By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 21 -- As Judith McHale returns to the private sector after promoting US foreign policy on a “people to people” basis, she was asked to assess the Obama administration's work on the Syria draft resolution, moribund in the UN Security Council.
Recently France's Ambassador to the UN Gerard Araud wrote an op-ed for newspapers in Brazil, talking or trying to talk directly to Brazilians past their government. Inner City Press asked McHale if she thought this was a good idea.
McHale nodded and said, “when we are in discussions, it's important for government of the United States to makes its views and strategies well known to the populations of those countries.”
But why then are Brazil, India and South Africa (and of course Lebanon) along with China and Russia declining to even engage on the Syria draft?
Inner City Press asked McHale if she thought that the critique that the US and its allies have gone beyond resolution 1973 into “regime change” is a view held by the people of those countires, or other their governments.
This question, like many asked during the hour long session at the Council on Foreign Relations, McHale did not directly answer. She said, “one of the things we're trying to do is provide the context for the stance the US takes on issues. Our position on Libya and Syria is well know. We are in a multilateral force there.”
But a multilateral force with what goal?
One is left to conclude that no amount of social media, or expertise from the Discovery Channel, can gild an unclear or unacknowledged policy. The moderator was James Rubin, who posited getting help on Security Council resolutions as one measure of public diplomacy. If so, the Obama administration's loud success on Resolution 1973 has turned to a series of defeats, on the stalled Syria draft and the failure to even make a proposal about the killings in Yemen.
Most recently, the US Mission to the UN has taken to opposing an African Union proposed Presidential Statement on Libya by introducing "poison pill" amendments they know the African members won't accept. This too will eventually have an impact.
