Obama's "realpolitik": voting "present"
Obama finally stated that he will announce a new Afghan policy..."in a few weeks". So, see you next year?
The press is (finally) reporting that Obama's foreign policy team(s) are "coming down to Earth". This was inevitable. After declaring hosts of things would be "different" than what the Bush administration had done the Obama administration has quietly continued to implement Bush policies on numerous fronts (while still declaring to be doing things "differently").
And in the area of foreign policy we find that Obama is again a lot like Bush. 41 even more so than 43!
Obama's strategy (if one can call it that) appears to be a mix of dithering and passive-aggressive attempts to "charm" the other side into agreeing with him. For example, Hillary Clinton breezed into the Middle East proudly proclaiming Obama's support for Israel, apparently convinced that Obama's charm (and her own, of course) would cause the various opponents of Israel to simply shrug and say "gee, when you put it that way, how can we say no?"
The frosty response they got instead has caused them to publicly backtrack from their emphatic support for Israel. Which is a shame because it is about the only thing they had maintained an emphatic pose about all year!
In Pakistan Hillary Clinton expresses astonishment that no one in the government seems to know what is going on. Clearly our past difficulties in the region where all Bush's fault, so it was merely a matter of showing up and declaring that the best and the brightest were on the job now for that region to fall neatly into order, right? Or...Hillary finds out that we are working, at best, with a tenuous grip on the few moderates in the Pakistani government who are at odds with the Taliban allies in their own government. (Recall that the Pakistani ISI created the Taliban!) Good luck hoping that situation will change soon!
I expect the coming year will be a lot like the last year. A lot of declarations about doing things "differently" than Bush while quietly continuing his policies and hoping that someone, somewhere catches Obama fever and hands him the foreign policy equivalent of his unearned Nobel Peace Prize.
In the mean time, we can always gaze back upon the "good old days" of the Reagan years, when the US could successfully maneuver nations into doing our bidding with the only kind of realpolitik that counts: an impressive military which can back up our reasonable "requests" for help.
The press is (finally) reporting that Obama's foreign policy team(s) are "coming down to Earth". This was inevitable. After declaring hosts of things would be "different" than what the Bush administration had done the Obama administration has quietly continued to implement Bush policies on numerous fronts (while still declaring to be doing things "differently").
And in the area of foreign policy we find that Obama is again a lot like Bush. 41 even more so than 43!
Obama's strategy (if one can call it that) appears to be a mix of dithering and passive-aggressive attempts to "charm" the other side into agreeing with him. For example, Hillary Clinton breezed into the Middle East proudly proclaiming Obama's support for Israel, apparently convinced that Obama's charm (and her own, of course) would cause the various opponents of Israel to simply shrug and say "gee, when you put it that way, how can we say no?"
The frosty response they got instead has caused them to publicly backtrack from their emphatic support for Israel. Which is a shame because it is about the only thing they had maintained an emphatic pose about all year!
In Pakistan Hillary Clinton expresses astonishment that no one in the government seems to know what is going on. Clearly our past difficulties in the region where all Bush's fault, so it was merely a matter of showing up and declaring that the best and the brightest were on the job now for that region to fall neatly into order, right? Or...Hillary finds out that we are working, at best, with a tenuous grip on the few moderates in the Pakistani government who are at odds with the Taliban allies in their own government. (Recall that the Pakistani ISI created the Taliban!) Good luck hoping that situation will change soon!
I expect the coming year will be a lot like the last year. A lot of declarations about doing things "differently" than Bush while quietly continuing his policies and hoping that someone, somewhere catches Obama fever and hands him the foreign policy equivalent of his unearned Nobel Peace Prize.
In the mean time, we can always gaze back upon the "good old days" of the Reagan years, when the US could successfully maneuver nations into doing our bidding with the only kind of realpolitik that counts: an impressive military which can back up our reasonable "requests" for help.