The Clinton/Biden Foreign Policy Factor

The very dangerous, very tricky scenario currently taking place between Israel and the Hamas-led Gaza Strip, which has been anticipated for some time by many observers of the region, is one of the reasons why Hillary Clinton was chosen to be President-Elect Obama's incoming Secretary of State. (She'll almost certainly be confirmed for the role, of course.) She has been hawkish on Middle East issues and is a long-standing strong supporter of Israel. This gives President-Elect Obama a foreign-policy face that is seen as "tough" both at home and abroad, and it will therefore allow him to shift U.S. policy in a slightly more moderate direction on the Israeli/Palestinian issue.

This is to suggest that, given the continued necessity for U.S. support for Israel, only a "hawkish" individual, such as Hillary Clinton, can credibly introduce "dove-ish" elements into the mix of U.S. policy regarding the region while simultaneously avoiding mass outrage in Israeli political circles. (It's like a Democrat who proposes tax cuts, as President-Elect Obama is doing; it doesn't seem as nefarious to those who generally do not support tax cuts as a Republican would in proposing the same thing, and at the same time it appeases those who do support tax cuts.)

Hence, though we should not expect a massive shift in U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians, we should expect a more multi-layered, complex portfolio to take shape, probably by degrees and over a certain amount of time, as opposed to a more herky-jerky overnight shift.

This will also give Hillary Clinton--and, of course, her soon-to-be-boss--leverage to talk "tough" with Iran. After all, if U.S. policy shifts slightly and pragmatically regarding the Israeli/Palestinian scenario (again, while retaining its core element of general and genuine support for Israel), and if things cool off insofar as that issue is concerned, Iran might be caught a bit flat-footed in its very belligerent stance toward the West in general and the U.S. in particular.

Meanwhile, Vice President-Elect Biden is to visit the India/Pakistan region (and perhaps Afghanistan?) quite soon. This will most likely be a major focus of his part of the overall U.S. foreign policy portfolio. I wrote a lengthy piece on his knowledge regarding the region a month or a month-and-a-half ago, so I won't go into detail regarding it now. Please let it suffice to say that when he is focused on foreign policy, it will most likely be centered on that particular region.

Much of this is predicated on the Iraq and Afghanistan scenarios, of course. So the overall importance of those conflicts has not diminished--and won't diminish anytime soon.

Yet here's a warning for the president-elect, who I believe is right in what he seems to be setting-up regarding the aforementioned areas, at least as far as who his "point-people" (only some of whom I've mentioned in this posting) in those countries will be:

Sir, please do not think of Russia as an "outlier" regarding the aforementioned areas, and do not ignore the growing problem of Russia's penchant for cutting gas shipments to the growing group of generally U.S.-friendly countries in Eastern Europe...and increasingly our tried-and-true allies in Western Europe. The Kremlin most likely wants the U.S. to be hyper-focused on the area from Israel to India to the point where we downplay Russia's strategic moves as it builds leverage in and around Eastern Europe. In my view, U.S. policymakers must not take their eye off the ball in that region--or even downplay it--anytime soon. And that means the Obama Administration must also not take its eye off of Russia, either.