Obama’s Foreign Policy
According to Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, Obama is the “conservative” when it comes to foreign policy, and McCain is the “liberal”:
Over the course of the campaign against Hillary Clinton and now McCain, Obama has elaborated more and more the ideas that would undergird his foreign policy as president. What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist. It is interesting to note that, at least in terms of the historical schools of foreign policy, Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist.
…snip…
Obama rarely speaks in the moralistic tones of the current Bush administration. He doesn’t divide the world into good and evil even when speaking about terrorism. He sees countries and even extremist groups as complex, motivated by power, greed and fear as much as by pure ideology. His interest in diplomacy seems motivated by the sense that one can probe, learn and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths. When speaking to me about Islamic extremism, for example, he repeatedly emphasized the diversity within the Islamic world, speaking of Arabs, Persians, Africans, Southeast Asians, Shiites and Sunnis, all of whom have their own interests and agendas.
Obama never uses the soaring language of Bush’s freedom agenda, preferring instead to talk about enhancing people’s economic prospects, civil society and—his key word—”dignity.” He rejects Bush’s obsession with elections and political rights, and argues that people’s aspirations are broader and more basic—including food, shelter, jobs. “Once these aspirations are met,” he told The New York Times’s James Traub, “it opens up space for the kind of democratic regimes we want.” This is a view of democratic development that is slow, organic and incremental, usually held by conservatives.
Obama talks admiringly of men like Dean Acheson, George Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr, all of whom were imbued with a sense of the limits of idealism and American power to transform the world. “In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative,” wrote Larissa MacFarquhar in her profile of him for The New Yorker. “There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It’s not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good.”
…snip…
Ironically, the Republicans now seem to be the foreign-policy idealists, labeling countries as either good or evil, refusing to deal with nasty regimes, fixating on spreading democracy throughout the world and refusing to think in more historical and complex ways. “I don’t do nuance,” George W. Bush told many visitors to the White House in the years after 9/11. John McCain has had his differences with Bush, but not on this broad thrust of policy. Indeed it is McCain, the Republican, who has put forward some fanciful plans, arguing that America should establish a “League of Democracies,” expel Russia from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and exclude China from both groups as well.
The whole thing is worth the read. Cross-posted at Lean Left and TennesseeFree.
July 21st, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Well, I hardly know what is “Conservative” and what it “Liberal” anymore in foreign policy.
I do know that Bush could be accused of being Wilsonian (as in Woodrow Wilson) in his foreign policy.
Of course, it also depends on how you define “realist”. Was Bush a “realist” when he proposed a complex set of diplomatic talks with North Korea (and S. Korea, Japan, China, and Russia) over the North Korean nuclear ambitions? I think they have been bearing fruit in a slow and fitful way. They just don’t get big headlines, you know?
Is Obama a “realist” for claiming that he will sit down and talk with Iranian leaders, with nary a word on how he will bring the Iraqi, Saudi, Kuwaiti, Pakistani, and Afghan national interests into bringing Iran to heel? Not to mention the Israeli interest in not being the recipient of a surprise A-bomb?
(For historical comparison, was Reagan a “realist” when he espoused the very realistic rubric of “trust but verify” into his policy? What about the daring but reality-focused move to change the balance of MAD-policy with the SDI program? If you think neither was “realist”, then you have a definition for the word which is opaque to me.)
July 21st, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Well, I hope he can pull off Hope & Change™ on the International stage since he’s more than likely going to be our next POTUS.
I’m going to have a hard time voting for McCain, it would be damn near impossible to get me to tell others to do the same. I’m betting McCain gets a phone call from Dukakis telling him he knows how he feels come November.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Wow. All this lofty, soaring rhetoric for Obama considering not too long ago he commented that the surge was a failure. Way to go media, dropping the ball and being a cheerleader for Obama.
But I thought influencing other nations to the advantage of the United States was some sort of Evil Right-Wing device perpetuated by Gun-Nut God Fanatic Abortion Protesters lead by Texas Oilmen Bent on taking money from the poor. Now it is a good thing, apparently.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Setting aside the “surge is working” stuff (it’s only working according to the post-hoc standard set after dramatically shifting the goal posts), Dan obviously didn’t read the whole thing, because if he did, he would know that the same author, in the same article, criticizes Obama for being too eager to de-emphasize Iraq:
July 21st, 2008 at 8:59 pm
it’s only working according to the post-hoc standard set after dramatically shifting the goal posts”
You mean the 18 benchmarks that a Democratic Congress accepted and put into an Iraq War funding bill? From usliberals.about.com:
P.S. General Patraeus testified before Congress at the insistence of the Democrat-controlled Congress, not the President. The Democrats scheduled the testimony expecting things to go badly in Iraq, then had to spin the success of the surge when things went well and Petraeus gave his report.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Hmmmm.
