The New Republic

Certainly continuous with W's approach to the NY-DC oligarchy.

Geithner/Obama like Paulson/W are determined to avoid wiping out the banks' shareholders, and are willing to spend any sum, bear any burden, hurl any number of TARPs into those shareholders' pockets so that this, the last best hope of Government Sachs, these Morgan States, this shining Shittigroup on a hill, shall not perish from the earth.

- teplukhin2you

March 27, 2009 at 12:33pm

Is there some sort of oligarchy you want us to know about, Tep?

- rozenson

March 27, 2009 at 12:46pm

Tep, foriegn policy thread here.  Stay on target, buddy...

- boneill

March 27, 2009 at 12:56pm

Tep, great segue from Foreign Policy to Financial Policy...or not.

I shouldn't be this surprised that two years after Bush started taking his foreign policy queues from Obama (I am still amused by that whole strike taliban in soveriegn territory controversy), that are turning the story on its head...but I am.

- GSpinks

March 27, 2009 at 12:59pm

Right.  This is the new mantra among the conservatives I know.  It's comforting to them.  "Well, at least he's staying close to W's foreign policy."  They throw up an image of Obama as arch-liberal, meaning anti-military and pacifist, the cookie cutter critique of Democratic candidates.  And then they claim that Obama, in fact, has adhered more closely to Bush than they'd expected.

This is transparent to the point of hilarity.   Reality is just the opposite.  George Bush was at the end of his rope as Campaign 08 began.  Obama campaigned that the focus in Iraq/Afghanistan should be Pakistan.  He advocated drone attacks across the border. He called for active diplomacy and a regional solution to problems in the area.  He was vilified by conservatives for being naive, dangerous and unschooled - until George W. began drone attacks across the Afghan border and authorized initial contacts with Iran.

Within these first two months, the Administration has made significant overtures to Syria, indicated it will renew and invigorate the Arab/Israeli peace process, sent an open letter to Iran calling for a softening in hostilities between the two countries and begun a new course in Afghanistan.  No more 'axis of evil' attempts to isolate countries whom we should engage.

Obama hasn't flipped all Bush foreign policy stances overnight, say expansion of NATO and missile defense. He likes to know what he's talking about first.

- CAMtwo

March 27, 2009 at 1:20pm

OK, I'll bite. Kagan gives example after example of how the coverage of W vs H is riddled with distortions and outright, night=day lies-- the absurd notion that Bush did not engage China being the most egregious one-- and Scoblic says, "it would be premature to predict the specifics of Obama's policies-or their prospects for success-but we do know that Obama's worldview is 180 degrees different."

This is absurd. We know what Obama's policies are, and especially, how these policies differed form shi campaign stands-- especially on Iraq waithdrawal. He's adopted Bush's Iraq policy, without having either the class or the honesty to man up and say the surge worked.

It's a measure of how successful was Bush's China policy that we heard next to nothing from 2001-2008 in the way of US-Chinese tensions--even when they brought down a US military plane, and even during a time of multiple wars in west Asia. Compare this success with Team Obama's hamhanded botchjob of its very first official pronouncements on China, which have already undone in just a couple of months all the goodwill and improved relations that the Bush admin achieved over 8 years with China. Now the Chinese are talking about switching out of treasurys and making signs of a tit-for-tat trade war in response to Obama's failure to stand up for free trade.

Ah, but that's evidence of a different and, it goes without saying, superior "worldview."

Also, Bush's policy toward that other crucial nation of the Asian Century, India, was a huge success. So much so that the spokesman for India's Congress Party wanted to award Bush the nation's highest award for a foreigner, the other recipient thsu far being one Nelson Mandela. But never mind. That inconvenient truth doesn't fit the worldview.

- teplukhin2you

March 27, 2009 at 1:24pm

CAM2 - "Obama hasn't flipped all Bush foreign policy stances overnight, say expansion of NATO adn missile defense"

You've got rocks in your head if you think it's wise to "flip" a treaty obligation that has more than any other single policy prevented an aggressive gangster state from dominating half of Europe and destroying all the gains, to Europe and to the cause of free states and free peoples,  achieved in 1989.

That Russia has bad or worsening relations now with every one of its neighbors is surely the fault of the blundering kleptocrats in the Kremlin. It's obvious by now that, contrary to what we hoped for, Russia has little to no influence on Iran. Contrary to what we feared, Putin and his fellow thieves are too inept and distracted to create anything like a partnership, let alone an alliance, with China. And Putin's bullying and brutalism has caused even his German poodles to reconsider their Russia policy.

Oh, but I just have the wrong worldview. I keep forgetting that every fell act on God's green earth, every sparrow that falls, does so because of the wicked Bush administration from which, thank the good lord, we have at last been delivered.

