International Reaction to Biden
Iraqi politicians greeted the the selection of Joe Biden as the Democratic vice presidential candidate with dismay because they oppose his soft partition plan for Iraq, an affront to Iraqi conceptions of national unity.
In contrast, the Sulaymaniya newspaper Kirkuk ran an article by Zana Galali, that, according to BBC Monitoring, "Says that the US senator, Joseph Biden, has reasonable visions toward Iraq and Kurdistan; nominating him to the vice president position of the US has its significant on Kurds; and Iraqi issues." A lot of Iraqi Kurds are separationists and so welcomed the Biden plan, whatever Kurdish leaders said in public.
Sudan's ruling party has reason to be alarmed by the selection of Joe Biden as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, according to the Sudan Tribune. Biden has said of the Darfur conflict, "it’s time to put force on the table and use it” and seems to propose inserting 2500 US or NATO troops into the vast, politically fractious African nation.
On the other hand, there was a sigh of relief in Iran:
BBC World Monitoring translates an item from Etemad from Aug. 24:
' E'TEMAD (from hardcopy)
1. Report by the international desk, entitled: "Joseph Biden, Obama's vice-president - Biden and Iran". The report believes that following the selection of the democrat senator, Joseph Biden, as Barack Obama's vice-president, it is anticipated that Biden's experience as the head of Senate's foreign relations committee would be of great help to Obama's victory in electoral competitions; an election in which foreign issues like Iran, Iraq, Iraq and Russia are more decisive than domestic American policies. It also adds that despite having directed numerous verbal attacks at Mahmud Ahmadinezhad, Biden is generally considered to be a moderate politician towards issues related to Iran.'
Biden appeared on Iran's Press TV applauding the Bush administration's direct diplomacy with Tehran last month.
Haaretz says Biden may help Obama with the American Jewish vote and reassure Israelis.
The Turkish press says Biden has consistently voted against Turkish interests but that at least he knows Turkish affairs well and that could be an advantage.
The Delhi papers spoke of the VP pick as "India Friend Joe Biden".
The German press had mixed reactions, which track with those in the US press.
The Irish Times seems happiest of all.
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/25/2008 07:52:00 AM
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8 Comments:
Now if only we can get them elected!
It is truly frightening to think of the leadership of the last years... Not just the horrific mistakes of the last 8 but all the massively self-interested and self-delusional decisions from our governments since the end of WW2...
It is not merely just "Change" we need. We need thoughtful intelligent people such as Biden and Obama to take the helm before the ship is lost! We need changes in our democracy of a more fundamental nature...
Did I hear somebody whisper "constitutional convention"?
The days of Americans in Iraq are numbered, so the Cunning Plans of any of the presidential candidates and running mates are not nearly as important as they think.
Maliki, America's cheif ally, has just said in a tribal conference in Baghad:
"Iraq will not sign any treaty or agrrement unless in accordance with full sovereignty and on the basis that no foreign soldier may remain on Iraq's soil, through a definitive time-table for withdrawl"
"One of the remaining unresolved items is immunity, and Iraq sees that it is not possible to grant immunity to anyone, Iraqi or foreign"
"It has been agreed that the end of 2011 will be the deadline for the presence of foreign forces."
See, in Arabic:
http://www.sotaliraq.com/iraqnews.php?id=24966
Regretfully, I don't think Obama is going to win. Obama's original appeal was his contrast to George Bush's aggressively unilateral and war-like foreign policies. Wasn't that what the "change" was all about? Well, George Bush has pulled the rug out from under Obama's "change" appeal.
George Bush has made an about face on just about all of his cherished "principles". He has gone from a unilateralist to a multilateralist (going back to the UN he so disparaged previously). He has accepted if not a total withdrawal, at least a redeployment of US troops to their bases in Iraq (and McCain doesn't seem to have much choice either, given the recent pronouncements coming out of the Green Zone). The menacing tone toward Iran has gone down substantially, to the point that negotiations are being trumpeted as the best alternative to bombing the country. This is no longer the George Bush of the immediately post-911 days. Obama, as much as I hate to say it, offers not so much change as continuity to George Bush's current policies.
Thanks for the roundup of Biden reactions in the foreign press.
Why do we have to go to BBC to get translations of Iranian press reactions? It's not like the US lacks budget, Farsi speakers, or has little interest in Iran. The fact that neither Kurds, Turks, nor Baghdad is high on Biden suggests that he isn't drinking the coolaid offered from those quarters.
Haaretz' report of Obama-Biden proto-endorsement by a former AIPAC and Democratic National Committee chairman was interesting. I don't think I've heard Biden lecture on US-Israeli geopolitics, which is odd, since he loves to demonstrate that he's the guy with a focussed picture of complicated problems. And none more complicated.
"For Jews he's a mishpucheh," Oregon Senator Ron Wyden said of Biden' OK then, thank you Haaretz.
I'm ok with realpolitik, as a middle ground between cumbaya and incompetent adventures. But in googling 'Biden on Israel', I found Catholic Biden telling Shalom TV that 'ich bin einer zionist'?
Biden does not endorse Israeli claims over W. Bank settlements, the sine qua non of new century zionism. But that clip of our next VP is going to play and play and play on Arab computers.
