The national sham, better known as the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, is behind us. 24 months and more than $2 billion later, Barack Obama is our new leader. He ran on a platform of “change”. To be precise his campaign theme was “Change We Can Believe In”. Clearly, after eight years of the Bush Administration this mantra appealed to many Americans and with good reason. But before we get too excited, like many Americans have, about the “change” he will bring to America, let’s look at his first two presidential appointments. They should certainly put a damper on the idea that things will be different in terms of foreign policy from the new administration.
In his first presidential act, over the summer, Obama chose Senator Joe Biden to be his vice-presidential running mate. This is the same Joe Biden who had to withdraw from the 1988 presidential race after it was revealed he plagiarized a speech from British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock. That was a long time ago and everyone is entitled to redemption for past sins. However, Biden’s most recent positions on foreign policy issues are what is really concerning and perhaps an indication that Obama did not mean change in terms of current U.S. foreign policy.
A quick review of Biden’s foreign policy record in the last ten years reveals that he is as hawkish as some well known Republicans. In 1999, he joined forces with one such Republican, John McCain (funny how politics does make for strange bedfellows), in the Senate to sponsor the resolution authorizing NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. This aggression included an 11 week bombardment of Serbia and Montenegro.
Then in 2003, Biden not only voted to give the president authorization to invade Iraq, but he vigorously supported the president’s false claims about WMDs and Saddam’s ties to Osama bin Laden. As Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, he suppressed testimony contradictory to the war agenda to the committee leading up to the attack.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Kenn, while I think there are certainly reasons to be concerned about Obama's foreign policy choices and especially about Emanuel, I don't see any evidence that they fit under the blanket of being neocons, which is a much over and miss used term. Biden is bellicose and a blowhard and Emanuel is clearly pro-Israel, but I don't see them as supporting the kind of broad expansionist foreign policy advocated by the neocons - back when there actually were neocons.
The Iraq war is pretty much resolved and it is certainly NOT the whole of our foreign policy. Nor is the middle east in general. It looks more like Obama's first foreign policy challenge is going to come from Russia. Any prognostication on what these early appointments say about how he'll deal with the bear (ooh, multilingual pun).
Dave
2 - Ruvy
Kenn,
I haven't had the time to sort out the trash from the chaff in what passes for American foreign policy. But I do live in this neighborhood and have some idea what the "support" of American politicians for Israel amounts to. This is especially true of Jewish politicians in the States.
The truth of the matter is that it does not amount to all that much. What it amounts to is pressuring the United States for crumbs, and then pretending that these crumbs are a huge meal. There is a price to be paid for this "aid" - for these crumbs - almost always second rate American equipment that Israelis need to modify.
The price is honor.
I remember mid-westerners back when I was a Burger King manager in St. Paul, and their first reaction at the mention of the word "Israel" was to reach for their wallet to make sure nobody had emptied it, and to make sure nobody would. So, I kept the discussion to Whopper sandwiches and fries.
Beggars have no honor, and we Israelis have been reduced to beggars by American Jewish politicians who think that by grovelling to the American government, they do a mitzvá - a good deed. Rahm Emanuel is, unfortunately, such an individual. If one chooses to see him as anti-thetical to many of the goals of the new administration, Obama has shown the classic political wisdom by hugging his enemies closer to himself than his friends. If one chooses him to be a fool who does not understand what is good for the country, my own view, then Obama has appointted the perfect fellow for the job. He will appear to be the "pro-Israel" gatekeeper of the Obama administration while Obama keeps his contacts with Arabs at the personal level - outside of the formal structure of the administration.
That is what I expect to see in the coming months.
3 - Mark Edward Manning
Surely Obama's biggest foreign policy project will be Afghanistan?
4 - Mark Edward Manning
"But, the old axiom is true, 'you judge a man by the company he keeps'.
And that's exactly what worries me about Obama, considering his friendships with the likes of Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan.
5 - Christopher Rose
The old axiom that you know a man by the company he keeps is a load of drivel, glib and lazy words that are superficially attractive but have no grounding in reality.
6 - Dan(Miller)
Here is a link to a letter written by a blogger down in Venezuela, giving his wish list for U.S. foreign policy. Lots of it makes sense.
Dan(Miller)
7 - Dave Nalle
I doubt it will be Afghanistan. More likely Pakistan.
Dave
8 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave - I agree. It SHOULD be Pakistan. It's not good to have a nuclear-armed country with a dangerously unstable government. IMO, we should be grateful for India's nuclear arms, and for the life of me I can't understand why it's SO hard for the world to see past Shi'a Iran's "destroy Israel" rhetoric to the REAL purpose - to defend against their next-door neighbor - nuclear-armed Sunni Pakistan.
It's the same thing as in Iraq - the Sunni and Shi'a see each other as the REAL enemy...and America is just an excuse, a tool to be manipulated. Anyone who doubts this should read what al Qaeda #2 Zarqawi said in an open letter.