Don't you guys expect a higher standard of analysis from TNR?

- teplukhin2you

March 27, 2009 at 1:33pm

George W. Obama?   More like James Earl Carter Obama..

- bl462

March 27, 2009 at 1:51pm

I think Cam2 got it right. Bush 2004 and Bush 2008 were two far different creatures. Imagine if Rummy had stayed in as Sec. of Defense.

yeesh, relax with the hyperbole tep, you ruin your posts that way. Do you really want Georgia to be part of NATO? And do you really want us to keep pissing away billions on a non working missile defense just because you think it keeps Russia in line?

I don't quite agree that Bush was quite the Manichaeist (?) as he is made out to be. He was more than willing to do bank with the Chinese. He had his most success in North Korea when he did that. And it is telling that Christopher Hill is part (or is hoped to be) of both administrations. But like CAM2 said, that was Bush post beat down.

- blackton

March 27, 2009 at 1:53pm

Actually, it kind of annoys me that Obama can make wearing one of those stupid hat look good.

- blackton

March 27, 2009 at 1:55pm

It's incorrect to say that President Bush was one way during his first term and changed once his second term began. The first speech of his second term, the inauguration speech in which he seemingly pledged the last drop of American blood for non-existent democracies the world over, was one of the silliest and most Manichean speeches ever given by an American statesman.

It was the failures of the Bush presidency in 2005-06 that made a national security policy change inevitable, whatever the OVP desired. The increasing unpopularity of the Iraq War, the abandonment of the Iraq War by a number of allies and the spectacular failure of domestic policy initiatives [Social Security privatization, Katrina] greatly weakened the Bush administration internationally and at home. The Bush administration didn't change its ways in the second term by choice, it happened because no other choice was available. Essentially, the crushing weight of failure compelled a change of course.

By the way, I talk to national security politicos and think tank people every day and almost none of them really think the surge "worked." Some think the military policy has been fairly successful, but as for the political angle -- stated by Mr Bush as the most important part of the surge policy -- has been a failure. I couldn't find more than a handful of dead-enders at AEI who think the surge "worked." It hasn't.

Tep: You've gone off the deep end, buddy.

Blackton: Right on. Those hats are idiotic and yet President Obama looks wicked as hell in them.

- DC Spence

March 27, 2009 at 2:34pm

black - you know as well as I do that the Bushies set out from day one to engage China and to ramp up our relationship with India, and they succeeded on both counts. It doesn't help the cause of people who support Obama's f-p-- which seems to backslide every day from the lefty "anti-war" one-worldism of Obama the candidate-- to keep denying the facts about Bush's success with China and India.

Re E Europe, the Poles asked for missile defense. It doesn't threaten Russia's vast nuclear arsenal  in the slightest, and Ivanov and Putin-Mobutu know this. No one's demanding NATO entry for Georgia-- Shalakashvili's overreach ended any hopes of that-- but there is indeed a flash point coming soon over Crimea/Ukraine-- I still believe that a Kremlin-orchestrated coup d'etat in Kiev is the likely means of suppression-- and Obama will have to take a stand one way or the other. Can't worldview your way out of that one.  

- teplukhin2you

March 27, 2009 at 2:35pm

Yeah, blackie, as opposed to pissing away billion on ACORN activists or some such.  In a 3.6 trillion dollar budget, a billion is spare change.  

Tep has got it about right - the fact is, W's f-p was overall pretty successful.  Relations with major powers China and India were good, he didn't do anything crazy in Latin America like a smack down of Chavez.  Russia is not and will not be our friend, or even marginally cooperative 99% of the time.  The entire critique of Bush's f-p comes down to "we should not have invaded Iraq."  Fair enough, but we've won.  Allowing O to concentrate on Afghanistan, and the Iraqi people (esp. the majority Shias) to live without that oh-so-popular SH - see regime change, circa 1998, authored by Daschle and Clinton.

The collective amnesia hereabouts is jaw-dropping.

- butchie b

March 27, 2009 at 2:35pm

DC Spence = Ackerman? You still sh*tting around the B-list blogs, spence?

Typical of middle east-obsessed Americans to conveniently ignore China and India and Bush's huge success with the latter and moderate success with the former. I seriously doubt that historians will treat our relations with Asian powers in an Asian Century as less important to the nation's subsequent fortunes than a war which, however badly prosecuted, has already concluded with a Saddam-free, reasonably normal, sane Iraqi democracy in place.

- teplukhin2you

March 27, 2009 at 3:08pm

We haven't won Iraq or anything close to it.

Afghanistan was invaded and then ignored.

