war. Why put it all at risk just for some chemical weapons, especially when the pragmatic realists in the West already prefer to have the butcher Assad in power rather than a Syrian caliphate?

Iran also profits from the deal in that it gets to keep its outposts in the Levant. Its serious internal problems, however, persist: The country is on the brink of collapse due to the highly effective sanctions against it, in which case internal strife would surely follow. That is something the leaders in Tehran don’t want to risk; the change in leadership now gives them the hope of a thaw.

Russia emerged the short-term winner, its Syrian interests likewise protected and Vladimir Putin’s concessions to Obama seen as an act of grace. The power-conscious elite around Obama may grumble about it, but they have only themselves to blame for the current situation.

Obama’s zigzag course appears to have ended in a satisfactory conclusion, even regarding Iran. As paradoxical as it may sound, it’s America’s weaknesses, the isolationism in Congress and the war weariness that enable the current foreign policy. The United States, shrunk down from imperial splendor to a more reasonable size, now appears suddenly predictable. Putin, shunned for his authoritarian manner, can now raise his market value in the eyes of the public. Assad no longer need fear air strikes and Hassan Rouhani can now be hopeful of a little easing of the sanctions against his nation, provided he takes part in nuclear policy discussions.

The stars continue on their course. National interests remain constant. Napoleon knew that people would fight harder for their interests than they would for their rights. It’s a good thing everyone’s interests coincide — at least for now.