(RUVY PLEASE NOTE THAT ISRAEL WASN'T EVEN A CONCERN OF HIS)
In Iran, Pakistan (and al Qaeda) is the REAL enemy - Israel's just an excuse, a tool to be manipulated.
Fortunately, I think Obama understands all this.
9 - Baritone
Kenn,
You and some of the others are just pissing your pants in hopes that Obama falls on his face. He is still more than 70 days from taking the oath and you believe that you've got the whole direction of his administration figured out.
Obama and the Dems kicked ass! The Republican agenda is bankrupt. They can do little more than lick their wounds and hope, like you that Obama fucks up. You really shouldn't count on it. He is easily smarter than all of us.
B
10 - Clavos
Baritone,
You sound like a little boy whistlin' his way past the graveyard...
11 - Baritone
What? In what way? I'm near delerious. I'm so happy I could shit!
B
12 - Les Slater
It seems that Obama got his supporters to start jumping up and down in his support of policies that the Bush administration has already been following. Glenn's #8 is a good example of this.
13 - handyguy
That the author of this article would refer to Biden and Emanuel as 'Democratic neocons' says plenty about his own lack of knowledge, but not much about the Obama administration-under-construction.
No doubt Mr. O is not actually perfect, despite the very convincing encomiums from seemingly every living historian/author of presidential biographies - they all seemed to be on teevee this weekend assuring us that we are watching Momentous History in the Making. [Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meacham, Robert Caro, Walter Isaacson, etc]
I'm a big Obama fan, but wouldn't it make more sense to wait until he actually does something before definitively proclaiming it right or wrong?
14 - Dave Nalle
Very good point, Les. I relish the irony that Obama is likely to end up doing a lot of the same things Bush did and proposed and be treated like a hero while Bush was portrayed as a villain.
And Glenn, the truth is that Iran is a natural ally for the US, even with their idiotic current government. And the closer we work with them the more likely they'll start to revert to the secularism which many of them still have a fondness for.
Dave
15 - handyguy
Simply by being elected, Obama has dramatically changed the attitudes of both the leaders and citizens of many [most? all?] other countries toward the US. This is not a minor matter. But it's what we do with the more open, cooperative feelings that counts.
I assume that Guantanamo, as well as the way we treat future terrorist-suspect detainees, will be strikingly different under the new administration.
Les's and Dave's 'same as Bush' statements are far too glib to be accurate. Especially since all such policies are future-tense and speculative at this point.
16 - Les Slater
handyguy,
"Les's and Dave's 'same as Bush' statements are far too glib to be accurate. Especially since all such policies are future-tense and speculative at this point."
Glenn's #8 was quite presumptive and we do not know how things will actually turn out. However, Obama has got at least some of his supporters cheering for policies that are not much more than a nuanced differentiation from foreign policy that the Bush administration is pursuing.
Les
17 - STM
Will Obama "Change" US foreign policy?
That headline should read: Will Obama change "US foreign policy"?
18 - Glenn Contrarian
Les -
'Presumptive'? That's only in the eyes of those who don't understand the significance of the Shi'a/Sunni schism. That's why I posted the link to Zarqawi's letter so you could see that in the Sunni/Shi'a world, we're just a sideshow.
FYI, the Sunni/Shi'a schism is NOT like the Catholic/protestant schism - totally different animal. They HATE each other, and to them, their hate is HOLY.
Remember that as you put yourself in Iran's position. Next door is nuclear-armed SUNNI Pakistan...so SHI'A Iran had better get nukes fast. But do you use inflammatory statements against Pakistan? NO - you do NOT want to start a war (they got nukes, you don't), 'cause the OTHER Sunni countries (like Saudi Arabia) would leap to Pakistan's aid. So instead you accuse and threaten somebody the Sunnis hate...and the Sunnis are mollified, happy to hear their great enemy Israel threatened by their GREATEST enemy Iran.
This is PRECISELY what Ahmenijad is doing...and it's the fastest and safest path he can take towards achieving nuclear parity with Sunni Pakistan.
And Iraq? The reduction in violence in Iraq is not so much due to Bush's 'surge' as it was to what amounted to ethnic cleansing - because Baghdad has FAR fewer Sunnis than it once did.
Les, I knew about this stuff long ago...but the conservatives hadn't a clue. Bush said, "They were Sunni? I thought they were Muslim!" McCain said Iran was supporting al Qaeda (which they would NEVER do)...and even after Lieberman politely corrected him, McCain still said it.
Obama didn't convince me of anything I didn't already know. I DID the objective research. Found some interesting facts...but such don't belong in a political thread.
DO the research, Les. When you understand the several Islamic religions and the conflicts between those religions, then you will understand the Middle East...and not before.
19 - Les Slater
Glenn,
Presumptive? Yes, definitely. I do not dispute your presumptions. I do not know any details of U.S. foreign policy going forward.