Virtually the entire Muslim world turned against the U.S. [And it is false to claim it was that way before. It wasn't.]

Allies in Europe turned against us.

I don't really understand this focus on our relationship with India. Sure, it's important and it certainly didn't get worse under the Bush admin, but that's basically because the admin capitulated on every major point and blew the crap out of non-proliferation to cozy up to India. Now, that may or may not be a good thing, but it hardly takes the wisdom of saints to just surrender. The Indians got everything they wanted. This makes Bush/Cheney foreign policy savants?

The silliness is jaw-dropping.

- DC Spence

March 27, 2009 at 3:15pm

There were bright spots to Bush's foreign policy.  He did okay with China and India, by which I mean he didn't screw anything up spectacularly.  He did well with North Korea; that situation is beyond the power of any President to rectify, but he did as well as anyone could ask.  

None of that means his foreign policy was "successful" by any means.  It was just not uniformly horrible.

butchie, you know as well as me that missile defense isn't "a" billion.  Not even close.  The 09 budget calls for 12 billion.  It was 10 billion is 08.  The plan, if it is not altered by Obama, is to continue to spend multiple billions of dollars for the next several years.  On a system that is extremely unlikely to ever intercept a single missile.   If you gave ACORN 12 billion dollars, at least they would probably put a couple Democrats in office.

- ratnerstar

March 27, 2009 at 3:16pm

Tep, I don't understand the significance of your first two sentences so I'll treat them as if they have no significance, which is probably safe in this case.

Salvaging something decent from Iraq should not be judged on whether or not the country was able to hold a tribal-based election or two. Some form of success will depend on institution-building and the formation of a multi-ethnic polity with respect for religion and opinion. You think that's already happened. I know better.

And of all the readers of this site, few, if any, could be less accurately described as "middle east-obsessed" than myself. I rather suspect, Tep, that you're a much more devoted reader of TNR's most middle east-obsessed contributor than I am. I won't name him, but his initials are MP. So heal thyself. Or drop dead. Whichever is easier for you.

- DC Spence

March 27, 2009 at 3:25pm

Spence - tee hee. I have a sneaking suspicion that the juvenile snarky tone, and the very strange roping in of Marty Peretz into this little tete-a-tete, signify that you're the late great Spencer Ackerman, formerly of TNR, now of firedoglake blog or whatever it's called.

Then again, you could be just another garden-variety internet flame artist.  

As to Iraq, my final $0.02 on this deadest of dead horses is that the current state of Iraq is vastly better than it was under Saddam. Sure, the cost has been extremely high, and of course Bush deserves blame for that. But please stop pretending that Iraq today is not better off, and better for US interests, than it was under a Saddam who by late 2002 had been released from his box by a collapsing sanctions regime that France and Russia were determined to bring to an end.

Re. middle east obsessions, you've spilled several times more pixels on the middle east than I have on this thread-- another reason I suspect you're the author of the short-lived TNR byline, "Iraq'd."

I frankly couldn't care less about the middle east "peace process" and consider it a huge waste of this or any US admin's time. I've said before that I believe we should be shifting our diplomatic resources and admin bandwidth away from both the middle east and Europe toward China and India.

- teplukhin2you

March 27, 2009 at 3:49pm

Spence, define "turned against" us.  You mean the French and the Germans, who were so mad they elected conservative (for them) governments?  The Arab world - by which you mean the Saudis, who ain't our friends, but have hardly "turned against" us.  Anybody broken diplomatic relations?  Anybody turning down aid money?  Any intell posts been kicked out of various countries?  What exactly does "turned against" us mean?

Speaking of silliness....

ratner, yes, it's more than a billion.  even 12 billion is practically nothing when he proposes to spend $110 billion on "education" from the federal level, which monies have NEVER done a bit of good for education anywhere, just another layer of rules & regs, signifying nothing.

- butchie b

March 27, 2009 at 4:12pm

"No one's demanding NATO entry for Georgia-- Shalakashvili's overreach ended any hopes of that "

"Shalakashvili's overreach" indeed, tep.  That crisis wasn't all Russia the way Obama's critics during the campaign made it out to be. And the admission by you, though it took a long time coming, is honest, unlike Obama,  who, according to you, doesn't have "either the class or the honesty to man up and say the surge worked". Except, he did say the surge worked, but he also added that there were other factors  which, in combination with the surge, made for the relative drop in violence. On Fox with O'Reilly no less, and maybe that's why you missed it.

- scrubbyoak

March 27, 2009 at 4:17pm

The surge worked, in so far as it has worked in reality, because of Odierno and Petraeus tearing up the defeat-guaranteed SOP on Iraq, without telling the White House, and switching to a smart counter-insurgency strategy with strong input from the kind of diplomatic, other-culture-respecting, UN-supporting, soft-power-using, non-evil-labeling, pragmatic, low-key people whom conservatives detest.

