Sunday, February 6, 2011

Douthat's "Obama the Realist": Or Why I Am Not a Conservative

In an op-ed in today's New York Times entitled "Obama the Realist" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/opinion/07douthat.html), Ross Douthat writes of the current unrest in Egypt:

"This is a situation that calls for great caution, rather than grand idealistic gestures. And it calls for a certain measure of relief, from the American public, that this liberal president’s foreign policy instincts have turned out to be so temperamentally conservative."

And so we learn that to do nothing is "temperamentally conservative":

• To ignore human rights abuses in China;
• To ignore human rights abuses in Myanmar;
• To cede a democratic Lebanon to Iran and Syria;
• To ignore North Korean aggression;
• To ignore suffering in Darfur;
• To ignore genocide in the Congo;
• To ignore Iranians who took to the streets, seeking freedom;
• To keep the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

This is not foreign policy. This is the absence of foreign policy. This is not realism. This is bumbling. This is the consequence of electing a very young senator without foreign policy experience of any kind, who ran a slick campaign, but who is unable to translate photogenic posturing before teleprompters into a leadership role on the world stage.

2 comments:

  1. Jeffrey,

    I was struck by Obama's interview on Fox yesterday, when he admitted only that there are some "anti-US strands in Muslim Brotherhood". I guess, he is prepared to side with Muslim Brotherhood against Israel, as he sided with PLO.

    I just want to make a minor point. You write: "Iranians ... took to the streets, seeking freedom". Iranians took on the street seeking victory of the party which lost the elections. And the difference between two parties is purely superficial, as you mentioned before. Iranians went to the streets because they do not trust elections and prefer riots. It is not "freedom", this is the same barbarity we see everywhere in Muslim world.

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  2. Add to this,Obama's comment about the Taliban/Aghanistan,suggesting they put down arms,participate in the gov't,be the Taliban,but not be the Taliban..Jeesh, I was waiting for that word;" dialogue",acting like he is addressing a school board.
    A new age suggestion to stone age people.He must be the laughing stock in that region.Again,further evidene that he does not understand the mentality of the region.

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