American Retreat?

Fareed has another piece in which he disagrees with those who describe American foreign policy as being in retreat.

I think that on this question almost all of us, including those who make a living writing about such things, are in over our heads.

I think that the old order with its large America is gone.
Depending on your perspective that large America was either:
a) trying to stabilize and protect the world and/or
b) bullying the world into supporting American interests.

Either way it is gone.

A new less expansive (and less expensive) American foreign policy will follow.
I hope it will be something like first among equals for awhile with being in the group of "firsts among equals" later.  We cannot dominate the world like we did in the middle of the last century but how it plays out or should  play out is way too much for most of us.

That is why, although I have some quarrels with Obama, I am reluctant to oppose his path toward that new world order.  Fareed seems right to me.

Obama's red lines

I have held off for as long as I can in contemplating the failure of Obama's foreign policy approach.  

I had originally hoped that his rhetoric should be interpreted as: "I will tone down the American assumption of of the role of policeman of the world without abandoning our vital interests."

Although he says he can, without Congressional approval, rewrite laws in the middle of implementation - which the Constitution does not allow - he apparently cannot, without Congressional approval, function as the Commander in Chief - which the Constitution and/or modern practice does allow.

He looks like he is continuing the arguably bellicose tone of our foreign policy (red lines and all that) while implementing it in a very timid and contradictory way.  His earlier talk was of what HE would do about the use of chemical weapons.  When it came time to do it, he waffled and then collapsed in an attempt to get Congress to join him.  Or does he want Congress to disapprove and therefore extract him from his red line rhetoric?

I do not  think that he is directly abandoning our vital interests with one very important exception.

His and America's credibility have taken a dramatic hit in the last few weeks.

Obama and Syria

On June 15 we considered the possibility that:  ...Obama has lost his way and perhaps is not even up to the job.  For example with all of the tough sounding talk about Syria, he placed himself on the horns of a dilemma.  Either he gets us involved in another war or else he makes the U S President (and therefore the U S) look foolish.

Now, with this tepid response, it looks like he will get us in another war and make us look foolish.

Bacevich, Niebuhr, and Dylan

Andrew Bacevich is a Professor of History and International Relations at Boston University and a retired Colonel in the U S Army.  He has written a little book entitled The Limits of Power, The End of American Exceptionalism, Henry Holt, 2008.  In it he argues very convincingly that the reason that we continue making foreign policy blunders is precisely because we do not recognize that we are subject to those limits.  I recommend it strongly.  It is not just another diatribe about George W. Bush.  It is much more.  See it on Amazon.

Bacevich led me to the renowned theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892-1971.   In 1952 Niebuhr wrote a little book entitled The Irony of American History,  University of Chicago Press. Bacevich wrote an introduction to this edition.  It is a more philosophical approach to a broader variation of the same question.  I had some difficulty at the beginning of the book,  but it was worth it.  Among other things, the book anticipates some of the philosophical problems that would arise during the then recently begun cold war.  See it on Amazon.

Since there are an ample number of reviews on Amazon I will not write one and avoid the risk of coming up against the limits of my own power. 

 I don't know if there is a "Cliff Notes" (abreviated) version of these books.  However, it would not be too far wrong to say that the following song (hear it here) serves that purpose:

With God on Our Side

Bob Dylan

Oh my name it ain't nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fightin'
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

The Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

Through many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Benghazi 4

The media has found Benghazi with a vengeance.

I noticed that the people who explained why no help was sent, talked a lot about the fact that it only lasted 7 hours and it would have taken the military longer than that to get there.

None of our illustrative reporters asked:  "Did you know at the beginning that it would only last seven hours?"

Benghazi 3 - media

Apparently, the nonFox media is finally starting to cover the Benghazi affair.  It occupied a major portion of last Sunday's Face the Nation show on CBS.  Until recently I had seen it only on Fox.

Oct 21 I said here:  "I believe the President was concerned that the terrorist attack on Benghazi would be seen a harbinger of the collapse of his middle eastern foreign policy.  That is why for two weeks his administration conducted a media campaign to convince us that it was a demonstration that got out of hand and not an organized activity." 