- ironyroad

March 27, 2009 at 5:03pm

Irony, you're half right.  Petraeus and Odierno did make the surge succeed.  the rest of that crap is, well, crap.

- butchie b

March 27, 2009 at 5:28pm

A slight exaggeration, indeed, butchie, but far from the soi-disant "crap" you speak of with such . .  .such . . . dismissive muscularity.  Thomas Ricks's "The Gamble" documents pretty effectively the degree to which a completely new policy took hold in Iraq, one that was essentially cobbled together behind the back of the White House.  Petraeus brought in several senior civilian advisors, who were closer to the model I describe above than to, say, Dick Cheney's world-view, and the policy became to protect Iraqis before anything.

What do you think the surge consisted of, anyhow?  30,000 troops and then suddenly everything went quiet?  I'd like to point out that if anyone had suggested in 2005 that we could solve the Anbar problem by paying folks $20 p.w. not to kill U.S. soldiers they would have been treated with withering contempt by the folks who think that dissent from their opinion should be an indictable offense.

But Petraeus . . . interesting guy, it shows you that a Princeton PhD needn't ruin you entirely!

- ironyroad

March 28, 2009 at 1:58am

Tep has yet to meet a policy of any kind that isn't a conspiracy of some sort from his endless list of oligarchies - that only he sees.  H is doing fine and saying he lacks class only reflects poorly on you.  

Love ya Tep but Jesus, you've never lived or worked in DC.  People just don't have that much energy or organization to conspire or rip off or create secret cabuls - and if they do, its by accident. Most of them, even the ones with the black hats versus the white, BBQ on the weekends with their wives/husbands/lovers, take a snooze here or there - do some work, make some money, sure.  You live in a La Carre novel.

Butchie - you're right. But I'd argue two things: first, people voted in conservatives in Europe out of  fear, which along with the jihadists - Bush Co strategically fueled. Give me our present Vulcan any day - that is my favorite persona of Obama's. I'd bet that this brings policies done right - meaning with as little waste as possible - for a change.  

Second: where Bush lost us respect was in the only three things that matter.  First: $$$$$ and cents.  Trying to fight these damn wars with no sustainable financial support from allies was the dumbest part of all, even dumber than pissing away the reconstruction on an ideological circle jerk concocted around Poppy's dinner table in 1985.  Poppy at least got his paid for.

Third: when Bush OK'd torture, he didn't just piss off the world, he betrayed it - a much more powerful emotion.  When will we learn that its not just us that needs the American ideal?  I still have a picture on my wall from 9/15/01 of 200 South Korean firemen in full firemen gear kneeling down in prayer for their brothers that died on 9/11.  We have to live up to our ideals, not desecrate them.  You can't MAKE people respect you no matter what you do to them.  Worst of all, it was an utter waste.

- Wandreycer1

March 28, 2009 at 11:09am

PS You're right Black - Obama rocks that hat.

- Wandreycer1

March 28, 2009 at 11:09am

Ugh, sorry for the misorgamization.  I'm, as usual, trying to cook breakfast for five, go over some research figures and yell at Tep.  My brain can't handle it.

- Wandreycer1

March 28, 2009 at 11:11am

"Love ya Tep"

Now Jill, we're married to other people.

Re. oligarchy, fine, OK, don't listen to me. Try listening to these two veterans of the International Monetary Fund, who as long-suffering advisers/schoolmasters to corrupt and inept governments across Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, certainly know oligarchy when they see it.

Exhibit A: TNR contributor Simon Johnson, writing in The Atlantic this month -- their summary:

www.theatlantic.com/.../imf-advice

"One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. "

Exhibit B: Desmond Lachman, also ex-IMF (and Salomon Smith Barney), specialist on Russia and E Europe, writing in WaPo that "the United States is coming to resemble Argentina, Russia and other so-called emerging markets, both in what led us to the crisis, and in how we're trying to fix it."

"Over the past year, I've been getting Russia flashbacks as I witness the AIG debacle as well as the collapse of Bear Sterns and a host of other financial institutions. Much like the oligarchs did in Russia, a small group of traders and executives at onetime venerable institutions have brought the U.S. and global financial systems to their knees with their reckless risk-taking -- with other people's money -- for their personal gain."

www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2009032502226.html

Jill, there will be plenty of other voices jumping on this theme, trust me. For anyone who's spent a fair amount of time in Moscow or Buenos Aires or other dens of oligarchy, the parallels with our NY-DC crowd are too rich to ignore.

best,

t

- teplukhin2you

March 30, 2009 at 3:29am