Barack Obama has made it to the White House despite a dearth of international experience by saying moderate-sounding things on security issues, making reassuring statements regarding Israel, and by gathering some retired military men around him to voice their support.
And Colin Powell has now stated that Obama is "qualified" to be US Commander-in-Chief. But by what, or whom? Given the new President's comprehensive lack of experience in foreign policy, let alone defense issues, one has to wonder if the nominally-Republican Powell's endorsements have more to do with some sort of revenge on the Bush Administration in which he served- or perhaps a desire for some perceived redemption. And it also begs the question: why hasn't Colin Powell previously endorsed any liberal, inexperienced white candidates?
Obama currently expounds an internationalist, multilateralist, pacifist, one-world approach, clearly fashioned as a rubuke to the neocons- one that will supposedly restore our credibility in the world after the "dark days" of the Bush Administration. And while he appears to believe in what he says, he's far from a pure idealogue- because with Obama, political expediency always trumps all other considerations. His flip-flopping stances, refusal to answer questions, and serial opportunism all point to a man who's main goal has always been getting elected to the next-higher office. As one of his earlier associates had noted, "he was always running for something."
This week, in a cynical gesture, Obama signed orders for withdrawal from Iraq, apparently to fufull his now-extraneous campaign promise. As with his first-day Executive Order to shut-down Gauntamino Bay, he and his staff had almost no details sorted-out... it was just "the beginning of the process." Team Obama apparently felt the need politically to get something in the newspapers that looked like "action" on these touchstones of his campaign, but in the end, the actual results might take only slightly different form than could have been expected under a Republican administration.
Obama is not above trying to take credit for "ending" the war in Iraq, even though the only reason he is not being handed a civil-war infested with Al Qaida is the dramatic success of "The Surge" strategy, which actually won the war... and which both Obama and Biden opposed vehemently. During the campaign, when it became obvious that Bush and McCain were right, and Obama wrong, he simply changed the subject. While his advisors felt that Iraq was no longer a useful talking point once General Petreus had won it, they now see an opportunity to put Obama's face on the withdrawal... and lend a facade of legitimacy to his previous, ill-advised cut-and-run proposals. And didn't Bush's Status-of-Forces Agreement with the Maliki government in Baghdad already set the timetable for the withdrawal over the next three years? Obama's little skit here is simply fodder for the ill-informed.
Our new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that the US will be implementing an "intelligent" approach to the Middle East, and has big plans for the region. But obviously, Israel has already made the decision to deal with Hamas as they saw fit, rather than cast their lot with Team Obama. The Israelis have too much at stake to put any trust in Obama's pollyanna world-view, as they are facing aggressive enemies sworn to their destruction. US and Israeli policy is now headed in completely opposite directions, with the pugnacious nationalist Benjamin Netanyahu favored to win the February 10th election. Bibi will not be forced into nonsensical, dangerous deals with the Palestinians, nor acquiesce to an Iranian Bomb... regardless of what Barack thinks is an "intellectual" or "cool" foreign policy.
Team Obama's plans to place diplomats in Iran for the first time since 1979, and to hold "talks" is clearly not what the Israelis, who face an existential threat, are looking to hear. These same Iranians that are frantically developing a nuclear weapon to point at us and Israel are the ones who stirred-up maximum trouble in Iraq, sponsor, train, and arm the bloodthirsty terrorists of Hezbollah and Hamas, and boast publicly of plans to "wipe Israel off the map."
So the IDF will go-it-alone if they must, bombing Tehran's nuclear facilites into the ground. The Israelis took-out Saddam's Osirak reactor in 1983, while enduring the world's condemnation... so they are used to doing the right thing while being shunned by those lacking the same strategic and moral clarity. While it is good that tiny Israel can handle what Obama lacks the sense and courage to do, sadly America will end-up looking irrelevent and powerless as the result.