 

In the comments there it was noted that:  "... the response by the administration was the standard damage control that we see from our institutions from time to time when events threaten to damage their brand."  That is, of course, frequently true. That is why we need a independent media.  That brings us to the real and double tragedy here. Our mainline media will not only not cover this important story, it assures us that those who do cover it are unreliable.  The majority of  our media apparently sees its role as supporting the administration's (mis?)representation of those events.

Recall how the media handled Bush's claims about African yellowcake?  I have a friend who went on interminably about how the Bush people "outed a CIA agent" (Valerie Plame, author of the subsequent book - Fair Game).  That friend has not been at all concerned about the idea that perhaps this administration left an ambassador (Chris Stevens) and others out to die.  I told her that, contrary to Obama's claims, the Libyan President said (in September) that it was clearly a preplanned attack and she asked, "Libya has a President?" 

I would argue that the blame for my friend's indifference lies not with her, but with the media and its selective reporting. 

By way of comparison the reader should note that Ambassador Stevens will not be writing a book about the treatment that he received from his administration.
 

Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel  once said that he was a Senator from Nebraska not from Israel.  Even that mild (and unquestionably true statement) was criticized as being not sufficiently pro-Israel.

 Some believe that if he becomes Secretary of Defense, then
1.  he will not be as supportive of Israel as some would like,
2.  he will not be as opposed to the Arabs as some would like,
3.  he will not be as vehement in his opposition to Iran as some would like, and
4.  in facing the perils of the world that he will not always be as intransigent as some would like
     in defending the view that America is always right.

I hope that they are right.

It seems to me that he fits pretty well the foreign policy that I would like to see us follow.

Walk softly and carry a big stick.

               I enjoyed the movie The Wind and the Lion  (1975) in which the Raisuli (Sean Connery), a minor Berber leader in Morocco, has taken as hostage a woman named Perdicaris and her two children. (In real life it was her husband that he held.  However, that would not have been nearly as titillating as was his holding of Candice Bergen.)  

The Raisuli then sent his demands to President Theodore Roosevelt (Brian Keith) in Washington.   The answer that he got was not what he had expected.

It read: “America wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.”

It is good theatre and a good representation of the young republic coming of age and taking its place on the world stage.  It included a display of force to impress the Europeans who were there.  It was what I have called KATN (kick ass and take names) foreign policy.  It was arguably appropriate then. 

However, if you roll the clock forward a hundred years, and use that approach now I do not think that it would work so well.  For most of the last hundred years we have been at the peak of world power.  But we have been at the peak of our power as well.  In the future we are going to have to be more flexible if we want to exercise any leadership in the world. 

The politics of Benghazi

I believe the President was concerned that the terrorist attack on Benghazi would be seen a harbinger of the collapse of his middle eastern foreign policy.  That is why for two weeks his administration conducted a media campaign to convince us that it was a demonstration that got out of hand and not an organized activity.  Being more clever than most he also made a statement the day after which minimized any mention of terrorism and still included some indirect references that could be used, if needed, to claim that he had said all along that it was an act of terror.  Romney’s ineptness and Candy’s expansion of her role from moderator to active participant in the second debate made that work out for the President temporarily.

Perhaps on Monday we will delve into the broader issues centering on the fact that it was an organized terrorist attack.  I think there are two.

First is the question of whether there was appropriate security.  It appears not.  Biden’s defense in his debate with Ryan was that Ryan had supported a $300 million reduction in funding for Foreign Service Security.  This is a silly argument.  How much they had was not the problem.  The problem was where it was placed and that is a presidential responsibility.

Second is that the entire Obama policy for that part of the world is brought into question.  Whether it should or not it will certainly be part of the campaign. 

I do not believe that the murder of the Libyan Ambassador and others is a particularly important piece of evidence that our current middle eastern policy has failed.  (I hope not.)  However, I believe that the Obama administration thought that it was very important in that regard and that it had major political implications.  To blunt the impact of those political considerations is the reason that they have concealed evidence of the nature of that attack in the hopes of convincing the public that it was only a minor incident that grew out of a demonstration. 