No Obama is not “conservative”.
A lot of people want to co-opt conservatism for their particular political dog. And in most cases the mutt clearly doesn’t deserve being called a conservative.
Obama is one such mutt.
McCain is another.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I was listening to Tammy Bruce, my favorite lesbian conservative ailurophile gun-owner, on the radio last night. She had Anne Coulter come on the show with her and discuss just what kind of likker we should drink before holding our noses and gritting our teeth, and then voting for McCain.
Coulter, being a gurl, mentioned some kind of wine. Bruce, being a Lesbian and tougher, opted for tequila.
M’self, I’m thinking Chatham Artillery Punch, but if I do that I might have to be assisted to walk to the polling place.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:38 am
Mr. Zakaria’s definition of policy “realism” seems to be defined as a matter of what’s in
I’m really not sure I trust Zakaria’s definition of ‘realist’. This is the man who’s response to upcoming Iraqi elections was the assertion that chances of a ‘genuine’ democracy were ‘grim’.
It all works, if you take his definitions at face value, and his books are probably worthwhile reads; but his ‘realism’ with more attention on economic troubles and military hardware from China and Russia respectively than they seem to deserve, at the cost of a lot of other concerning developments. It’s a bit like asking Canadians about putting court justices up in front of directly elected officials for advising the prime minister; there might be some logic behind the resulting argument, but there something under the surface that’s not nearly so well-devised.
Again, it makes sense, just only for his version of real.
This article has the same underlying issue. Talking about countries in terms of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is idealistic. Why? Because Zakaria says that it’s not in America’s best interests, as magically predicts the results and mystically defines the best interests. How the hell do you debate that point? I mean, sure, hard opposition is a fairly well-known way to demonstrate diplomatic points and ensure both a good starting point and firm commitment by the populace, but Zakaria says that’s not ‘realistic’.
There are some interesting points, but you have to friggen dig past the Obama kool-aid bottles to get to it.
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:09 am
After all of McCain’s recent gaffes, like talking about the nonexistent Pakistan/Iraq border, people still think this guy’s strong suit is foreign policy?
Please.
Vote Libertarian!
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:27 am
gattsuru:
This is the man who’s [sic] response to upcoming Iraqi elections was the assertion that chances of a ‘genuine’ democracy were ‘grim’.
And he was wrong about this exactly… how? Most policy analysts I’ve read (and not just liberals, but Bush administration insiders) consider the results of the election to have been rendered illegitimate because of the Sunni boycott.
Talking about countries in terms of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is idealistic. Why?
Because it’s self-evidently true. For all of Ahmadinejad’s posturing, Iran’s population remains one of the most pro-Western in the Middle East. The Saudis, the world’s biggest supporter of Wahabbist exteremists, are our “friends.” Same with the Uzbeks, who boil dissidents alive. But the French? Those “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” didn’t support us from the get-go, so they’re bad bad bad!
If you have a third-grade reading level, I suppose I can understand how you’d see the world through simplistic lenses of “good” and “evil.” Real life, I’m afraid, is a lot more complicated.
Sebastian-PGP:
You forgot the minor detail that he can’t seem to keep Sunnis and Shi’ites straight, and that he’s so competent on economics that he thinks an 18˘ gas tax holiday on $4/gallon gas (when oil companies are still selling every drop they produce, as fast as they can produce it, even at record-high prices) will make a perceptible difference…
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:46 am
tgirsch: Please stop reminding us about how bad things already are. I have negotiated a deal with my liver which allows for maintenance doses. Thinking about what you have written is having a tendency to have me consider drinking even moar.
You are making me think that I should consider spending my ethanol money on ammo, canned food, and kerosine, instead.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:39 am
TGirsch, since when does an election become “illegitimate” solely because some angry jerks choose not to participate in it? You can’t kill your parents and then expect mercy from the court because you are an orphan.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:07 am
tgirsch, if you knew Obama’s position, you would have known he opposed the surge from the start. But of course the liberal media will act as if he supported it all along, and he will benefit from the surge strategy’s successes.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:22 am
tgirsch:
I’m still waiting for the answer to my question about Bush’s stance WRT North Korea, and the realistic/idealistic nature of that stance.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:17 am
Xrlq:
A true democracy is representative of all its citizens (something we frankly struggle with here — good thing we don’t have a democracy). That’s clearly not the case in Iraq; whether or not the unrepresented minority is “to blame” is a side issue — it doesn’t change the fact that their interests are not represented within their government. If you don’t like the term “illegitimate,” that’s fine, but any system which has a sizable unrepresented minority has little chance at lasting stability. Which is a big part of why our “temporary” surge has turned out to be not terribly temporary.
Dan:
if you knew Obama’s position, you would have known he opposed the surge from the start.
