WMDS, Barack Obama, and Hegel’s “The Cunning of History”

According to Hegel, Reason realizes itself in History through the action of “great men.” However, Hegel argues that Reason does not act in a manner that seems “reasonable” on the surface. Men acting—as Freud would say unconsciously of ultimate results—bring Reason’s purposes to fruition.
My starting point here is the assumption that members of the human rights community, including especially friends of Israel, have a strong interest in curbing WMD use, no matter what they think about Barack Obama. This goal has been embraced by internationalists and humanitarians at least since the League of Nations endorsed it in 1925.

Has Obama—like an Hegelian “hero”—acted to further the cause of Reason, though maybe with only a limited grasp of the Cunning of History?

Defenders of President Obama’s vertiginous twists and turns about curbing the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons use against its own people are making two arguments—the second, but not the first of which, may have some merit.

First, Obama’s improvisations are being compared to JFK’s in the October 1962 Cuban Missile during which he issued contradictory statements, responded positively to the first—but not the second—of two crucial messages from Krushchev, and in a veiled manner agreed to remove obsolete U.S. liquid fuel missiles from Turkey as a quid pro quo for the Soviet withdrawal of their missiles from Cuba.
This indeed is an interesting comparison about two international crises half a century apart. The problem is that conclusions in geopolitical terms are quite different from those being drawn by Obama apologists. In 1962, the U.S. enjoyed a 10-t0-1 advantage in deliverable nuclear warheads—a superiority built during the Eisenhower Administration and added to by Kennedy who had run in the 1960 campaign on the existence of a nonexistent “missile gap.”

We still don’t know for sure, but the Russians (at the urgings of the Cubans) may at least partly have acted provocatively in Cuba because positioning intermediate range nuclear missiles there that could reach much of the continental U.S. would help correct the strategic imbalance. Whatever Russian motives, Krushchev—who liked to take risks—acted from weakness not strength. The jig was up as soon as the U.S. discovered the missiles and resolved to remove them, one way or another, at whatever the cost.
Kennedy resolved the crisis by deftly handling diplomatic communications, and by giving a Turkish fig leaf to Krushchev who then left an enraged Castro without a nuclear umbrella. This U.S. token concession was not enough to prevent Krushchev from being toppled the next year by Kremlin hardliners intent on achieving nuclear parity with the U.S., again at whatever the cost.

The differences between then and now are stark: Kennedy enjoyed the overwhelming support of the country and the Congress which, if anything, was more hawkish than he was. Obama maneuvered himself into a lonely position, without majority popular or Congressional support, at the end of a plank which was about to be cut off. We may not know the reality for years, but the appearance is that Obama—and Secretary of State John Kerry—extricated themselves from a terrible predicament by seizing on an out-of-the-blue offer from Russia of international control and perhaps dismantling of Syrian chemical weapons. Whether or not such a diplomatic solution can and will be implemented remains to be seen. But in terms of “power politics” if not international PR, Obama appears feckless, the U.S. weak, and Putin (should he also received a Nobel Peace Prize?)—and probably his Iranian as well as Syrian allies strengthened.
There is a second way to look at it, however. If Russian-American agreement doesn’t blow up, and is endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, whether or not it is fully implemented (there will be grave practical difficulties), it will be a victory at least in principle for curbing WMDs. The instrumentality will be a UN-blessed regime to control chemical weapons very much in harmony with Obama’s master wish that global crises—including those involving WMDs—be resolved by international action rather than military action by one great power such as the United States.

Compared to Krushchev getting his “fig leaf” in 1962, Obama has received a “fig leaf” from Putin in 2013 that may even bear positive fruit. If so, Obama will deserve some credit from the human rights community, even if such an outcome was far from what he initially expected.

POSTSCRIPT: As initial moves unfold, President Obama’s challenges to achieve more than just a “face saving” result seem increasingly formidable. Secretary of State Kerry is leaving it to the Russians to define the negotiating terms for dismantling Syrian chemical weapons, while President Assad has placed Obama on the defensive by demanding that the U.S. renounce any use of military action against his regime as a precondition for Syrian concessions. Will we soon also hear new demands that Israel also dismantle its defensive nuclear capability as a quid pro quo?

The Russia-Syria-U.S. triangle is playing out like a wrestling match in which the Russians and Syrians function as a tag team, while Obama lacks a partner. When negotiations reach the UN, the U.S. will be able to count only on French resolve to use military force, while Syria will have an additional diplomatic patron in China. In addition, the Obama Administration is issuing feelers that it may be willing to use negotiations over Syrian chemical weapons at the UN as an opportunity for outreach over Iran’s nuclear program to new President Rouhani, despite five years of unsuccessful American efforts to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran. Such free-wheeling diplomacy—very much Obama’s style—might further unsettle the Israelis and the Arab Gulf States.

And beyond China, the real wild card in this complex “game of thrones” could be North Korea, which stymied both the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations by developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and could press an opportunity to ratchet up pressure on South Korea and Japan if it perceives greater American weakness.

All this will not matter in retrospect if Obama manages to negotiate treacherous waters to obtain at least the semblance of a new international enforcement regime to eliminate the Syrian chemical weapons program and discourage WMD use elsewhere.

However, if Obama fails to make even modest substantive progress, he may begin to be portrayed by diplomatic historians as a disappointing twenty-first century footnote to the other idealistic university professor as president—Woodrow Wilson—whose overreach at and after 1919’s Versailles Conference set back the cause of internationalism for a generation.