The Foreign Policy Obstacle Course

From the beginning, my enthusiasm for an Obama Administration was in the field of foreign policy, where it seemed he was bringing a new mindset of progressive internationalism that is a fitting break with the neoconservative policies of the past. The intervening weeks of the transition gave me some pause that he was falling back on Clinton retreads and moving in a more hawkish direction. And I still feel that his speech had a little too much bravado about "we will defeat you" that seemed shoved in there to appeal to Republicans. But overall, there was a refashioning of US foreign policy that is commendable, and Marc Lynch notes that his remarks to the Muslim world were spot-on.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

I do hope he follows this up, because the counsel he is likely to get from the team he has assembled is not likely to express their beliefs in quite this way. I was pleased to hear that Obama met with several foreign policy progressives in secret before the inauguration, and that Samantha Power still apparently has a role as a counselor, but like Matt Yglesias I'm not sure why the meeting had to be in secret:

And then there’s the matter of this national security team featuring Denis McDonough, Ben Rhodes, Daniel Shapiro, and Samantha Power with Lee Hamilton in the background as an eminence grise. That sounds to be an awful lot like the Obama national security team I remember from the campaign. What ever happened to those guys? Or to non-Hamilton folks like Scott Gration and Richard Danzig? Obama feels like he’s already “in the bubble” but it appears to be a bubble overwhelmingly of his own devising. The names we’ve got for the most senior positions—Gates, Lynn, Flournoy, Clinton, Steinberg, Slaughter, Jones, Donilon—are all well-qualified people, but it’s really striking that none of them are Obama’s people. It’s not surprising to me that he might start to feel uncomfortable with that situation, but I don’t really see why he created the situation in the first place.

It could be that he's comfortable enough with his vision of foreign policy that he wants it tested against those who don't share exactly the same views, but that certainly makes it harder on Obama for no discernible reason. There is an outpouring from the country and the world on which a wise leader can capitalize, but that requires good information and a wise course. Why did Obama turn that into an obstacle course?

(by the way, definitely click on the above link to see the front pages from over 700 newspapers around the world)

Clinton

A HUGE ovation for the former President and the next Secretary of State. It took the gasbags off guard. It shouldn't; this is a Democratic crowd, and Clinton is still in the memories of the nation, and considering the last eight years, I would say fondly.

Hillary Clinton has power and cachet of her own, not just in America, but around the world. Her hawkish tendencies aside, what she expressed in her confirmation hearing, the principle of smart power, multilateralism, a return to diplomacy and mutual cooperation, is going to be as important as the symbolism of the new President. This is an important change, but in many ways it's a very mundane change - away from the belligerence and unilateralism of neoconservatism, toward the respect and positive feeling of liberal internationalism.

Now if we can end this bumper sticker of the war on terror we'd be getting somewhere.

Bush, on the other hand, is being booed.

...I hate to echo Tweety, but Cheney leaving the world's stage in a wheelchair is brutally symbolic.

The Biden Foreign Policy

Joe Biden was wrong on Iraq, though he sought to limit the authorization for use of force. Prior to 9/11 he openly worried about terrorists threats coming from "inside the belly of a plane" instead of the phantom threats from ballistic missiles. He's been in the national spotlight for long enough to have a lot of hits and misses. But on balance, there are a wealth of sources to draw from to understand Joe Biden's conception of foreign policy and how that would impact an Obama Presidency.

One aspect is clear: Biden believes in the forfeiting of national sovereignty in cases of genocide or humanitarian crisis. The obvious question is where you draw the line and who gets to decide such a boundary. If this is simply genocide I would be somewhat inclined to agree, though whether that means direct military intervention is not clear to me. How genocide or humanitarian crisis is determined is more vague. Biden is certainly willing to use force as part of what he called in 2004 "enlightened nationalism," where American interests are protected in the way he describes here:

And the second thing is, so there's kind of a new standard that has emerged that I think is the combination of what I refer to as this enlightened nationalism. That we operated our national interests in every circumstance where we can under the umbrella of the international rules and the international community. But where the damage and danger is irrefutable, we reserve the right to act in our own interest or in the interest of humanity, if we have the capacity. And that is a different standard than existed the first 27 years I was a United States senator.

That is different than the standard and the rationale of our neoconservative friends. They argue the exercise of force is important because we are at the apex of our power and that we are more enlightened than the rest of the world. And when we have the ability to exercise force it allows us to leverage our power in direct proportion to the moral disapprobation of the rest of the world. So if I say, you guys are going to have a hell of a lot more -- if there's ten people in the room and there's a guy out in the hall screaming and he's bothering us and I say we ought to stop that guy, we ought to stop that guy. And everyone says, "Oh no, no this guy's a bad guy, this is gonna cause all these problems and there'll be dadda dadda da," And if I say, I don't care what the hell all of you think and I get up and I go beat the shit out of the guy, and I come back in and sit down. They're all going to look around. When you misbehave, and then I say, "hey man," you're going to go "whoa, whoa, whoa." These are the nine guys that aren't going to be able to constrain him. He doesn't care what anybody else thinks. That's what they mean by leveraging power [...]

These guys really think -- Paul Wolfowitz is an idealist. He really thinks you can impose democracy. We all agree democracy -- if the world, if all the Middle East was a democratic institution, then in fact we and our interests are greatly enhanced because democracies tend not to go to war with democracies. But that's a far cry from being able to impose it.

The Kerry administration will understand, in my view -- I know this from a long time, I know John well. There is a need for you to work very hard to establish the soil under which the seeds of liberal democratic institutions can take root. That means public diplomacy, that means engaged in economic initiatives, that means political interchange, that means everything from student exchange programs to saying if you step across that line I'm going to blow you to kingdom come. There s a mix of those things. These guys don't think that, they think that all this soft power is useless. If you listen and you read Nye's book about soft power, it is ridiculed by these guys.

This lines up with the Times' interpretation of his foreign policy philosophy as one of diplomacy first and intervention last. He doesn't believe in going to war without popular consensus. And his belief in multilateralism and international treaties (like the ABM agreement) is unquestioned. And certainly, he has the proper perspective on the current situation in Iraq, having stepped off of the ill-conceived partition idea and more toward the Obama plan of phased withdrawal:

Biden argued that the costs of our involvement in Iraq have outweighed the benefits and have ironically strengthened the greatest challenge to U.S. interests in the region: Iran. But “the idea that we can wipe out every vestige of Iran’s influence in Iraq is a fantasy,” Biden said. “Even with 160,000 American troops in Iraq, Prime Minister Maliki, our ally in Baghdad, greets Iran’s leader with kisses—Iran is a major regional power and it shares a long border—and a long history—with Iraq. Right now, Iran loves the status quo, with 140,000 Americans troops bogged down and bleeding, caught in a cross fire of intra-Shi’a rivalry and Sunni-Shi’a civil war.”

Biden explained that by “drawing down, we can take away Iran’s ability to wage a proxy war against our troops and force Tehran to concentrate on avoiding turmoil inside Iraq’s borders and instability beyond them.”

But there's certainly a willingness to use force for what he considers the right reasons which is troubling. We hear a lot about the "right war" in Afghanistan and I truly hope that once the campaigning is over, somebody takes a look at that situation as it is and not as everyone wants it to be and decides to figure out the cost-benefit analysis. I believe we are safer when we are engaged with the world. But that is not the same thing as intervening as the world's policeman whenever we see wrongdoing, and we have a ways to go to restore our moral standing to have any credibility to make those decisions.

Overall, this is why I'm glad the ticket is the way it is and not inverted, but it's worrisome that Biden will have such a sympathetic ear on these issues.