| | |  Americas & Beyond | November 2008 
Obama Makes Foreign Leaders Wait
 Peter Baker - International Herald Tribune
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| | US President Elect Barack Obama (R) give Iraqi war veteran Tammy Duckworth (L), Illinois State Director of Veterans Affairs, a hug on Veteran's Day November 11, 2008 on the Lakefront in Chicago, Illinois. Obama plans to send out an army of evaluators into government agencies to study the sprawling US bureaucracy and determine how best to meet his goals when he takes office. (AFP/Stan Honda) | | |
The world is waiting for President-elect Barack Obama, and some of its most prominent leaders are flying to the United States this weekend clamoring to meet with him. But they will have to keep on waiting.
The leaders of 19 foreign powers, including Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, are scheduled to converge Friday on Washington for an emergency economic summit meeting organized by President George W. Bush.
Although invited, Obama has opted to stay in Chicago and will not meet any of the leaders separately.
His transition team said Wednesday that, instead of attending the summit, he had designated the former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who served under President Bill Clinton, and former Representative Jim Leach, a Republican from Iowa who endorsed Obama during the campaign, to meet with visiting foreign dignitaries on his behalf this weekend.
Coming so soon after last week's election, the economic summit meeting has proved an uncomfortable moment for the president-elect and an early test of his handling of international diplomacy.
Even as aides are closing his campaign headquarters and just beginning to assemble a governing team, they are fending off interest from foreign governments eager to take the measure of Obama and trying to avoid being associated with the Bush administration.
Several Obama advisers, in separate interviews, all used the word "awkward" to describe the situation. But Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser to Obama, said: "While some may say it's awkward that he's not there, it would be far more problematic to be there. We firmly believe there is only one president at a time."
The situation has already fostered misunderstandings. A Kremlin official told reporters in Moscow that President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia would probably meet with Obama during his trip to the United States this weekend, even though the Obama camp has ruled that out.
The potential for even more significant misunderstanding was underscored last weekend when a quick, seemingly perfunctory telephone call by Obama returning the congratulatory call of the Polish president led to a dispute about what was said about missile defense.
If confusion over such a delicate issue could arise from a roughly five-minute phone call, Obama advisers reasoned, then the prospect of longer encounters in person with foreign leaders at this point would be fraught with peril.
He has not even designated a secretary of state, Treasury secretary or national security adviser.
The White House expressed no disappointment over Obama's absence and vowed to work closely with the president-elect.
"We continue to work with the transition team on the financial summit and will keep them up to date," said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman.
Foreign affairs veterans said Obama was trying to play it safe and avoid being forced to take positions on matters he was not yet authorized to decide, much less take ownership for the problems and decisions of Bush.
"I sort of understand why he can't go to that meeting," said Representative Howard Berman, a Democrat from California and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "What if the administration makes a suggestion that he doesn't agree with? Should he pop up and say something? Is his silence acquiescence? I think he's making the right call."
Stephen Krasner, a former policy planning director at the State Department under Bush, said Obama should not assume a role he does not formally have yet.
"It may appear to be awkward," he said, "but the key thing is it's a government that operates by law, and Obama has no authority until he's inaugurated."
The period between an election and inauguration has often fostered tension and uncertainty when it comes to foreign affairs. Lyndon Johnson wanted his successor to support peace talks with North Vietnam and arms talks with the Soviet Union, but Richard Nixon undercut those efforts. The first President Bush sent troops to Somalia after his re-election defeat but before Clinton's inauguration.
The protocol for making first contacts with foreign leaders can be complicated and delicate. New presidents have traditionally made the Canadian prime minister the first foreign leader they meet with after taking office, a nod to its singular status as the nation's neighbor and trading partner.
In January 1993, Clinton met with the Mexican president in Texas as president-elect, setting off protests from Canada. He responded by promising to make their prime minister his first foreign visitor after he took office.
The Canadians were upset when the current president took office in 2001 and promptly scheduled a trip to Mexico. Bush rectified the situation by bringing the Canadian prime minister to Washington for a hurriedly arranged meeting before the departure for Mexico.
Obama called for "a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20" during a campaign stop in Miami in September. But some of his advisers said the timing of the gathering this week was not their choice and wished there were a graceful way to call it off or at least postpone it. Obama advisers said it would be impractical to set up separate meetings with any foreign leaders on the sidelines of the summit meeting, if only because it would be hard to meet with a few and not all 19 visitors.
Peter Feaver, a former strategic adviser to Bush at the National Security Council, said meeting foreign visitors should be a low priority at this point. To organize and set up a social meeting like that "just consumes staff time and energy that could be devoted to transition planning and 100-day planning and staff and so forth," he said. "And the payoff would be fairly low."
Reporting was contributed by Jeff Zeleny from Washington, Clifford J. Levy from Moscow, Nicholas Kulish from Berlin and Steven Erlanger from Paris. |
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