This week it was leaked to the press that President Barrack Obama sent a “secret letter.” to revered Shia clerk the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. What’s up with Obama’s obsession with secret notes?
More on that in a moment, Sistani has been described as the most powerful man in Iraq a fact that was lost at times on the previous administration. L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority(CPA) was once advised to contact Sistani shortly after the establishment of the CPA. To which Bremer responded “Who is this person?” Not knowing who the most powerful man in Iraq is when your ruling the country for the moment is a pretty egregious error. Right up with there with disbanding the Iraqi Army. So things have improved a lot we now know who Al-Sistani is!
The story here is that the Obama administration is a big fan of secret letters as a tool of diplomacy. Obama has already sent multiple secret letters to Iran, which is in keeping with established policy toward Iran from the Clinton years. The BBC Documentary "Iran and the West" reveals that the Clinton Administration sent a secret letter to President Mohammad Khatami of Iran after the Al-Khobar Towers bombing. George W. Bush sent a secret letter to India while in office concerning nuclear issues.
But, Obama's penmanship has been more prolific. He has sent secret letters to Russia as part of are all over "Russian reset". Despite talk of a Russian reset it remains likely the iconic symbol of Russian-American relations under Obama will be the spy swap on a tarmac in Vienna.
Secret notes are a mixture of 1890s diplomacy and high school hijinx. One must wonder if Obama is using them as a tool of diplomacy so frequently to avoid domestic criticism of his bold foreign policy initiatives. Hopefully this is not the case and it is unfair to speculate. To be fair the exact contents of these secret letters are unknown, so we will have to wait until one of them shows up on Wikileaks one day.
Secret notes are a mixture of 1890s diplomacy and high school hijinx. One must wonder if Obama is using them as a tool of diplomacy so frequently to avoid domestic criticism of his bold foreign policy initiatives. Hopefully this is not the case and it is unfair to speculate. To be fair the exact contents of these secret letters are unknown, so we will have to wait until one of them shows up on Wikileaks one day.
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