Obama gets wins at UN, but tough road ahead

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24, 2009 (AFP) - US President Barack Obama left the United Nations Thursday with tangible wins on Iran and nuclear disarmament to show for his call on world powers to end trivial squabbles and work together.

But the goodwill exhibited by some, though not all powers, during Obama's debut UN General Assembly appearance will meet its biggest test in the thicket of explosive diplomatic issues building to crisis points.


And the Iran nuclear issue, and the US case for sanctions on Tehran, remain far from settled, and Obama's frustrated bid to prod Israelis and Palestinians back to talks proved the depth of some of his foreign policy problems.

Obama's key achievement in three frenetic days at the headquarters of global diplomacy appears to have been winning apparent Russian backing for toughened sanctions against Iran should it refuse to negotiate on its nuclear program.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev caused a stir after talks with Obama by saying sanctions were rarely productive, but were in some cases "inevitable," moderating Moscow's stance on the issue to the delight of US officials.

"It wasn't that long ago where we had very divergent definitions of the threat and definitions of our strategic objectives vis-a-vis Iran," said Michael McFaul, Obama's top Russia expert on the National Security Council.

"That seems to me to be a lot closer, if not almost together.

"I think we're at a different place in US-Russia relations."

Moscow's apparent goodwill will be put to an almost immediate test, when key world powers, among them Russia, China and the United States, sit down for nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva on October 1.

The other big obstacle to framing a toughened sanctions regime against Iran appears to be UN permanent Security Council member China.

Despite Obama impressing upon Chinese President Hu Jintao how seriously he takes the nuclear threat, Beijing does not appear to be ready to follow Russia's lead.

"We always believe that sanctions and pressure are not the way out," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters on Thursday.

"At present, it is not conducive to diplomatic efforts."

After becoming the first US president to chair a meeting of the Security Council, Obama could also claim progress on another goal of his General Assembly trip, winning a resolution vowing work towards a nuclear-free world.

The resolution represented a symbolic endorsement of one of Obama's key foreign policy goals -- nuclear disarmament and the fight against proliferation.

Washington insisted the resolution was not focused on Iran or North Korea, but it was hard to escape the conclusion, that it further isolates the two US foes from the breadth of global opinion.

Obama also used his diplomatic muscle to bring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas together for a summit on the sidelines of the United Nations on Wednesday.

But apart from a photo-op, and a chilly handshake between the rivals, he appeared to have made little progress towards a resumption of dialogue on the most contentious issues blocking the creation of a Palestinian state.

On Thursday, before heading for more high-stakes diplomacy at the G20 talks in Pittsburgh, Obama urged "sustained and expanded" support for Pakistan at a summit on the sidelines of the UN aimed at helping Washington's nuclear-armed ally defeat extremism.

Obama, seated next to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zadari, told the meeting of the 26-member Friends of Democratic Pakistan that a US Senate vote Thursday for billions of dollars in aid for Islamabad was proof of US support.

All member nations, he said, shared an interest in the South Asian country's future.

Tough diplomacy, with no guarantee of a positive result, is looming on climate change, in the build up to the major international conference in Copenhagen in December targeting a replacement to the Kyoto accord.

In a UN summit on Tuesday on global warming, Obama told fellow leaders he was "determined" the United States would act to stave off an environmental "catastrophe."

But he gave a warning that could stand as an epigram for much of his emerging foreign policy: "there should be no illusions that the hardest part of our journey is in front of us."

In his debut address to the UN General Assembly, Obama called on the world to launch a new era of engagement and to drop old squabbles to forge progress on the most pressing issues.


by Laurent Lozano
(c) 2009 AFP