The Kremlin seems to think that there's opportunity for Russian gains in Obama's election... and is already challenging him with a flurry of threats and daunting pronouncements. Starting on the day he was elected, the Russians announced major weapon programs and new-generation ICBMs, then threatened to point nuclear missiles at Poland and the Czech Republic. Ex-KGB Kremlin thugs vs. our Yes-We-Can community activist, striving to make the world like us... yeah, that's how the Russians see it, too.
Obama has also expressed a desire to form a new relationship with Communist Cuba. This week had Fidel Castro stating publicly that he "trusts" Obama to be "truthful". But only a fool would trust the Machiavellian Castro, given his record of deceit and inflexible Communist dogma. Jimmy Carter reached-out to Castro in the 1970s, but later KGB archives revealed that Fidel was laughing behind his back to whole time, calling Carter a "useful idiot". And the popular, clever, and charming JFK was comprehensively outwitted by Castro in the Bay-of-Pigs debacle. This error by the young President opened the door for the USSR to install missiles 90 miles from US shores... bringing the world to the precipice of WWIII.
Regarding the Pentagon budget, Obama was, of course, vague on the campaign trail... but he has now signaled that cuts are on the way. Unsettlingly, Obama has attacked our greatest practical technology asset, missile defense- by stating that "unproven" systems will be cancelled. This comes at a time in history when missile shields seem like an idea who's time has come, given Al Qaida's quest for nuclear weapons, the instability of nuclear Pakistan, continued North Korean instragence, Russian beligerence, and of course an apocolyptic Iran.
Disturbingly, there is also a widespread suspicion in the US military that Obama's election has emboldened radical Islam. There is a fear of a new terror attack being put into action to test Obama, who generally faces a skeptical rank-in-file. The Military Times found in a recent poll that 68% of active and retired service personnel backed John McCain in the Presidential race... while only 28% supported Obama.
The last time war-weary Americans elected an inexperienced, liberal "peacemaker" with issues regarding our "morals" abroad was 1976, with the ill-fated Jimmy Carter... and other parallels between his and Barack Obama's policies/rhetoric are indeed alarming. While Carter somehow still feels his opinions are relevant, calling his Presidential legacy an "unmitigated disaster" would actually be mighty charitable.
In words that sound a lot like Obama's, Carter's national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that the tasks of foreign policy lay not with the "political" issues of war and peace, but with the "human issues" of poverty and development... and that America's "preoccupation" with "national supremacy" should yield to a more global perspective. And also like today, Carter sought a "more equitable" international order, and saw the world in terms of an emerging division between rich and poor.
Like Obama, Carter has in recent times made it clear he thinks that George W Bush's calling evil by it's name, and confronting it, was actually the cause of our problems. But apparently neither Carter, Obama, nor "foreign-policy expert" Joe Biden have learned a thing from the myriad foreign policy failures of the Carter Administration.
Upon his election in 1976, Carter enjoyed enormous Democratic legislative majorities, and a broken and demorilized GOP... much like the situation in Washington today. And Carter was determined to refurbish America's image abroad after Vietnam, but not through strength- like today's Democrats, Carter felt that America's "arrogance of power" was the primary source of international tension, and that the time was ripe for a new, more humble United States... to better fit a diminished, defeatist role in the world.
Underlying Carter's approach was an over-arching focus on human rights issues. He felt that we had betrayed our own democratic principles in Vietnam and elsewhere, and the time had come for "change". Governments that violated their own citizens' rights would therefore no longer receive support- but instead would become our opponents. Carter thought that this would encourage indigenous democratic movements at the expense of more radical ideologies.
But in reality, just the opposite happened. The withdrawal of support from petty dictators in Latin America and elsewhere instead meant significant losses of American interests to the USSR and Cuba, with damaging Marxist systems ruled by even worse dictatorships. These events already had a clear precedent that should have been heeded, in Cuba in 1959- but it happened again, repeatedly, to the misguided Carter. In Nicaragua, he cut-off aid to the corrupt and often-brutal Somoza regime, only to see it replaced by a Soviet/Cuban/East German proxy, the Communist Sandinistas. And Carter was quite anxious to see Samoza fall; he wanted to show the world America's new, honorable "post-Vietnam intent." Sadly, his myopic and ineffectual human rights focus instead cost millions their freedom. And worse, Nicaragua would go-on to become a key hub for the export of Castro's influence, including support for Communist insurgencies in El Salvador and Guatemala.