As usual the attempt to cover it up is going to be worse for them than the event itself.  

PS  This was talked about by Tom and Rob in comments on the post on Oct 18.

The first among equals

In the 8-23-12 post on Obama’s foreign policy I wrote:  I think we should move away from the (unsustainable) KATN (kick ass and take names) U S foreign policy and toward the next proper (and sustainable) American role in the world: that of being first among equals.  For an example of how that could work without being (or appearing to be) weak, see Fareed Zakaria's book:  The Post American World, 2.1.

Two questions about the expression “First among equals” have been raised to me.  One wondered what it meant the other claimed that it was just BS.  So I thought that I would say what I mean by it.  Modifying Wikipedia’s definition from persons to nations would look something like this: 

 A nation is the first among equals if it is formally equal, but looked upon as an authority of special importance or unofficial leader by their peers.  

Illustrations of why I would classify America as a "first among equals" nation.

For three generations the world’s reserve currency has been the US Dollar.

Twice in this century the world has formed international organizations that they hoped would maintain peace among the great powers.  The League did not have the US in it and failed, the UN did have the US in it and is, more or less, successful.  (Also the UN chose to have itself in the United States.)

After Kuwait was invaded, a large group of nations  followed American Leadership in ejecting the Iraqis.

U S Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once said that “America is the indispensible nation.”

The Iranian dissidents, who were protesting against their theocratic government, appealed in the streets to the American president to stand with them.  They did not, as far as I know, appeal to the Russian President, or the French President, or the Pakistani President, or, well you get my drift.  Did you ever notice how many countries have "president" as the title of their head of state?  I wonder how that got started.

Candidate Romney's assertion that the World "yearns for American leadership" may be an overstatement,  but as Tom Friedman has said, "If you think you don't like the middle east with American power, just wait until you try the middle east without American power." 

Feel free to make suggestions for this list.  Future additions will have the date added.

(I do not include our leadership of the group of nations in Afghanistan because we were the aggrieved party and therefore there was nothing special about our leading that.)

Some things that I mean by KATN are:

The unilateral invasion of Iraq.

The fact that half of all of the military expenditures on this planet are made by the US.

P S I would agree that KATN was much more appropriate during the cold war.

P P S Secretary Albright, who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, is perhaps a biased witness.  She also said:  “I was a little girl in World War II and I'm used to being freed by Americans.”

Obama's speech at the UN

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In   Obama's speech at the UN   the president of the US describes to the rest of the world the reality of tolerance as we see it.  An excerpt is below:
....

Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. As President of our country and Commander-in-Chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day -- (laughter) -- and I will always defend their right to do so.

And yet the turmoil of recent weeks reminds us that the path to democracy does not end with the casting of a ballot. Nelson Mandela once said: “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

True democracy demands that citizens cannot be thrown in jail because of what they believe, and that businesses can be opened without paying a bribe. It depends on the freedom of citizens to speak their minds and assemble without fear, and on the rule of law and due process that guarantees the rights of all people.

In other words, true democracy -- real freedom -- is hard work. Those in power have to resist the temptation to crack down on dissidents. In hard economic times, countries must be tempted -- may be tempted to rally the people around perceived enemies, at home and abroad, rather than focusing on the painstaking work of reform.

Moreover, there will always be those that reject human progress -- dictators who cling to power, corrupt interests that depend on the status quo, and extremists who fan the flames of hate and division. From Northern Ireland to South Asia, from Africa to the Americas, from the Balkans to the Pacific Rim, we’ve witnessed convulsions that can accompany transitions to a new political order.

At time, the conflicts arise along the fault lines of race or tribe. And often they arise from the difficulties of reconciling tradition and faith with the diversity and interdependence of the modern world. In every country, there are those who find different religious beliefs threatening; in every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask themselves how much they’re willing to tolerate freedom for others.

That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. Now, I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.

