WASHINGTON – With a pivotal NATO summit in Europe last weekend, President Barack Obama sought to dispel the pall of defeat that hovered over his tour of Asia in the days after the midterm elections.
Now back on U.S. soil, the president and his surrogates are seeking to declare a resounding foreign policy victory on several fronts after the speedy summit in the Portuguese capital with NATO allies.
Over three days in Lisbon, the president needed to shore up a shaky NATO coalition in Afghanistan, reshape the debate on NATO’s mission in light of missile defense worries from member states and Russia and put pressure on Congress to pass the New START treaty on strategic nuclear arms reduction in the lame duck session of Congress.
“We got all that,” said Ivo Daalder, the U.S. ambassador to NATO. “We revitalized this alliance not only on paper, but in reality.”
But it remains unclear whether Obama’s success in lining up European leaders to vouch for his foreign policy goals while getting Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to warm to cooperation despite a historic rivalry with NATO will provide Obama with more leverage while Republican senators seek to stall until next year.
Afghanistan
America’s Afghan allies in Europe face domestic populations deeply skeptical and even hostile to the war in Afghanistan. Shoring up that coalition required the bulk of President Obama’s attention in Lisbon.
At the top of the list was moving the time horizon of the conflict beyond the July 2011 strategic review and promised troop drawdown to a broader counterinsurgency mission that would run through 2014 and beyond.
“We have made it very clear that NATO as an alliance will be committed to stand with Afghanistan not only during the time of transition but after,” Daalder said.
“We’re all there for our national security. Al Qaida is just as much a threat to the United States as it is to Germans in Germany.”
With an agreement between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO allies signed on to the plan through 2014 after increasing their contribution by 10,000 troops and trainers as part of this year’s America-led surge in the region.
Obama made clear in remarks at the summit that the coalition forces would not bow to pressure from Karzai to scale back night raids in the country.
Russia
The Russian president has not officially engaged with NATO since the 2008 invasion of Georgia and a series of high-profile scuffles over missile defense that dragged the traditionally antagonistic ties between Russia and the alliance to a new low.
Medvedev agreed to attend the summit at the last minute and brightened his tone compared with his previous NATO dealings to buoy Obama’s efforts at quick ratification of the New START treaty before Congress leaves for the year.
Retired Brig. Gen. John Adams, who worked as a military envoy to NATO until 2007, said failure to pass the START treaty would risk “breakthrough results” of the Lisbon summit.
The Russians also agreed to cooperate with NATO on missile defense systems in Europe, something that seems unlikely a year ago. A year ago, Obama acquiesced to Russian demands to withdraw missile systems in Europe, which drew fire from Republicans in Congress.
Europe
The president only devoted one and a half hours of his weekend trip to discussion about direct relations with the European Union, instead speaking in terms of the strategic NATO alliance.
The short shrift left some EU stalwarts feeling like they missed out on an important discussion about the economic crisis that still grips both sides of the Atlantic.
“Europe is not anymore so sexy,” said Romano Prodi, an Italian politician and former president of the European Commission. “I have not seen in the American administration a moment of recognition of a European existence or a European reality.”
But the short amount of time spent on European Union issues did not stop more than 14 heads of state in Europe from expressing their support for ratification of the START treaty and signing on to the extended timetable in Afghanistan.
Washington
The president needed a foreign policy victory in Lisbon to put himself on a firmer footing with Congress as he tries to push through the treaty with Russia – which would be his most significant foreign policy achievement yet.
The summit was the centerpiece of a messaging campaign to imbue the treaty’s ratification with a sense of urgency.
Even though most Senate Republicans expressed approval for administration efforts on Afghanistan, they seem content to wait out the legislative session on START.
Steve Biegun, a former congressional Republican foreign policy adviser, said it could be lethal to the treaty to try to push it through on a short timetable. Though he supports the treaty, Beigun said Republicans are unlikely to move quickly.
“Don’t make this a test of political manhood,” he advised the president. “This is not about what needs to be done but about when.”