THE PLANK DECEMBER 2, 2009
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
I basically liked Obama's speech. I'm skeptical about the timeline for withdrawal, but on the question that matters most--whether to send more troops--Obama has, I think, made the right decision, and done so over considerable opposition from within his own party and his own administration.
That said, as much as I agreed with Obama's essential argument, something bothered me about the speech. It had less to do with Afghanistan than with the larger principles involved. The speech may have been, as Mike pointed out, remarkably consistent with an earlier Obama address. But it was also weirdly inconsistent with itself.
In a speech dedicated to explaining why our national security depends on our ability to help provide safety and good governance for people half a world away, Obama nevertheless felt the need to take not one but two swipes at the concept of nation-building--swipes that made him sound like a 1990s Republican or candidate George W. Bush in 2000. "Some call for a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort--one that would commit us to a nation-building project of up to a decade," Obama said, before stating, "I reject this course." A few moments later, he said that "our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended--because the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own." The second line, one of the ugliest things I have ever heard Obama say, seemed to echo John Kerry's much-maligned statement from 2004 that "we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and shutting them in the United States of America." These attacks on nation-building--a liberal idea that Democrats should be reclaiming and repairing, not turning into a political slur--carried an odd undertone of isolationism; they were totally out of place in a speech announcing a policy that is admirably un-isolationist.
Having attacked nation-building and strained unconvincingly to cast his Afghanistan policy in opposition to it, Obama then reversed course and offered this paean to human rights at the end of the speech: "We must make it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights, and tend to the light of freedom and justice and opportunity and respect for the dignity of all peoples. That is who we are. That is the source, the moral source, of America's authority." In the course of a few paragraphs, Obama had gone from the rhetoric of quasi-isolationism to the rhetoric of democracy promotion. The words may not have been in literal conflict with each other--it is technically possible, I guess, to believe in aggressive human-rights promotion while disdaining nation-building--but they were in tension at the very least. Saying "the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own" is pretty hard to square with a commitment to "tend to the light of freedom and justice and opportunity and respect for the dignity of all peoples." You either believe that America's foreign policy ought to be closely tied to the promotion of rights and freedoms outside our borders, or you don't. People who use America-first rhetoric generally fall into the latter category.
None of this, of course, has much to do with Afghanistan policy, which is not going to be affected by rhetorical inconsistencies in last night's speech. But the rhetoric does, I think, help to answer a question that a lot of pundits have been puzzling over for the past year: What, exactly, is Barack Obama's overarching worldview when it comes to foreign policy? For a long time, I've felt I didn't really know. After last night's speech, I suspect Obama doesn't really know either. A politician who is capable of sounding such dissonant notes in the same speech is a politician who is still figuring out his first principles of foreign policy. This might help explain some of the more confusing things about Obama's first year in office: how, for instance, a president who has found his way to a human-rights-friendly policy on Afghanistan could have seemed so cold to human rights in his approach to Iran and China; or how a candidate who once spoke forcefully about the need to address genocide in Sudan has proven to be such a disaster on the issue now that he is in office.
If Obama really is still figuring out his first principles, then it offers a measure of hope to those in the human rights community who have been rightly disappointed by him so far. It means there is still a chance he might improve. Which in turn makes it important for Darfur activists, China activists, those advocating for women in Afghanistan, and everyone else who cares about human rights to be relentless in criticizing his administration whenever it fails to live up to liberal ideals.
It's possible, of course, that Obama is just a devout pragmatist who will make every foreign policy decision on an ad hoc basis, with no discernible pattern or principle linking them together. But I doubt it. Most presidents, in the end, seem to settle on a roughly coherent view of the world. (Clinton eventually fumbled his way towards a version of liberal interventionism after an early flirtation with isolationism; George W. Bush went from being an uber-realist on September 10, 2001 to being an uber-idealist on September 12.) Besides, a devout pragmatist would eschew principle entirely, which wasn't at all what Obama did in his speech. There were definitely some very clear principles articulated at West Point last night. They just happened to totally contradict each other.
More on Obama's Afghanistan Speech:
"More On Obama's Inconsistencies," by John B. Judis
"How Obama's Surge Is Like Bush's," by Steven Metz
"Obama Sticks To His Guns," by Michael Crowley
"A Lonely Kind Of Courage," by Elizabeth D. Samet
"Obama's Other Front: The Hill," by Lydia DePillis and Jesse Zwick
"The Day After: A Hollow Withdrawal Pledge Comes Into Focus," by Michael Crowley
"Sorry, But I Hear Echoes of Vietnam," by John B. Judis
"Obama Channels Eisenhower," by Peter Scoblic
11 comments
It seems clear to me that Obama's comments about human rights and so forth are just that -- words. He has no intention of expending significant resources to secure liberal democracy in Afghanistan. That is not a criticism. In all likelihood, the power to secure liberal democracy in Afghanistan is beyond the reach of any nation, including the United States. Should he have just not mentioned the matter? Maybe. But it seems to me that politically it was a good move. Not just in the United States, but for the citizens and political leaders of our partners. People want to feel they're on the side of truth, justice, etc. And we are, to an extent. No harm in making that clear. Obama's worldview? We will always support and defend human rights, ceteris paribus.