It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well -- for as the city outside these walls makes clear, we are a country that has welcomed people of every race and every faith. We are home to Muslims who worship across our country. We not only respect the freedom of religion, we have laws that protect individuals from being harmed because of how they look or what they believe. We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them.

I know there are some who ask why we don’t just ban such a video. And the answer is enshrined in our laws: Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech.

Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views, even views that we profoundly disagree with. We do not do so because we support hateful speech, but because our founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views and practice their own faith may be threatened. We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities.

We do so because given the power of faith in our lives, and the passion that religious differences can inflame, the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression; it is more speech -- the voices of tolerance that rally against bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of understanding and mutual respect.

Now, I know that not all countries in this body share this particular understanding of the protection of free speech. We recognize that. But in 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can spread offensive views around the world with the click of a button, the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete. The question, then, is how do we respond?

And on this we must agree: There is no speech that justifies mindless violence. There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents. There’s no video that justifies an attack on an embassy. There’s no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in Lebanon, or destroy a school in Tunis, or cause death and destruction in Pakistan.

In this modern world with modern technologies, for us to respond in that way to hateful speech empowers any individual who engages in such speech to create chaos around the world. We empower the worst of us if that’s how we respond.

More broadly, the events of the last two weeks also speak to the need for all of us to honestly address the tensions between the West and the Arab world that is moving towards democracy.

Now, let me be clear: Just as we cannot solve every problem in the world, the United States has not and will not seek to dictate the outcome of democratic transitions abroad. We do not expect other nations to agree with us on every issue, nor do we assume that the violence of the past weeks or the hateful speech by some individuals represent the views of the overwhelming majority of Muslims, any more than the views of the people who produced this video represents those of Americans. However, I do believe that it is the obligation of all leaders in all countries to speak out forcefully against violence and extremism. 

...

Democracy is not easy.

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I listened to all 5 of the "bobble head" shows from GPS to Foxnews Sunday and afterwards the distillation of what I think about the week's events is the title statement which was made by Henri Levy, the French political observer.

I was disappointed that Obama did not know that Egypt, to whom we send much money, is an ally.  (I took it as a conflation of the country and the new government.)  I do not see the current wildfire in the middle east as either a confirmation or denial of the success of Obama's foreign policy.  I should say that I am biased in favor of what I think is his policy, see Campaign 2012 Obama Foreign Policy .  (Which I understand to be:  We should move away from being the big dog and toward being the first among equals.)

Tom Friedman, on Face the Nation, noted that twenty thousand people, made in the image of God, have been killed in the last year in Syria.  He asked, "Has even one Syrian embassy been attacked or ransacked around the middle east."

How to deal with the wildfire.

This clash of cultures is a very difficult problem.  We cannot abandon freedom of speech (our cultural imperative) to meet their insistence that an insult to Islam and the Prophet be a capital offence (their cultural imperative).  Our leaders cannot endorse their cultural imperative.  However our leaders can, should, and in this case did try to explain that it was an individual and not an act of the US government. Their leaders cannot endorse freedom of speech, but perhaps they could argue to the people that they cannot enforce their cultural imperative in a foreign country and encourage their people to limit their response to peaceful demonstrations.

Some speakers wanted to cut off aid to Libya because an al Queda type organization killed our people.  Imagine the satisfaction that would bring to the terrorists in these fledgling democracies.  "All we have to do to split the US and our democratic government is kill a couple of Americans."  How would that would serve America's interest?  See some very touching signs that show what one hopes is the response of the great majority of Libyans.

In another venue one of the speakers noted that the real clash of cultures was within Islam: between the terrorists types and what I will call Greater Islam.  I believe that terrorist strain is the result of more than a century of Arab suppression since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.  But those of us with even a cursory knowledge of world history, (and mine is very cursory) know that there was a time when our European ancestors were living in mud huts and Greater Islam was the proud possessor of the highest and most tolerant culture in the world.

We should carefully gauge our responses to this wildfire and try to be on the side of that Greater Islam.

