I took the holiday weekend off from political writing. But I have a pile of clippings from the pages of last week's Wall Street Journal concerning Obama's latest, glaring foreign policy gaffes.
Well, gaffe is really too mild of a word.
Errors in judgment is better. Because these are not 'gotcha' moments. They distill and expose the Illinois freshman Senator's complete naivete on sensitive and important US foreign policy questions.
The compilation of articles was quite revealing.
On Tuesday we had Bret Stephens examining why Jewish voters have reason to distrust Obama. It seems the first-term Illinois Senator has identified with the Palestinians for quite some time now. Well, that is, until his recent Presidential campaign.
Stephens makes a very good, if nuanced point about Mideast negotiations. He notes the tortured conditions Obama placed on whether he'd talk with Syria, Hezbollah or Hamas. They are important, because in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, they don't currently form a government. But they could. If Obama then negotiated with them, Israel would feel betrayed. And, thus, also would American Jews.
Syria's and Iran's governments don't recognize Israel, so Obama's treating with them poses problems for Israel, too.
Stephens ends his column with this passage,
"Finally, there is Israel itself. In the Atlantic interview, Mr. Obama declared that "my job in being a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth," particularly in respect to the settlements. Yes, there are mirrors that need to be held up to those settlements, as there are to those Palestinians whose terrorism makes their dismantlement so problematic. Perhaps there is also a mirror to be held up to an American foreign-policy neophyte whose amazing conceit is that he understands Israel's dilemmas better than Israelis themselves."
You just can't write it better than that, can you?
But wait.....there's more.
On Thursday of last week, Karl Rove weighed in on Obama's foreign policy blunders. Rove is a student of America's governmental and political history on a scale far surpassing mere campaign hacks like Clinton's eminence grise, James Carville.
Entitled "Obama's Troubling Instincts," the architect of President Bush's two Presidential victories noted that in a recent Oregon speech, Obama
"was dismissive of the threats posed by Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and Syria. That's the same Iran whose Quds Force is arming and training insurgents and illegal militias in Iraq to kill American soldiers; that is supporting Hezbollah and Hamas in violent attacks on Lebanon and Israel; and that is racing to develop a nuclear weapon while threatening the "annihilation" of Israel.
By Monday in Montana, Mr. Obama recognized his error. He abruptly changed course, admitting that Iran represents a threat to the region and U.S. interests."
Mr. Rove goes on to provide details on Nixon's discussions with the Chinese, apparently to the contrary of what Obama's spokespeople have been affirming on various cable news programs lately,
"Mr. Obama's Sunday statement grew out of a kerfuffle over his proclaimed willingness to meet – eagerly and without precondition – during his first year as president with the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba. On Monday, he said it was a show of confidence when American leaders meet with rivals; he insisted he was merely doing what Richard Nixon did by going to China.
I recommend that he read Henry Kissinger's book, "The White House Years." Mr. Obama would learn it took 134 private meetings between U.S. and Chinese diplomats before a breakthrough at a Jan. 20, 1970 meeting in Warsaw. It took 18 months of behind-the-scenes discussions before Mr. Kissinger secretly visited Beijing. And it took seven more months of hard work before Nixon went to China. The result was a new relationship, announced in a communiqué worked out over months of careful diplomacy.
The Chinese didn't change because of a presidential visit. In another book, "Diplomacy," Mr. Kissinger writes that "China was induced to rejoin the community of nations less by the prospect of dialogue with the United States than by fear of being attacked by its ostensible ally, the Soviet Union." Change came because the U.S. convinced Beijing it was in its interest to change. Then the president visited."
Mr. Rove provides similar examples from the other great Republican foreign policy President with whom Obama's supporters compare him,
"Reagan knew rogue states only change when they see there are real consequences of their actions, and when it is in their interest to change. This requires patience, vision, hard work and the use of all the tools, talents and relationships available to the U.S. We saw a recent example when Libya, fearful of American resolve after 9/11, gave up its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. These programs, incidentally, were more advanced than Western intelligence thought.
Reagan knew he must not squander the prestige of the American presidency and the authority of the United States by meaningless meetings that serve only as propaganda victories for our adversaries. Mr. Obama seems to believe charisma and smooth talk can fundamentally alter the behavior of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba."
In closing, Mr. Rove takes direct aim at Obama's arrogance, demonstrated by his implication that once he talks with Iran, Hezbollah, et.al., everything will change, and these rogue terrorist groups will realize the errors of their ways and stop behaving badly,
"But what might work on the primary campaign trail doesn't work nearly as well in Tehran. What, for example, does Mr. Obama think he can offer the Iranians to get them to become a less pernicious and destabilizing force? One of Iran's top foreign policy goals is a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. This happens to be Mr. Obama's top foreign policy goal, too. Why should Iran or other rogue states alter their behavior if Mr. Obama gives them what they want, without preconditions?