- ratnerstar
December 2, 2009 at 10:39am
I don't think the realism of the moment and the idealism of the broader principle are necessarily mutually exclusive. There's a good chance Obama very well believes our foreign policy should be tied to the promotion of rights and freedoms abroad, but recognizes that in the current analysis we have none of the military, economic, diplomatic, political or moral leverage to achieve anything close to those goals. The first step to recovering that leverage is getting our national security house in order, which may demand making some cold-hearted compromises. Making bold pronouncements about doing things the world knows we cannot do only undermines what credibility we have left as either a force for good or a global hegemon. Now, none of this is to say that the strategy the administration has chosen towards Afghanistan will succeed in restoring that leverage, only that it's possible to reconcile it with a broader internationalist idealism.
- adaglas
December 2, 2009 at 10:48am
You two always check in together and write the best stuff. Obama is not Santa Claus, Zeus, Marx, Bush, a contestant on American Idol. He's a very smart, decent, wily janitor running a broken battleship. That needs to turn in to a flying saucer somehow.
- WandreyCer
December 2, 2009 at 10:52am
The speech was mostly a set of semi-valid cliches artfully strung together. So consider the following in response: 100-200 Al Queda tie down 100,000 of our best active-duty troops. That'll really shock and awe the rest of the bad guys!!! What really vital interest do we have in Afghanistan that we don't have in Pakistan, ....... Iraq,.... Yemen, .....Somalia, .... Iran.......and... (fill in the blanks..). The domino theory, once again?? Vietnam is a country that outside powers have controlled for long periods of time. Not so Afghanistan (Google: Alexander the Great, Britain, Russia, etc). What did staying in Vietnam an extra 4-6 years after putting in dramatically more troops before the TET offensive (1967) gain us?? . LBJ's presidential greatness on Civil Rights and Medicare was largely destroyed by his miscalculation on Vietnam and those that do not properly learn the lessons of history are often doomed to repeat them. Guns AND butter were more easily paid for in better economic times in the late '60s than now. More and more Americans on the home front understand the not-so-hidden meaning of the lyrics "We're neck deep in the Big Muddy (now the Big Sandy?), and the Big Fool says to push on". I'd make a major bet that the totality of the above cliches are nearer reality today and two years hence than those delivered by BO.
- gdbittner
December 2, 2009 at 11:16am
Ratner always has to one-up me with his Latin.
- adaglas
December 2, 2009 at 12:40pm
Shorter Richard Just: more chest thumping please!
- benberger
December 2, 2009 at 12:50pm
I think this is ethical realism at work; and sometimes that does resemble a form of isolationism, as it should. Then, add in sort term and long term strategies and tactics, and Obama makes sense. WE can only do what we should and what we can.
- choward
December 2, 2009 at 4:26pm
"But it was also weirdly inconsistent with itself." Jeff Greenfield of CBS News echoed exactly this impression on last night's Charlie Rose. "Oddly discordant", he called it. Some of the other panelists agreed with him. David Brooks thought he was cold and detached and showed no emotional attachment to any of the human aspects in Afghanistan, namely the women, little girls, schools. http://www.charlierose.com/#schedule_lower Since I am not an Obama admirer, I thought I might have been too biased in noticing it but then I read this: "A few moments later, he said that "our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended--because the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own." The second line, one of the ugliest things I have ever heard Obama say, seemed to echo John Kerry's much-maligned statement from 2004 that "we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and shutting them in the United States of America." These attacks on nation-building--a liberal idea that Democrats should be reclaiming and repairing, not turning into a political slur--carried an odd undertone of isolationism; they were totally out of place in a speech announcing a policy that is admirably un-isolationist." No, I don't think human rights are a great concern for Obama. He consistently ignores severe violations of human rights in any of the countries whose favour he courts.
- noga1
December 2, 2009 at 4:39pm
The neo-cons who exercised a decisive influence over Bush's post 9/11 foreign policy were certainly possessed of an "overarching world view," one of the most deliberate in recent memory. And where did that get us?
- robertgorton
December 2, 2009 at 8:35pm
"No, I don't think human rights are a great concern for Obama. He consistently ignores severe violations of human rights in any of the countries whose favour he courts." Yes, this is true. I've noticed that people support it or not depending entirely on whose ox in being gored. It does make a handy- if transparent - cudgel for bias, as you admitted noga. Obama has been tutored by Brent Scrowcroft since he began his political career and said from his first interview as a candidate that he'd model his foreign policy explicitly on Bush 1. They were bloodless lizards, those guys. Who has really ever given the first hoot about human rights? No one in my lifetime anyway.
- WandreyCer
December 3, 2009 at 11:42am
So the US is supposed to be more interested in building other nations than in building itself?
- dhurtado
December 5, 2009 at 12:38am