In the latest bit of bad news from around the world, Russia has invaded Georgia, a democratic ally of ours in the Caucasus Mountains that has been hoping to join NATO. Apparently, this is how Vladimir Putin hopes to keep that from happening. Here’s hoping we stand up to Russia for their sake. Here’s wishing we’d done that years ago.
Category Archives: International relations
Barack Obama’s foreign vulnerability
There are a lot of people who assume that Sen. Obama, because of his heritage, will have an advantage in dealing with other countries. Part of that, as John Kerry noted, is that if he wins in November, “it would have a powerful message all across the world about the American story. About our making real the words that we live by. That all men are created equal.” Part too, I think, is the idea that because he doesn’t “look like the guys on the money,” non-European leaders around the world will find him more appealing and accessible.Kerry’s certainly right about the symbolic value of an Obama victory—for Americans. What’s somewhat questionable is the underlying assumption here that anti-black racism is only an American problem. That’s simply not the case: anti-black racism is in fact a significant problem in many of the countries who pose us the biggest challenges, including China and much of the Muslim world, in which slavery of black Africans was never forbidden and continues to be practiced. As such, in dealing with countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, or with the Israel-Palestine conflict, Sen. Obama could actually find his African heritage a disadvantage. That said, it should also be noted that his heritage should be an asset for him in dealing with sub-Saharan Africa, where the US is already generally popular thanks to Bush Administration policies and which should assume increasing significance for American policy going forward.There’s another issue as well for Sen. Obama in dealing with the Muslim world, this one potentially more serious: whether he considers himself that he was ever a Muslim, on Muslim terms, he was, and he clearly isn’t now (regardless of what some people might like to tell you, he’s definitely a practicing Christian), which makes him an apostate, a murtad. As longtime student of the Muslim world Daniel Pipes points out, that’s no small issue. Technically, this would make him subject to religious-based assassination, though it seems probable that prudence would prevail over any such impulse; but as the Christian Science Monitor realized, for the US to elect an apostate Muslim to the White House would be a huge propaganda windfall for al’Qaeda and other jihadist organizations. That, obviously, would create major foreign-policy challenges for an Obama administration.Do these things disqualify Sen. Obama to be President? No, certainly not, nor do they mean he couldn’t have a successful administration—I’m doubtful such would happen, yes, but that’s for other reasons. They do mean, however, that the facile idea that electing Sen. Obama will be a boon for American foreign policy is in fact quite dubious.
Barack’s Iraq doubletalk
I’ve noted before that Barack Obama’s position on Iraq hasn’t been as consistent as he likes to make it out to be (he even went so far in 2004 as to tell the Chicago Tribune, “There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage”—which doesn’t square with his statement earlier this year that “I opposed this war in 2002, 2003, 4, 5, 6, and 7”); but this video (produced, of course, by the McCain campaign), which consists almost entirely of clips of Sen. Obama, makes his back-and-forth record on the situation in Iraq, and I think the fundamental cynicism with which he has approached the whole issue, excruciatingly clear:
I am increasingly suspicious that should Sen. Obama be elected President in November, those who voted for him will find what the liberal netroots are already finding: he is indeed “the black Bill Clinton,” and his promises are secondary to the political needs of the moment.
Can a “citizen of the world” be the President of the US?
Barack Obama went abroad to burnish his foreign-policy credentials and trim John McCain’s advantage in that area, and at first it seemed to be working; now that he’s back, though, the trip pretty clearly looks like a political flop. For the first time since Sen. Obama nailed down the Democratic nomination, we have a poll (USA Today/Gallup) showing Sen. McCain in the lead, by four points; in the Rasmussen tracking poll, perhaps the most accurate one out there, Sen. Obama leads by three points, within the margin of error.What went wrong for the Chicago senator? One major thing seems to have been his Berlin speech, in which he greeted his German audience as “a fellow citizen of the world,” apologized for America, went out of his way to avoid crediting the US with saving West Berlin via the Berlin Airlift (for that matter, he also snubbed the Brits for their part in it), and referenced the fall of the Berlin Wall without ever mentioning that that came about because America led the West in standing up to Communism. As a result, his speech doesn’t seem to have impressed much of anyone. A letter to the editor in the Chicago Tribune noted dryly, “While America may not be perfect, there is no reason to apologize to the Germans, architects of the Holocaust.” In a commentary in Germany’s Stern magazine sardonically titled “Barack Kant Saves the World,” Florian Güssgen called Sen. Obama “almost too slick” and said, “Obama’s speech was often vague, sometimes banal and more reminiscent of John Lennon’s feel good song ‘Imagine’ than of a foreign policy agenda.” As for the UK, a columnist for the Guardian snidely dismissed the whole thing with a classically British crack: “Barack Obama has found his people. But, unfortunately for his election prospects, they’re German, not American.”It probably didn’t help, further, that he kept the American flag offstage, both for his Berlin speech and during his press conference in Paris with French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy; that could only underscore the impression that Sen. Obama cared more about the opinions of his European audiences than he did of the opinions of American voters, whom the trip was ostensibly intended to impress. The thing that might end up hurting Sen. Obama the most, though, was the incident at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where he had been scheduled to meet with wounded soldiers. According to reports, the Pentagon informed him that he would not be allowed to bring the news media or his campaign staff, only his official Senate staff; in response, Sen. Obama canceled the visit. Sen. McCain’s response was predictable on every level, as political opportunity combined with a snub he no doubt felt keenly: he attacked.
