Obama Puts Foreign Policy in Perspective

Barack Obama seems relaxed about how his administration will handle foreign policy. Obama should be for these reasons:


1. He just won the first election since 9.11 not dominated by foreign policy. Republicans used national security to win victories in 2002 and 2004, successfully painting the Democrats as soft on terrorism. Democrats are interested in big government at home, and crises overseas get in the way.

2. The Obama/Democrat policy on Iraq proved to be win-win. Liberals think the Iraq war was a stupid distraction, and were pleased when in 2006 Iraq became a disaster that helped Democrats control congress. But Obama and company are at least as happy that Iraq has turned out OK, allowing the U.S. to leave and put resources into problems at home.

3. Democrats want domestic issues front and center. Democrats are a coalition of interests that believes government should run the economy, education, health care, and labor relations, and seeks new resources to pay for government programs. Because Democrats are happy with Obama’s priorities, Obama is free to run foreign policy as he chooses.

4. Bush already moved foreign policy toward realism. No wonder Obama keeps Gates as Defense Secretary. Foreign policy today is much different than was in 2006 before Rumsfeld left, different in ways Obama likes. Building peace between Israel and Palestine, helping shore up a moderate government in Pakistan, facing head-on the danger of a nuclearized Iran, working with China to contain North Korea—all these policies carry over well for Obama.

5. Clinton fits into Obama’s foreign policy. Once Clinton turned against the Iraq war, there was no real difference between the two. It was, however, still in Obama’s political interest to continue bashing Clinton over her vote for the war. That was then. Now both share the same pragmatic approach to foreign policy, Obama will shift resources and attention toward domestic issues, and Clinton will work with the professionals to keep foreign policy from boiling over into a crisis. When crises do come, Obama will run the show.

The blog entries below provide perspective on an Obama foreign policy. The commontariat may be disappointed to be working with Clinton after having sought to engage Obama directly. The commontariat believes Obama’s willingness to turn over foreign policy to Clinton proclaims national security’s diminished importance. It forgets the world usually forces itself on sitting presidents.

The earliest entries show me wrong in thinking foreign policy would help McCain against Obama. Of course, the economy took over.

Clinton as Secretary of State: Second Thoughts?

Wow. Clinton as Secretary of State

Obama’s Sandbox

More Support for Obama Softness

Obama and "Soft Power"