Three thoughts on the current Islamic unrest

I expect the Islamic demonstrations to settle down after a few days.  I expect that Obama very much hopes that they do.  If they continue too long it would reinforce the Republican idea that this represents the collapse of the Obama foreign policy.  I would not see it that way even if it went on for several weeks.

Incidentally, the fact that we have free speech does not mean either of the following:

a)  that we should expect a people recently freed from dictatorship to understand-adopt free speech or

b)  that it is our job to convince them that they should go for free speech too or 

c)  that their passion against it should limit our free speech.

I watched several newshows on Wednesday about  Romney’s remarks and the situation in the Islamic world.   It reminded me that if Romney thought that he was going to get fair treatment by the media, then he is definitely not smart enough to be president.

Thank you Bush 41

Dear President George H. W. Bush,

For over twenty years I have wanted to express to you my appreciation for something that you did while you were president of the US.  I am sorry that I have taken so long.  I love history, but, as will become clear below, I am not a historian

Your handling of the Gulf War was excellent and the wisdom of your restraint in that conflict has been since confirmed.

I very much appreciated your willingness to place our country ahead of your party and even your own reelection by supporting an increase in taxes which laid the groundwork for the surpluses of the nineties which strengthened our country.

However, laudable as those achievements were, they pale in comparison to what I think was your best work.  What I appreciated the most about your presidency was the way you handled the final chapter of the 40 year Cold War – the collapse of the Soviet empire and finally the Soviet Union itself.  It was an extremely delicate situation that could have exploded in many different directions and with incalculable damage to the world.  It is hard to remember the attitude of the American public, and many in our leadership, toward the Soviet Union at end of the Cold War.  After all that time there was in many quarters a visceral hatred of the Soviet Union and while that huge edifice was crumbling you were under intense public pressure to seek a greater American advantage, to inject the US into that collapse in order to “guarantee” this or that outcome. You decided not to interfere in that decline.  I have always assumed that it was because you thought that to do so might have driven the Soviets to desperate measures and/or would have actually made it harder for those nations in that empire to be restored to independence.  

I think your stand against that pressure to intervene went beyond commendable and into heroic and I think that the wisdom of your decision has been supported by the recent history of Europe. 

Thank you.

Sincerely

Wayne Bell

PS Perhaps that is why the comedian’s description of your rejection of some proposal on the grounds that it “wouldn’t be prudent” resonates so well.

PPS I confess that I never voted for you.
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China

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They tell me that China is going to continue to roar on and leave us in the dust.  After all, they've been growing at 10% per year for thirty years.  Some say they are already ahead of us.

I don't doubt that China will be our long term competitor (hopefully not enemy). But I don't see it as that big a problem.  Not nearly as big as our debt problem for example.

For one thing exponential growth (10% per year of what is there) of "living entities" requires an unlimited amount of resources.  No one has that.
For another thing, they are already pushing the limits of how long developing countries have been able to sustain growth as they move into the modern world.
Finally all of those people are moving up to a better standard of living.  They will want even more as time goes by.  Those who are currently living the "Chinese good life" make up far fewer than half of the whole population.  It will get more and more difficult to increase the number of seats at the modern table.

Projections are very useful, but they are no better than the validity of their assumptions.  When you hear these magnificent projections keep in mind the story that Mark Twain used to tell about the Mississippi River.  If you have ever looked at a map of the river you will notice a lot of double backs and loops.  Frequently the river will cut off one of those loops and make the river shorter.  Twain noted that, based on projections of this shortening,  in less than a hundred years St. Louis would be only eighty six miles from New Orleans.
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the latest Koran Burning

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I don't have a problem with an apology for a mistake (the Koran again) but I do hope that it was noted that a) it was not intentional and b) the Koran's in question had already been desecrated by having notes written on them by the inmates who had been given the books by their captors.

If that was the case. Was it?
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An apology(?) tour

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Romney is now speaking about Obama's "apology tour" and arguing that instead of apologizing for America, Obama should be apologizing to America.