If Sen. Obama wants to convince skeptics he can handle foreign policy, he’s going to have to do better than this.
Barack Obama, 9/19/01
Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad. We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent. Finally, we will have to devote far more attention to the monumental task of raising the hopes and prospects of embittered children across the globe—children not just in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and within our own shores.(From the Hyde Park Herald, September 19, 2001; quoted in “Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama,” in The New Yorker.)
I agree that we need to “understand the sources of such madness”—but to do that, we need to understand them on their own terms, not to try to reduce them to contemporary Western touchy-feely-ism. The problem with the 9/11 terrorists wasn’t psychological. I certainly agree that they showed “a fundamental absence of empathy,” but that was the symptom, not the condition—it was the effect, not the cause. Specifically, the absence of empathy and the plot to destroy the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and (I believe) the U. S. Capitol were both effects of a common cause: the murderous ideology of jihadism, the Islamic heresy propounded by Osama bin Laden. The problem isn’t “a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair”; that’s certainly a problem for its own sake and something to be addressed as best as we’re able, but it’s not the root cause here. The 9/11 terrorists, after all, hadn’t come from “poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair”—they were middle-class and well-educated. The problem is a worldview that says that blowing people up because they aren’t Muslims (and the right kind of Muslims, at that) is a good and noble thing to do. There, Sen. Obama, is the source of the madness—there and nowhere else.HT: Carlos Echevarria
The tipping point in the War on Terror?
If not, it sounds like we’re at least to the tipping point in Iraq; the headline in The Times of London reads, “Iraqis lead final purge of Al-Qaeda,” and the article quotes the major general commanding the American forces in northern Iraq as saying, “I think we’re at the irreversible point.” Even Barack Obama is starting to admit he may not be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Personally, I’d call that progress.Also, those interested in the ongoing efforts to clean up Iraq after Saddam’s rule might appreciate this story: we just finished moving the last 550 metric tonnes of yellowcake uranium from the Tuwaitha nuclear complex in Iraq (about 12 miles south of Baghdad) to Canada, where it will be used to generate electricity. Apparently, there was a great sigh of relief once the stuff was finally out of the region. Now, the goal is the decontamination of Tuwaitha. The article dryly notes that “U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site—surrounded by huge sand berms—following a wave of looting after Saddam’s fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns,” which just makes me shudder; the sooner that place is safe, the better.HT: Bill
Calling all feminists for Zimbabwe
Doug Hagler has an important post up on the group Women of Zimbabwe Arise! (WOZA); like most Zimbabwean groups that care about anything other than keeping Robert Mugabe in power, they’ve been taking a pounding from the government and its affiliated thugs. In a pattern drearily familiar from corrupt and brutal tyrannies throughout history, the abuse of women to keep the opposition down is a real problem under Mugabe’s misrule, which makes it particularly important, I think, to support WOZA’s peaceful witness.
A bruised reed he will not break
and a smoldering wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.So it is said of the Servant of God in Isaiah 42:3; so it will be when he comes again. Right now, though, we live in a very different world. I was reflecting on this this morning, thinking about the state of affairs in Zimbabwe. If you’ve been following the news, you know that it looks like Robert Mugabe’s succeeded in hanging on to power (though he said he’s “open to discussion” with the opposition), since the opposition party pulled out of Friday’s presidential runoff in the face of the Mugabe government’s terror campaign, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai sought refuge at the Dutch embassy in Harare. Freedom and justice in Zimbabwe are smoldering wicks, indeed.There is one small, very small, bright spot, though: at this year’s meeting of the PC(USA)’s General Assembly, the Peacemaking and International Issues Committee approved a resolution in support of the church in Zimbabwe, and against the Mugabe government. I hope and firmly expect to see the whole GA approve it; and I further hope that this encourages the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa (UPCSA), to which the Presbytery of Zimbabwe belongs, to take a similar stance at their General Assembly in September. I miss being a part of the relationship between Denver and Zimbabwe—it’s perhaps the biggest thing I miss from having left that presbytery—and I wish I could have been there. I’ll have to get on top of the schedule and see if I can at least watch the plenary session when this resolution comes to the floor; I suspect my friends from Zimbabwe won’t speak then (since they’d be on video for the whole world, including Mugabe and his thugs, to see), but I’d at least be able to share the moment with them a little.Please, keep praying for Zimbabwe.
China as an island
Check this out from Strange Maps:
If you’re at all interested in geopolitics and the future of our nation’s relationship with China (and if you aren’t, you should read a few of James Fallows’ articles in The Atlantic), it’s worth diving into the analysis that accompanies the map; it’s a summary of a longer article, “The Geopolitics of China,” which I haven’t yet read but definitely intend to read. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, too many Americans have grown accustomed to thinking of this as a unipolar world with America the only superpower; leaving aside whether that’s ever really been true (Vladimir Putin might well disagree), the rise of China will be changing that before too long, if it hasn’t already. China’s large, powerful, and—to most Westerners—mysterious; the more we come to understand them, the better.HT: my wife
Pillow diplomacy
So, the State Department, which under Bush 43 has made the fight against international sex trafficking a major part of our foreign policy, has now had to issue a formal directive telling its employees not to hire prostitutes. Who knew? It sounds like somebody needs to clue some of our foreign-service folks in that this isn’t what the US means by “international relations” . . .