Jul 9th, 2009 | WASHINGTON -- Joe Biden, the vice president who might have been secretary of state, is widening his role as globe-trotting diplomat, drawing praise on some fronts and puzzlement on others.
The former U.S. senator, at times the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is taking on Iraq policy and other sensitive diplomatic tasks facing an administration that has made a top priority of burnishing America's image abroad and improving relations with friend and foe alike.
Among the questions this raises in some quarters: Why Biden?
Why not Hillary Rodham Clinton in the secretary of state post that traditionally does much of an administration's diplomatic heavy lifting?
The answer, it seems, is that President Barack Obama prefers divvying up the diplomacy, with him as the diplomat in chief. Clinton, in turn, has delegated some of the dicier work -- like Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea and the Arab-Israeli peace process -- to special envoys.
Biden's widened foreign policy role has given him free rein to talk tough on sensitive issues. Sometimes his words have reinforced the administration's message, such as when he insisted that Israel stop all settlement activity in the West Bank -- a message the administration openly projected.
And sometimes he has gone so far beyond Obama's policy that it looks like Biden is playing the role of "bad cop" to the president's "good cop."
Last weekend, for example, Biden suggested on a talk show that the United States would not stand in Israel's way if it chose to attack Iran to scuttle its feared nuclear ambitions.
That raised a fuss that Obama forcefully quieted by declaring a few days later that his administration was "absolutely not" giving a green light for an Israeli attack. But Biden's remarks left the impression in some quarters of administration dissonance on a national security subject that seemed to require clarity.
Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning Washington think tank, said she doubts the wisdom of having so many senior officials sharing the lead on foreign policy.
"I think that it's enormously confusing," she said. "It sends mixed signals to foreign governments, who don't actually know with whom to deal or who to listen to. That's the real problem."
Richard Eichenburg, associate professor of political science at Tufts University, sees it differently. He thinks Biden, with extensive experience in dealing with U.S. allies, will add diplomatic value.
"Absent any sign that there are bureaucratic conflicts, ego conflicts, turf wars developing, I don't see the problem," he said. As for Clinton's role: "There is no lack of things keeping her busy."
The day before Biden was sworn in as vice president his wife, Jill, let slip in a television interview that her husband could have been Obama's secretary of state job if he had not been chosen as the running mate. She said she preferred him as VP, since that would mean less time trotting around the globe.
As it has turned out, Biden is almost as busy on the international stage as Clinton, who began her tenure with a fast-paced overseas travel schedule but has been slowed this summer by a broken right elbow.
The Biden diplomatic record thus far is mixed.
On the plus side, he set a positive tone for U.S.-Russia relations with an early trip to Munich, Germany, where he declared to great fanfare that Obama was ready to "reset" relations with Moscow. That was well-received in the Kremlin, which had felt disrespected by the U.S. in recent years.
His effort seemed to bear fruit when Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday sealed a series of deals, including agreement to negotiate new cuts in nuclear weapons.
This month Biden took on the job of overseeing Iraq policy, including pushing that country's fractious political actors to reconcile their differences. On his first trip there as vice president over the July 4th weekend, he stirred what looked like Iraqi resentment at U.S. meddling in its internal affairs.
Jay Carney, a Biden spokesman who accompanied him on the Baghdad visit, said news reports of Iraqi officials' resistance to Biden's involvement in their efforts at political reconciliation were off the mark.
"The vice president's meetings with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders were both positive and productive," Carney said. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Biden had phone conversations with Iraqi leaders.
Sam Parker, an Iraq watcher at the U.S. Institute for Peace, said Biden appears to come across to Iraqis as a "sermonizer" for giving the impression that the U.S. might not remain engaged in Iraq if it reverts to sectarian violence. Iraqis still identify Biden with his earlier advocacy of splitting up the country along sectarian lines, Parker said, even though the Obama administration rejects that position.
"That enflames a lot of passions," Parker said.
John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security and a veteran of the Iraq war, said he sees the vice president playing the role of "arm twister" in overseeing White House Iraq policy.
"Increasingly, the focus is going to be on governance and economic development, with a diminishing focus on security," Nagl said. "So I actually think it's a pretty good decision."
Next up for Biden: Ukraine and Georgia. These former Soviet republics have become flashpoints for conflict between a Russia intent on maintaining a "sphere of influence" on its periphery and an Obama administration that -- with its NATO allies -- wants to preserve Georgian and Ukrainian independence.
Obama has asked Biden to travel to Georgia and Ukraine later this month. The stated purpose: to "demonstrate U.S. support" for democratic and economic reforms. Left unsaid was Obama's intent to reassure the Ukrainian and Georgian governments that by cozying up to Medvedev this week in Moscow, the United States was not signaling a retreat from its opposition to Russian control over former vassal states.
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EDITOR'S NOTE -- Robert Burns has covered national security and military affairs for The Associated Press since 1990.
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