What I do see is an analysis that is in the realm of what the Bush administration is dealing with. The logic of which is the furthering of imperial belligerence.
It is not the particulars that matter, it is that such an analysis is coming from avowed supporters of Obama. It is a support for the imperial belligerence that WILL follow.
As we know with the 'justifications' for the invasion of Iraq, the truth of the public analysis did not matter for shit. It just justified the logic of what was going to happen anyway.
Les
20 - STM
That's a remarkably simplistic view Glenn, and wouldn't stand up as a thesis anywhere, although some of it's right. Yes, they do butt heads. And yes, the butting can be deadly.
But it's also well known that the Sunni/Shia schism hasn't affected such notions as, "let's gang up on America/Israel/Britain", even if just temporarily, "and blow the sh.t out of them".
The Libyans might have blown up that Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, but there's still a lingering suspicion among western security services (and some evidence) that Iran contracted them to do it.
Terrorists can be as pragmatic as the rest of us.
I have lived in Iraq and still have some links and can tell you that both Sunni and Shia were and still are happy enough to work closely together whenever it suited them. The Baathists forged links with a core group of army officers in Baghdad in 1963 that included both Shia and Sunni to orchestrate the coming to power of Abdul Salam Arif. Then they took over themselves in 1968. It's never a given that they'll focus on each other, rather than turning on the rest of us.
In regard to your unbelievably condescending remark to Les, who actally knows a fair bit about a lot of things, I say it's only possible to understand middle-eastern politics when you have a mind that's open enough to look beyond the text-book stuff into such things as why saving face is so important, and then read between the lines.
That's the point where it really gets interesting.
21 - STM
It's also quite possible that the US failure to look beyond the obvious is part of the problem right now.
Looking for reasons as to why things go pear-shaped with great regularity when it comes to US foreign policy? ... It's a lack of any real desire to seriously understand any other culture beyond how it impacts the US. Abu Ghraib's a classic example.
"Hey, I know," says some overpaid genius at the Pentagon, "We'll give a whole bunch of reservist correctional officers from Doodad County, Nowheresville, USA - most of whom have never left their state and who only turn out once a week and every second Saturday in uniform as MPs - one of the most sensitive tasks of the whole Iraq War".
"Then when they completely f.ck it up, we can all wring our hands and wonder why".
22 - Glenn Contrarian
STM -
Thank you for the criticism. Criticism is much more effective when it's made without insult, for only then can one gain from it. That's why I'm grateful when someone rightfully points out errors that I make. Again, thanks.
Yes, I can see how you feel my post was simplistic - I won't deny it. But when it comes to Iran's motives for nuclear power and rhetoric against Israel, I am right.
I know that Sunni and Shi'a often work side-by-side...but that's on the blue-collar and commerce levels. When it comes to the religious and (quite intertwined) political level, I think I can safely say the deep mutual suspicion is very real, that they work together only as a matter of expediency.
When it comes to the hatred - I know they're every bit as human as we with all the virtues and foibles thereof. That's why the rank-and-file won't feel a greater degree of hatred than we do. What's more, the religion that has killed the most innocents in the name of God is NOT Islam, but 'mainstream' Christianity.
Be that as it may, their religious leaders do exhort the faithful to hate the apostates...and they do hold each other to be a greater enemy than the Jews or the Americans. If they often tolerate each other, in my opinion it's more of a matter of preference for the devil they know, rather than the devil they don't know.
23 - Dave Nalle
Simply by being elected, Obama has dramatically changed the attitudes of both the leaders and citizens of many [most? all?] other countries toward the US. This is not a minor matter. But it's what we do with the more open, cooperative feelings that counts.
If those foreign leaders are turned away from the US as easily as they were and turn back to being our friends just from the election of Obama we shouldn't trust them one bit and should do what we can to minimize their role in international affairs. They're fairweather friends and ultimately a liability - they're a bunch of Frances.
Dave
24 - Christopher Rose
Dave, are you talking about my sister in law or that country that contributed so much without payment to the birth of the USA only to be charged a hefty sum for its own liberation?
25 - Les Slater
Glenn,
I do not mean to insult you. I do not see 'liberals' as the enemy. I do see that liberals, as well as conservatives, that have strong ideas about HOW the U.S. SHOULD intervene in foreign affairs, to be a very small minority. I put you in the very same category as Dave here.
Fundamentally, I see no difference between you and Dave. Both of you are FOR intervention. And as I pointed out at the very end of my 19, the justifications for intervention don't really matter. They are just the pretext.
Not only are these interventions not solving the problems, but they are exasperating the problems. In fact, these interventions are a significant part of THE problem.
The real problem is that we are saddled with an economic system that is unstable and destructive. This system is not only attacking peoples outside its borders but also those within.
We must begin to understand the people of the world are not our enemies.
Our enemy now has a very popular Commander in Chief. It is nothing to cheer about.
Les