Author: Peter McCawley

Imagine my surprise, doing a quick early morning check of the New York Times front page on Tuesday 16 December, to see the word “Indonesia” listed on the NYT’s Op-Ed site.  The world’s largest Moslem country, and the world’s third largest developing nation, is generally invisible in the U.S. media so I immediately followed the link to find out what was going on.  But the article was by an Australian rather than an American commentator.  It was the Lowy Institute’s own Michael Fullilove making a strong pitch for President-elect Obama to choose Indonesia as the site of his promised first Presidential speech at a “major Islamic forum”.

It’s a great idea.  Let’s hope it happens.  But in most countries, a good deal of foreign policy is drawn up to play to domestic audiences.  Sadly the suggestion isn’t likely to take on, is it?  Consider the arguments that Obama’s staffers will likely wheel out against the idea.

First, given the importance of Middle East issues on the domestic American stage, it would not be well-received in the U.S. for President Obama to go wandering off to some strange and distant land in Southeast Asia to talk about key Islamic issues.  The hardheads in Washington would quickly argue that the new and inexperienced President clearly doesn’t know what the globe looks like.

Second, there’s the personal angle. Precisely because Obama went to school in Jakarta until he was ten he is vulnerable to the charge that he is soft on Indonesia.  Critics would say that just when he should be building a new image of America across the world, he reveals his true priorities by taking time off to visit the relatives back home.  Kevin Rudd can earn lots of marks speaking Chinese but the last thing that Barack Obama can afford to do is be heard speaking Indonesian anywhere near an American microphone.

Weighing it up, the chances are that President Obama can’t afford to take the risk of visiting Southeast Asia too early into his presidency.

Related articles:

1. Obama, Islam, and Indonesia
2. Indonesia’s Obama, Washington’s Indonesia
3. President Obama comes to Canberra – Weekly editorial
4. Anticipating Obama’s visit to Indonesia and Australia

1. Post-COP15 diagnosis and the promise of Japanese political change – Weekly editorial
2. ASEAN’s Pattaya problem
3. The geostrategic implications of China’s growth

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 10:26 am and is filed under ANU Indonesia Project, International Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.