Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Attention split on Asian tour
President keeps eye on Israel, Gaza Strip tensions
BANGKOK, Thailand — President Barack Obama landed in Thailand on Sunday to tout his vision of “pivoting” U.S. attention and resources to Asia. But he quickly ran into the challenge faced by his predecessors: No American president can long turn away from the Mideast.
As he arrived for the first stop of a three-country, three-day hopscotch through Southeast Asia, Obama’s attention was drawn to the continuing violence between Israelis and the Gaza Strip’s ruling Hamas movement.
WhiteHouse aides noted the presidentwas in regular contact with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and other leaders in position to pressureHamas, in an effort to defuse what appeared to be an escalating back-and-forth of airstrikes and rocket attacks that had killed more than 60 people.
Obama made his first public remarks on the violence as it entered its fifth day. Speaking at a news conference with ThaiPrime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the president expressed support for Israel’s stated justification for the airstrikes: forcing Hamas to end the steady onslaught of rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel.
“There’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” Obama said. “We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.”
He called on Hamas to halt the attacks, saying such a move would create an opening to put back together the shredded and tattered peace process. Without it, the peace process “is going to be pushed off way into the future,” Obama said.
This was not the conversation Obama intended to have on his inaugural postelection voyage abroad. Obama’s plans for a quick tour through Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia were aimed at highlighting diplomatic successes — particularly in the reforming Myanmar — and laying down fresh markers in the ongoing efforts to assert a greater U.S. role in the Pacific.
Obama’s strategy hinges on the so-called pivot to Asia — a broad plan to shift military asset and diplomatic focus to the region after a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have consumed U.S. resources and attention.
“Restoring American engagement in this region is a top priority,” Obama said at the news conference.
Obama paid a hospital visit to 84-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose 66 years on the throne make him the world’s longest-serving monarch. The president delivered a photo album filled with pictures of the king posing with American presidents going back to Dwight Eisenhower. The last page — reserved for a photo with Obama — was left blank.
The gift fit Obama’s message of reaffirming an old alliance. Thailand has the oldest diplomatic ties to the U.S. of any country in the region, stretching to an 1833 Treaty of Amity and Commerce. But the relationship is not without strain.
Thailand continues to benefit economically from its status as a regional hub for development in Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, even as it juggles barely papered-over political divisions. At issue are perceived inequities, a monarchy that critics say is outdated and a wealth gap between urban dwellers who have benefited from economic development and Thais in the rural areas who feel left behind.
This has sparked a series of political crises in recent years.
Historically, Thailand has pursued a foreign policy that calls for surviving by “drifting with the breeze,” said Michael Green, a senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “And China is very much the breeze now.”
Obama’s trip was about countering that wind— and not just in Thailand.
From Bangkok, Obama was bound for Myanmar (also known as Burma) the first U.S. president to visit the nation that was until recently walled off by an oppressive and insular authoritarian regime. The WhiteHouse argues that its policy of restoring diplomacy with the government sped the recent move toward reform and claims it as a victory for its broader strategy of engagement with isolated nations.
But Obama said his visit was not “an endorsement of the Burmese government.”