& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Why Washington worries

Fareed Zakaria
AS GeorgeW. Bush's term ended, he had few defenders left in the world of foreign policy. Mainstream commentators almost unanimously agreed the Bush years had been marked by arrogance and incompetence. "Mr. Bush's characteristic failing was to apply a black-and-white mindset to too many grey areas of national security and foreign affairs," editorialised The Washington Post.
Even Richard Perle acknowledged recently that "Bush mostly failed to implement an effective foreign and defence policy." There was hope that President Obama would abandon some of his predecessor’s rigid ideological stances. But, the Post warned:" It won't be easy to undo what Mr. Bush has done."
In fact, though consumed by economic crisis, the Obama administration has made some striking moves in foreign policy. Obama announced the closure of Guantanamo and the end of any official sanction for torture.
In his first interview as president to an Arab network he spoke of the importance of respect when dealing with the Muslim world - a gesture that won him rave reviews from
Arab journalists and politicians.
The administration has signalled a willingness to start engaging with troublesome regimes like Syria and Iran. Clinton publicly affirmed that the US would work with China on the economic crisis and energy and environmental issues despite differences on human rights.
She has also offered the prospect of a more constructive relationship with Russia. Obama said he was open to the prospect of talking to some elements of theTaliban in an effort to isolate its hard-core jihadis.
These are initial, small steps but all in the right direction — deserving of praise, one might think. But no, the Washington establishment is mostly fretting, dismayed in oneway or another by most of these moves.
The conservative backlash has been almost comical in its fury. Two weeks into Obama's term, Charles Krauthammer lumped together a bunch of Russian declarations and actions - - many of them long in the making —and decided that they were all "brazen provocations" that Obama had failed to counter.
Obama's "supine diplomacy," Krauthammer thundered, was setting off a chain of catastrophes across the globe. The Pakistani government, for example, had
obviously sensed weakness in Washington and "capitulated to theTaliban" in the Swat Valley.
Somehow Krauthammer missed the many deals that Pakistan struck over the last three years — during Bush's reign -with the Taliban, deals that were more hastily put together, on worse terms, with poorer results.
Many normally intelligent commentators have joined in the worrying. Leslie Gelb, the author of a smart and lively new book, "Power Rules," says that Hillary's comments about China's human-rights record were correct, but shouldn't have been said publicly. Peter Bergen of CNN says that "doing deals with the Taliban today could further destabilise Afghanistan." "It's change for change's sake," Gelb writes ruefully. Ah, if we just kept in place all those Bush-era policies that were working so well.
Consider the gambit with Russia. The Washington establishment is united in the view that Iran's nuclear program poses the greatest challenge for the new administration. Many were skeptical that Obama would take the problem seriously. But he has done so, maintaining the push for more effective sanctions, seeing if there is anything to be gained by talking to the Iranians, and starting conversations with the Russians.
The only outside power that has any significant leverage over Tehran is Russia, which is building Iran’s nuclear reactor and supplying it with uranium. Exploring whether Moscow might press the Iranians
would be useful, right?
Wrong. The Washington Post reacted by worrying that Obama might be capitulating to Russian power His sin was to point out in a letter to the Russian president that were Moscow to help in blunting the threat of missile, attacks from Tehran, tha_US would not feel as pressed to position missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic - since those defences were meant to protect against Iranian missiles.
This is elementary logic. It also strikes me as a very good trade since right now the technology for an effective missile shield against Iran is, in the words of one expert cited by the Financial Times's Gideon Rachman: "a system that won't work, against a threat that doesn't exist, paid for with money that we don’t have.'
The problem with American foreign policy goes beyond George Bush. It includes a Washington establishment that has gotten comfortable with the exercise of American hegemony and treats compromise as treason and negotiations as appeasement.
Other countries can have no legitimate interests of their own - Russian demands are by definition unacceptable. The only way to deal with countries is by issuing a series of maximalist demands. This is not foreign policy: it's imperial policy. And it isn’t likely to work in today's world.
© Newsweek International A* nghts reserved Reprinted by arrangement