Ms Cheney, who is no stranger to either politics or blunt talk, is to be congratulated for attempting the impossible. That's right, impossible. The mission of Keep America Safe falls into the impossible mission category not because the Obama administration and the President have crafted and implemented a foreign policy of a such a nature as to render it impervious to criticism but rather because there appears to be no policy at all.
The Nobel Peace Prize winning President has been in the Oval for not quite nine months. But, nine months is long enough to provide gestation to a new human being. It ought to be sufficient to do the same for a foreign policy.
One casts about in vain for some sign of an "Obama Doctrine." One searches without result for even a "new order." The signs and portents of a global vision are conspicuous by their absence.
Reaching out with an open hand to the "Arab/Muslim World" has brought kudos from the multi-cultural oriented crowd, but no returns in the real world. Leaning on Israel to stop the "settlements" has resulted in no favorable responses from either the Palestinian Authority or the Arab countries aligned with it.
The "reset" button of US-Russian relations has been pushed so hard and heavy by the Deep Thinkers of the Obama White House and Foggy Bottom that the print has worn off. In return the Russians are not giving more than a purely symbolic millimeter in the great game of sanctions against Iran. What they have been doing is flexing their economic, diplomatic, and, (say it ain't so, Vladimir) military muscles in the general direction of Eastern Europe.
As a result of the renewed Russian presence on their frontiers and the perceived abandonment of the members of the old Warsaw Pact by the Obama administration, the diplomatic center of gravity has shifted markedly from Washington to Moscow. The folks of the former Soviet Bloc states are getting nervous and wondering if they should brush up on their Russian and quit learning English.
The Mandarinate of China continues to enlarge its military capacity far beyond the level necessary for defense purposes. At the same time Beijing has launched new economic programs in conjunction with Russia, Japan, and South Korea. Not content with firming its position as the regional hegemon of Asia, the Chinese are continuing to expand their no-strings-attached version of foreign aid in Africa.
Lest it be forgotten, the Men of the Forbidden City are up to their dandruff in both economic and diplomatic partnership with Iran. As if that weren't enough, the Chinese are rapidly expanding their relations with Pakistan including a new agreement on joint efforts to counter terrorism. This means that Islamabad has a viable alternative to the US in the bribery department. Given the unhappiness expressed by the Pakistani Army and members of the opposition parties to the terms and conditions applied by the Kerry-Lugar foreign aid bill, this is a development that is of concern to the US.
The Obama administration is remarkably disengaged from Latin America other than to hector Honduras over a perfectly constitutional ejection of the sitting president by the country's Supreme Court and Legislature. There is no seeming concern over the every closer linkage between Iran and Venezuela. Nor does there seem to be any sense of urgency regarding the deteriorating domestic tranquility in Mexico and other Central American countries.
Then, of course, there is Afghanistan. The President promises a decision on whither we go in that desolate place within "weeks." No need to get excited, folks, no need to rush to judgement, the war has been going on for quite awhile now and we've been losing for most of that time, but, no need for worry. Kick on back and see how things go.
Mr Obama has been described as "preternaturally" calm (a description which formerly was applied to Dick Cheney) no matter what the pressures might be. The problem comes when preternatural calmness gradates into coma as seems to be the case with Afghanistan--or the challenge of the Islamist jihadists generally.
It is long past time to ask of the President and his people just what the global vision of the administration might be. At the same time, a degree of specificity far transcending banal but pleasant words concerning a "nuclear weapons free world" or "greater international engagement"must be demanded.
The main point in the blistering video released by Keep America Safe as part of its organizational launch is simply that Mr Obama talks real pretty. Quite true. The President's words wash over one's mind like a gentle and cooling mist on a hot day.
However, when the President's mild, mellow, and soothingly delivered soliloquies are parsed in written form, they have no substance. Nor do they show any realistic understanding of how international politics is pursued. They do not even have the content of the speeches of Woodrow Wilson (who also talked right pretty) or, JFK (who was even a prettier talker than Mr Obama).
Woodrow Wilson was a man possessed of the most lofty thoughts and sentiments. He believed in the ethical imperative of the US working hard and long to make the world, as he put it, "safe for democracy" and equally, unmarred by aggressive war. He did express his goals and means with specificity. Where Wilson stumbled to the ultimate detriment of the world was in not using the power at his disposal to cozen or coerce other countries into agreement with his views and means.
JFK likewise had lofty ideas. He expressed them as well as the means he proposed to achieve them with both conviction and force. His administration like those of his predecessors had a definite vision of the world that the US would prefer to exist in. The President and all of his administration expressed both in terms which were concrete and understandable. Where his administration failed was, like that of Woodrow Wilson, in the implementation of the vision.
Even Bill Clinton, a president without any deep and abiding interest in foreign affairs, possessed a vision of the world which he and those around him thought to be most compatible with American interests. The neo-liberal view of a world distinguished by peace through open, free trade, globalization, free markets, and the like might have been ill-considered and ultimately detrimental to American national and strategic interests, but it was self-consistent and coherent.
Beyond I-am-not-George W. Bush, Mr Obama has no vision for the world. He is apparently gripless with respect to answering the question or what sort of world is most compatible with the interests, needs, and values of the US.
As a result, Mr Obama can draw no lines in the sand. He cannot say with consistency what conduct is either acceptable to the US or not. Neither can he erect any directional signs pointing to the kind of world in which the US can flourish.
Without a clear view of the type of world best suited to the US now and into the future, Mr Obama and his administration can neither formulate nor execute coherent, internally consistent, and viable policy. Without a clear world view, it is not possible to define either friends or enemies of the US. To distinguish between those governments with which the US has significant coinciding national interests and those with which we are in opposition.
Without a vision, Mr Obama and his administration can only lurch from one crisis (either real or apparent) to another. It can only temporize. It can only act ad hoc. This means that the US cannot provide what even its enemies want and need--a clear, easily understood point of reference.
Providing a visible point of reference with which a country and its government can either agree or oppose has been the hallmark of American foreign policy since Theodore Roosevelt sat in the Oval. It is the reality which hides behind the word, "leadership."
When the US fails in this regard as it has from time to time over the past century, the world is the worst for it. When, for example, FDR could not or would not annunciate a vision and pursue a policy consistent with it, both Europe and Asia stumbled to and over the precipice of war.
When the US seems hesitant or uncertain as to what it will and will not accept as was the case during the Truman administration with respect to Asia, again the consequences are both profound and negative. Events of the late Forties and very early Fifties show that it is even worse for the US not to have both a vision and a consistent policy than it is to have ones which are wrongheaded.
Mr Obama is floundering. He has no world vision. He has no standard to which policy can be tailored and executed. He is not capable of maintaining focus on a foreign policy challenge because he has no predicate for doing so.
Mr Obama cannot take charge and move out on time sensitive foreign policy measures but must leave them to his people while he floats, preternaturally calm, above the fray. He is content to leave Afghanistan to be fought out between Gates and Clinton on one side and Biden, Jones, and his Chief of Staff on the other. He can do nothing else as he has no clear idea what the US and thus the world needs, against whom war must be fought and with whom alliances are viable.
Good luck, Ms Cheney and group. Let the Geek know when the Obama-ites have a policy with which you disagree. It is hard to be in opposition to a vacuum. And that is what the Obama foreign and national security "policies" are.
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