Next U.S. leader must engage with U.N., world

[FarCenter]

Ramesh Thakur / Special to The Daily Yomiuri

The new U.S. administration assuming office next January will confront a congested menu of domestic and foreign policy items demanding immediate attention. He or she, required to separate the urgent from the merely important, will be fortunate if the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has just left behind unfinished business instead of a full-blown crisis or two. The list of critical areas and issues is long: Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, human rights abuses and atrocities, global trade, climate change, pandemics, and poverty. There also are the perennial issues such as managing the China-U.S. relationship as a partnership or rivalry, reassuring traditional allies such as Japan and Australia, dealing with a prickly and newly assertive Russia, responding to requests for North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership from Georgia and Ukraine, and massaging the transatlantic alliance.

The U.N. Charter articulates the normative architecture of world order based on quintessentially U.S. values and its worldview. No other country had as much influence on designing the international organization nor on its operations once established; no other will have as critical a role in determining its agenda and actions in the foreseeable future. At the same time, no other country will have as devastating an impact on the fortunes of the United Nations by withholding support or opposing it.

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How will the different candidates respond to this agenda? Of the three, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is the most likely to win instant international attention, admiration and respect for the United States. His persona was formed in part in Indonesia, where he learned the triple lessons of the powerlessness and helplessness of citizens in developing countries, the status of Americans abroad, and the extent to which others look to the United States to help them overcome their own political and economic problems.

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Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is the most difficult to read because of her known propensity to tailor her promises to the political exigencies of the moment, the unknown variable of her husband's influence as a former president, first mate, etc. During the campaign, she has seemed obsessed with the commander-in-chief role of the president as crises erupt around the world at 3 a.m. Washington time, goes out of her way to present a persona of unremitting toughness, and threatens to "obliterate" Iran if it dared to attack Israel with nuclear weapons.

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Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is the only one of the three to know firsthand what war means. The misrepresentations of his 100-years-in-Iraq comment notwithstanding, therefore, he could be more cautious than Clinton, but because of his party less restrained than Obama in defending U.S. interests with force. He has based his campaign on winning the war in Iraq and not losing focus from the war on terrorism. He seems more interested in cooperating with a coalition or league of democracies than giving priority to the United Nations. This should work to the advantage of Japan and India at the cost of China and North Korea under a McCain administration. Denouncing "North Korea's totalitarian regime and impoverished society," he has welcomed "Japan's international leadership and emergence as a global power," encouraged "its admirable 'values-based diplomacy,'" and supported its candidacy for permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council. He has promised also to rebuild "the frayed partnership with South Korea...and cement our growing partnership with India." While acknowledging China's impressive record of poverty reduction, he wants it to a responsible international player and more transparent about its military.

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http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20080505TDY08001.htm