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama said in Florida that in a meeting with the Iranians he'd make it clear their behavior is unacceptable. That message has been delivered clearly by Republican and Democratic administrations in public and private diplomacy over the past 16 years. Is he so naïve to think he has a unique ability to make this even clearer?
If Mr. Obama believes he can change the behavior of these nations by meeting without preconditions, he owes it to the voters to explain, in specific terms, what he can say that will lead these states to abandon their hostility. He also needs to explain why unconditional, unilateral meetings with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or North Korea's Kim Jong Il will not deeply unsettle our allies.
If Mr. Obama fails to do so, voters may come to believe that he is asking them to accept that he has a "Secret Plan," and that he is hopelessly out of his depth on national security."
Mr. Rove does a remarkable of debunking Obama's contention that Nixon and Reagan 'talked to their adversaries,' so he can, too, without preconditions or prior back-channel diplomatic groundwork, as well as the inexperienced first-term Senator's belief that these enemies of the US will relent simply by being talked to by him.
Finally, on Friday, the Journal's Kimberley Strassel weighed in with her Potomac Watch column with "The Obama Learning Curve." She wrote,
"Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden took to the airwaves this week to "help" the rookie Barack Obama out of a foreign-policy jam. Oh sure, admitted Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee had given the "wrong" answer when he said he'd meet unconditionally with leaders of rogue states. But on the upside, the guy "has learned a hell of a lot."
Somewhere Mr. Obama was muttering an expletive. But give Mr. Biden marks for honesty. As Mr. Obama finishes a week of brutal questioning over his foreign-policy judgments, it's become clear he has learned a lot – and is learning still."
Wow. Joe's hit his stride once again, this time demonstrating his tone-deafness for political debate on behalf of his party's probable Presidential nominee.
Ms. Strassel continues,
"Right now, for instance, he's learning how tough it can be to pivot to a general-election stance on the crucial issue of foreign policy. He's also learning Democrats won't be able to sail through a national-security debate by simply painting John McCain as the second coming of George Bush.
Remember how Mr. Obama got here. In a July debate, the Illinois senator was asked if he'd meet, "without preconditions," the "leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea." It was an unexpected question, and Mr. Obama rolled with his gut: "I would," he said, riffing that the Bush administration's policy of not negotiating with terror-sponsoring states was "ridiculous.""
Talk about naivete! Of course, that was then, eh? He's learned.....or maybe not. As the article proceeds,
"A week ago, in Oregon, he adopted the "no-big-deal" approach, telling listeners Iran was just a "tiny" country that, unlike the Soviet Union, did not "pose a serious threat to us." But this suggested he'd missed that whole asymmetrical warfare debate – not to mention 9/11 – so by the next day, he'd switched to the "blame-Republicans" line. Iran was in fact "the greatest threat to the United States and Israel and the Middle East for a generation" – but all because of President Bush's Iraq war.
This, however, revived questions of why he'd meet with said greatest-threat leader, so his advisers jumped in, this time to float the "misunderstood" balloon. Obama senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, channeling Bill Clinton, said it all depended on what the definition of a "leader" is. "Well, first of all, he said he'd meet with the appropriate Iranian leaders. He hasn't named who that leader will be." (Turns out, Mr. Obama has said he will meet with . . . Mr. Ahmadinejad.)
Former Sen. Tom Daschle, channeling Ms. Rice, explained it also depended on what the definition of a precondition is: "It's important to emphasize again when we talk about preconditions, we're just saying everything needs to be on the table. I would not say that we would meet unconditionally." This is called being against preconditions before you were for them.
And so it goes, as Mr. Obama shifts and shambles, all the while telling audiences that when voting for president they should look beyond "experience" to "judgment." In this case, whatever his particular judgment on Iran is on any particular day."
So much for the new kid on the block being ready for prime time, eh? Judgment won't be the pillar on which Obama wins the election, if he does. Ms. Strassel concludes her column by writing,
"It wasn't supposed to be this way. Democrats entered this race confident national security wouldn't be the drag on the party it has in the past. With an unpopular war and a rival who supports that war, they planned to wrap Mr. McCain around the unpopular Mr. Bush and be done with it. Mr. Obama is still manfully marching down this road, today spending as much time warning about a "third Bush term" as he does reassuring voters about a first Obama one.
Mr. McCain has every intention of running his opponent through the complete foreign-policy gamut. Explain again in what circumstances you'd use nuclear weapons? What was that about invading Pakistan? How does a policy of engaging the world include Mr. Ahmadinejad, but not our ally Colombia and its trade pact?
It explains too the strong desire among the McCain camp to get Mr. Obama on stage for debates soon. There's a feeling Mr. Obama is still climbing the foreign-policy learning curve. And they see mileage in his issuing a few more gut reactions."
Taken together, this trio of Journal columns illustrates how badly misinformed and lacking in judgment a President Obama would be.
Personally, I can hardly wait for that foreign policy debate between McCain and the rookie Senator from Illinois.
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