Where have I ever argued otherwise?
karrde:
I’m still waiting for the answer to my question about Bush’s stance WRT North Korea, and the realistic/idealistic nature of that stance.
It’s actually quite a pragmatic move, which makes it a dramatic shift from the administration’s rhetoric and stated policy of the last seven years. On both North Korea and Iran, the Bush Administration has shifted, and it has done so in Obama’s direction — in the direction of policies that Obama was called “naive” for supporting. I’m actually more than a little surprised that there hasn’t been a lot more outrage on the right over Bush’s recent “concessions” to North Korea and Iran.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Except that the “Dramatic shift in the administration’s rhetoric and stated policy of the last seven years” occurred when Bush first initiated the multi-party talks…more than four years ago. I didn’t know the seven years of Bush rhetoric and policy towards North Korea predated the beginning of his first term in office.
The N.K.-S.K.-Japan-China-Russia-U.S. talks have been ongoing for many years, in the stops-and-starts pattern, and I don’t recall when serious concessions were made (without the concessions being matched by concessions from all other parties involved). I do recall that N.K. promised to shut down their nuclear program in the middle of 2007. Can you outline specifically what Bush’s concessions were, and whether they occurred before or after the N.K. concessions over their nuclear plants?
I’m a little less clear on Bush’s concessions towards Iran. I believe they mainly involved opening diplomatic relations with a country that committed crimes against Americans and American property in Tehran in 1979, but that the talks haven’t progressed much. Though I keep hearing about several European nations also getting involved… Can you outline what the concessions were, and who forced the concessions upon whom?
Also, given rumors (at various military-related blogs) of pending Isreali action against Iran with tacit American approval, would any event of this type change your understanding of Bush’s realistic stance towards Iran? Would your opinion change if it was generally understood that covert American support had been necessary for the Isreali action to succeed?
Bush may or may not have shifted in the “Obama” direction, but I still wonder if I missed Obama talking about sitting down with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Because that would be the closest thing to the Korea solution that Obama could attempt, in my opinion.
I also wonder if Obama (or anyone not in the State Department) understands the complex give-and-take that led up to N.K. shutting down their nuclear program, and is willing to take that long, hard path to solve the problems in Iran. I also wonder if the problem of North Korea (their primary friend in the world is our biggest trading partner) is in any way analogous to the problem in Iran (we buy lots of oil, but most of it is from Canada and Mexico…and Iran’s doesn’t have a “big brother” that we can put pressure on in the way that N. Korea does).
Simply put, the thesis of the article you posted is interesting, but all the supporting ideas fall apart on closer examination.
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Multi-lateral talks != direct engagement. The recent direct talks with Iran and North Korea are of the sort long advocated for by Obama, and long opposed by the hawks in the administration.
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Ignoring the already problematic issue of “legitimate” democracies or not, and for that matter the use of unnamed “Bush administration insiders” (the closest I can find seem to have been liberal appointees or quoted ridiculously far out of context), last I checked those elections started at a 58% turnout in January, and had reached >70% by the December elections. You didn’t see these sorts of numbers coming from women after suffrage passed.
While it’s a bit difficult to get exact numbers on what portions of Iraqi society ‘count’ as Shiite or Sunni, the various estimates place Sunnis as making up at least 32% of the Iraqi population, with some going closer to 40%. Unless there’s more than 100% of a population in the first place, I think this rather easily debunks the idea of some type of universalized Sunni boycott holding hard. Looking at turnout in Sunni-heavy locations, the numbers hold up rather well.
Well, guess I should pack up and go home, then. Tgirsch finds it self-evident that calling a country which, as a policy, happily for slaughters its own citizens over gay cooties evil isn’t realistic. Not from the viewpoint of the term as a descriptor for a group which seems to pick choices our culture defines as evil more often than not, nor from the viewpoint of what method is more effective at being effective.
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
… for that matter the use of unnamed “Bush administration insiders” …
See any of the several Frontline episodes concerning Iraq for more details. Here’s a good start. Of course, that’s just the “liberal media” showing their bias, I’m sure.
Well, guess I should pack up and go home, then.
It would be a great idea, actually, but I’m not holding my breath. 🙂
The bottom line is that your refusal to acknowledge the existence of shades of gray doesn’t constitute evidence that shades of gray don’t exist.
Tgirsch finds it self-evident that calling a country which, as a policy, happily for slaughters its own citizens over gay cooties evil isn’t realistic.
What’s productive about painting with such a broad brush? Is the United States “evil” because it holds prisoners indefinitely without charge and without due process of law, and sometimes tortures those prisoners (and sends them away to be tortured by others)? Countries do evil things all the time, some of them more than others. By Middle Eastern standards, Iraq was pretty pedestrian on the evil-o-meter. And most of their worst atrocities were committed at a time when we considered them our “friends.”
So no, I don’t buy the whole “good country” and “evil country” rhetoric.