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Biden Dances the Tough Dances

[image: joe biden twn clemons washington note.jpg]Tomorrow morning, 8:00 am,
Vice President Joe
Biden<http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/vice-president-biden>
will
be meeting with his successor as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, John Kerry <http://kerry.senate.gov/>.

Their meeting is closed to press - but I imagine that besides their low carb
meals, they'll work through their angles on how to get the important START
Treaty ratified and then may discuss America's slogs in Iraq and
Afghanistan. If they get to Iran, which I hope they do, that will lead to
the Israel-Palestine standoff and how weak America's hand there is right
now.

On the down side regrettably, what they won't discuss at this breakfast is
Cuba - although it is there that the US can score the quickest, most solid
gains at lowest costs, showing that it is able to dump anachronistic foreign
policy and modernize. Cuba has always interested me as it has political echo
effects far beyond Cuba itself.

[image: tl_veep_debate1.jpg]With occasional blind spots aside, Biden's
policy breadth is impressive compared to virtually anyone else on the Obama
team. Only Bob Gates comes close to Biden's versatility - and even there,
Biden wins hands down.

Joe "Bite Me" Biden, as some in General Stanley McChrystal's Afghanistan
command team referred to
him<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236>,
has emerged as a consequential player in many of Obama's toughest portfolios
-- not because Biden has stuck his nose in the game but because Obama wants
Biden's decades-forged, informed takes on America's strategic choices given
the constraints that face US power today. The military's disrespect of Biden
is actually evidence of the fact that he is pushing them in ways that few
others are; it's a sign of Biden's power.

Joe Biden's job is to fill the holes in the Presidential team's
capabilities. Later in the day, he's meeting with Kosovo Prime Minister
Hashim Thaci. Kosovo, arguably, is a success story that used to be a serious
global, hemorrhaging ulcer.

There aren't a lot of Presidents and Vice Presidents in US history who have
a granular knowledge of the power players inside Kosovo, in Georgia, in Iraq
(even today), Russia, Afghanistan, or any one of scores of other countries
most Americans have hardly heard of. Biden really knows these terrains,
personally and in detail, and this brings tremendous capacity to Obama's
decision-making process and to the principals meetings.

I have watched Biden build behind the scenes the relationships that have
mattered in keeping Iraq from blowing up again - not only getting a good fix
on the nuances and power aspirations of political contenders in many
fragmented factions of Iraq's parties and politically system but also
working out the kinks in relations between the rival US diplomatic and
defense chiefs working in Iraq. And Biden has also built what is probably
the single best working relationship between the US government and a UN
operation in his regular communications with UN Special Representative to
Iraq Ad Melkert <http://www.uniraq.org/aboutus/biographies.asp>.

Remember Melkert? He was on the World Bank ethics committee that ultimately
brought down Paul Wolfowitz as well as a one-time likely Dutch Prime
Minister until Dutch politics went through massive upheaval a decade ago.
Melkert now has the largest growing budget in the United Nations as he and
his team have to fill the void in governance and political engagement that
is being left in the wake of America's drawdown in Iraq.

Biden puts Melkert on his dance card frequently - usually by secure video
conferencing and calls. It's pretty interesting that this high stakes
portfolio sits with the Biden team rather than at State or DoD - and yet we
hear virtually no chest-beating or self-aggrandizement from Biden about his
Iraq attentions.

This morning, Biden breakfasted with British Prime Minister David
Cameron<http://www.conservatives.com/People/David_Cameron.aspx> and
UK Ambassador to the US Nigel
Sheinwald<http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/sheinwald/>.
The 'special relationship' has now been called by some in the White House
the 'truly special' relationship.

Over the last week alone, Biden has had reported small meetings with former
Senator Chuck Hagel <http://www.acus.org/users/chuck-hagel> (who co-chairs
the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and is one of Biden's closest
friends), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton<http://www.state.gov/secretary/>,
Secretary of Defense Bob
Gates<http://www.defense.gov/bios/biographydetail.aspx?biographyid=115>,
Teamsters General President James
Hoffa<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_P._Hoffa>,
and Council on Foreign Relations President Richard
Haass<http://www.cfr.org/bios/3350/> (who
is now strongly advocating that the US get out of
Afghanistan<http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/18/we-re-not-winning-it-s-not-worth-it.html>
).

Biden has participated in numerous other group sessions with labor leaders
and interest groups advocating for jobs and infrastructure policies that
they feel are being under-invested in by the Obama administration. He has
convened meetings of his Middle Class task force.

Biden's dance card is full - but it's packed with stuff that is vital to the
administration even if most of the Cabinet knows zilch about Kosovo, or
labor groups, or infrastructure, or wants to hear the tough realities about
America's slipping position in Afghanistan, its sprawling and
ineffective intelligence
industrial complex <http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/>,
or wants to put in the time beyond ego strokes in the press in patiently
nudging and working the political personalities in Iraq so that that fragile
political order doesn't erupt in civil war.

Joe Biden is doing these things - and in my book - all jokes aside about his
gaffes and loquaciousness is the person on Obama's team who has surpassed
expectations far more than any other Cabinet Member.

*-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog,* The
Washington Note<http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/>
. *Clemons can be followed on Twitter* @SCClemons<http://twitter.com/scclemons>

--
Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.co