Maybe that works. I did not think that it was an apology tour, I thought it was a reality tour. An attempt to let the world know that he recognized that this was not the fifties or sixties. That he knows that the US GDP is no longer half of the world's GDP, it is now only one fourth of the world's GDP. We no longer dominate the world. But if we have enough sense we can still be the first among equals for a long time. But to do that we cannot continue to act as if we are the the elephant in the room.
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Palestinian State

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I think that all sides (except Hamas, Hezbollah, and some extremist Israeli groups) have agreed that a two state solution is the way to go.

So what is wrong with the Palestinians going straight to the UN and asking for one?

Of course, I wouldn't see anything wrong with requiring that, in order to get it, they be required to accept the right of Israel to exist.
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Obama’s foreign policy

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What I hoped would be characteristic of Obama’s foreign policy went something like this.
1. Be strong where US security is involved.
2. Be reluctant to interfere inside other countries even “for their benefit.” Use all other available means first.
3. If you must go in, then go in carefully and get a lot of other countries to go with you so that it is (and appears to be) a world action.
4. Lay the groundwork for reducing the military budget (I would hope to about 3 % of GDP) AND reducing the military mission by a concomitant amount.
and finally I hoped that he would:
5. Agree with Walter Lippman’s belief that: Foreign Policy is bringing into balance the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power, with a comfortable margin of power in reserve.
Consider that dictum in light of the fact that, in the last 60 years, our GDP has dropped from 50% to 25% of the world’s GDP. Then begin moving us away from the (unsustainable) KATN (kick ass and take names) U S foreign policy and toward the next proper (and sustainable) American role in the world: that of being first among equals.

So how is he doing after 31 months in office? Well, we have some examples. This is very preliminary and therefore subject to change – probably they will not go quite as well as I hope they will. So with that caveat

In the war in Afghanistan he upped the ante and increased American forces. How it will end is not clear. But he has showed himself willing to be quite aggressive in the war widely believed to be justified for American security. As aggressive as, say, Bush 41 was.

When the pirates had Capt. Richard Phillips as a hostage Obama directed the military to take them down directly and totally. They did it with coordinated gunfire that left 3 dead and one captured. I don’t think he checked with Congress about that and I’m glad he didn’t.

In Iran I suppose that he judged that our intervening would not increase the chances of a good outcome. Obama resisted the urge to get us involved in what could easily have become our third simultaneous war with Muslims. In Egypt there was a very strong institution, the Army, which had a positive attitude and appears to be able to handle that transition without any outside help. In both of these examples I think that what Obama understands (and some of his detractors do not) is that if we jump into these situations early in a big way we will cripple the revolutionaries because they will be labeled as U S stooges (= traitors).

In Libya where, again, we could not afford another war, somebody(?) got NATO (usually thought of as an extension of the US military) to undertake a very effective action in that country. That somebody got those folks in France, whom some ridicule as “cheese eating surrender monkeys”, to take a leading role in that action. His detractors call that achievement “leading from behind”. Finally in Syria, Obama waited long time before ordering US sanctions on Syria. Some people thought it was an outlandishly long time. However, the great majority of Syria’s oil is sold to Europe. Obama and Europe have been doing a dance the last few months while they took turns increasing the pressure in Syria. The real potential for pressure in this case lay with the Europeans. Perhaps he is, again, getting the world to take a larger role. It might be appropriate here to recall Harry Truman’s observation that, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

These things are consistent with moving the U S role in the world from KATN toward first among equals.

So I will give him at least a B.

PS Napoleon famously said, “If you set out to take Vienna, then take Vienna.”
Obama’s corollary is: “If you set out to get bin Laden, then get bin Laden.”
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A position on torture

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Overheard:
I am opposed to torture. My position on this is absolute. I expect the government to protect me and support my freedom to take that position. They may feel that, in order to protect me, it is sometimes necessary to employ aggressive interrogation techniques. That is their job to decide whether, in any particular case, it is necessary or not. But if they go too far they should not expect me to support them because my position is clear and unequivocal. I am opposed to torture.
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