Biden's Iraq 'soft partition' federalism proposal, vs the 'successful surge narrative', is going to be a complicated thing to explain, even in a 2 min debate format. The argument against a sectarian federation is that it would usher in a civil war. Biden's argument was that ongoing civil war would continue until the constitutional provisions for federalism were enacted, and that delaying partition was only extending the war and delaying recovery. Sunni-Shiite and Arab-Kurd armed competition looks to increase in the near and mid-term, with the next election cycle indefinitely delayed over contentious Kurdish claims in Dayala, Kirkuk and Mosul.
Biden's 'Iraqi sectarian federalism is inevitable' viewpoint may not be far from the mark. But it is their country. The idea that the US gets to call the shots seems to have moved on to Pakistan for now.
Biden returned from surveying the Georgia meltdown last week, waving to his opposition counterpart, as Sen. Lugar went in for his look-see. The 'foreign policy guru' and former boy wonder of the Senate is looking ever more complicated to me today.
It will be interesting to see if Senate advise and consent are better respected in the next admin.
Stephen Zunes's article about Biden is one of the best he's written, IMO. If it was available, I would have linked it to my previous appraisal of Biden. Between Obama and McCain, Big War can't lose.
The thesis of Sadr being "restrained" by Iran gains credence in light of recent developments, although I don't agree with the idea that he's been detained by Iran. I think it a wise policy move by Iran, and I believe Sadr agreed to accept a long view offered by his Iranian mentors. Iran's #1 goal is to get the US out of Iraq, and strengthening Maliki in the short term at the expense of Sadr is the quickest road to that goal. As a very vocal Iraqi nationalist and vehement denouncer of the US Empire, Sadr's security is in constant jeopardy while in Iraq until the US forces leave. These same credentials allow him to be the most popluar Iraqi political leader, a reputation that can be enhanced gradually between now and the end of occupation; the Sardists will make sure the Americans leave when they are supposed to by maintaining pressure on the Iraqi executive, and they already seem to have a victory over the status of the "Oil Law," as both China and Russia are being invited to return while western oil companies decline to take part in what contracts they're offered. The problems of Kirkuk and the "Awakening" will soil someone else's hands, so Sadr will emerge clean however they get resolved. Thus, the major problems will likely be solved upon his return to Iraqi political life. And Sadr's continuance of his Islamic studies will make him hard to beat in an Iraqi presidential election post-US occupation. Nasrallah and Sadr are quite similar, but the situations they confront are very different.
As usual, time will tell.
Here is a good source of human translated news reports from other countries.
Watching America
The Foreign News Sources page has links to outlets all over the world and, in many cases, has auto-translation as an option.
Since when has the vice presidential candidate been so important to the real goings on in the oval office? That Dick Cheney far over-reached his position of power is a result of the failings of President Bush in leadership, intellect, policy making, gathering of information, etc. etc. The vice presidential selection has always been a political calculation, an election ploy to help the presidential candidate gain voters in areas where he needs the most help. Barak Obama and even John McCain are no George Bush, and they were not hand-selected by political actors such as Karl Rove to groom and fashion into a puppet of their agenda to set up a one-party rule by politicizing all three branches of government and folding them all under the powers of the unitary executive, run by their cabal of ideologues behind closed doors and without any form of oversight.
I have to believe that the candidates are walking the thin line between populist slogans like "change we can believe in" and playing ball with the political machines that feed them the finances and support that they need to get elected. So, all this scrutiny of Biden is just election year hype. Obama needed a foreign policy hawk to counteract his image on the right of being weak in that arena, as well as needing an insider to balance his own lack of national political experience. The far left and especially the anti-war movement is furious with Obama right now for choosing Biden, who was a long-time cheerleader for the Iraqi invasion and, as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, did not allow opposing positions such as Scott Ritter any voice in the far-too-meager hearings on the issue. Yet, he has come around to understand how sadly mistaken that all has been, which at least shows that he has the mental and emotional capacity to capitulate when he sees that he has done wrong, and which I think he should highlight as a quality of real leadership that is in direct opposition to the bluster and blockheadedness of the current administration. And I think that foreigners, more than people of the U.S., understand that leaders of nations play power games, where they puff themselves up and bluff, and then negotiate, and eventually, through often long and arduous processes, come around to undertandings between themselves. Because of the horror of the alternative, I am forcing myself to believe that this team of Obama and Biden represents just that kind of leadership, the kind that plays the game, and is skilled at it, but at the same time, will truly work toward making constructive changes in the way that the game itself is played. I hear in their speaches nuances of the same disgust that so many people are feeling about how currupt our politics have become, how partisan and myopic and self-serving and all the rest. I think these guys get that. So, hashing through Biden's past political positions is constructive only to look at the big picture of how he has conducted his political life. Yes, the media will pick and choose and run certain quotes over and over, but that kind of viewpoint is also a large part of the problem of our politics today. Issues like the "partitioning" of Iraq, for example - well, the idea was more nuanced than that. I'll have to look into it more, but if his vision was something like how the system in Switzerland works, all of the Swiss being very nationalistic, while at the same time having their regional differences, then that might not be such a horrific idea. And the Israeli-Palesinian problem - yes, Biden has been very pro-Israel, and both these guys are in the pocket of AIPAC. Yet, under this mantle of "Change," if we who want change so much keep reminding them, then maybe they would be more willing to listen to voices such as Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter, and make real changes in how this nation deals with problems that stem from our history of aggressive militaristic actions throughout the world.
Thanks for the Zunes reference.
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