Regarding America's primary adversary at that time, the USSR- Carter actually scolded Americans that they harbored an "inordinate fear of Communism". He planned to reach-out to Moscow, reasoning that when they saw his sincerity, lack of 'imperial designs", and good-will, they eventually would learn to like us.
Carter cancelled B-1 Bomber production, the first move in a direction that allowed the Soviets to gain real military superiority, while hiding behind the SALT treaty. And after Brezhnev met with him and saw what he was dealing with, the Red Army promptly invaded Afghanistan —just six months after Carter had embraced and kissed the Soviet president, publicly praising his cooperativeness in the conduct of world affairs.
On his watch, the USSR went on an unrestrained rampage in which the Communists took over not only Afghanistan, but also Ethiopia, South Yemen, Angola, Cambodia (Pol Pot), Mozambique, Grenada, and Nicaragua. In spite of all this, Carter's last defense budget proposed spending 45% below pre-Vietnam levels for fighter-aircraft, -75% for ships, -83% for attack submarines, and -90% for helicopters. And the Russians had a field day... until they were finally confronted by Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Another high priority for Carter was giving-up control of the Panama Canal- to him, a symbol of the bad-old-days of American imperialism. The agreement, it was said, would bring a bright new future for Panama, and for Latin American relations in general. Unfortunately, nearly as soon as the Americans left, Panama descended into a cesspool of corruption and violence, and then became a center for the international drug trade. Ruthless Panamanian dictators spent Canal revenue to entrench their power, while brutally oppressing the population that Carter thought he was freeing from Yanqui imperialism. Eventually, under GHW Bush, America toppled the last and worst of them, Manuel Noriega- thus providing and ironic, and what should have been educational, ending to the Carter-era's non-interventionism. And today, the canal is freely utilized by Russian warships on the way to Venezuela... thanks to Jimmy Carter.
While focusing on the supposed "split" between developed and developing nations -as Barack Obama proposes as well- Carter turned the United States into an impotent spectator as a global shift of power unfolded... to the great advantage of the Soviet Union.
In perhaps Jimmy Carter's greatest blunder, he basically handed Iran to the Ayatollah Khomeini. After supporting the Shah early in his Presidency, Carter abruptly abandonded this staunch US ally over human rights issues alone. Carter was said to have thought that the Mullahs would be more "moral" leaders, since they were "men-of-religion"(!)
In the event, the revolution was resolutely anti-American in tone, the US embassy invaded by radical students, and the entire staff taken hostage. One of the leaders of this takeover was none other than Iran's current vengeful, holocaust-denying President Ahmedinijad. Through it all, Carter rufused to consider any stronger military action against the Iranian hostage-takers; he even expressed disgust when Ronald Reagan called them "barbarians" and "criminals" in the 1980 campaign.
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Thirty years later, Iran stands on the verge of attaining a nuclear weapon... but also of being bombed by Israel before they can aim the missile at Tel Aviv. Inexplicably, Obama still plans to hold "talks without preconditions" and send dipolomats to Tehran as they continue to flaunt their weapons programs in our face. This valuable time wasted while talking in circles with Tehran would provide them just the weeks they need to get their first bomb screwed-together. Obama last month stated that he plans to extend the American "nuclear umbrella" to Israel... a defensive, deterrent strategy that sounds like willingness to meekly accept a nuclear Iran.
Jimmy Carter had also made it a priority to clean-up what he saw as dirty business at the CIA, and bring a new openess to the agency... as Obama has appointed the Leon Panetta to do today. The priority is, once again, anything but an aggressive and effective focus on defending the United States and her interests.
Except for sheer arrogance, why exactly does Barack Obama think that he can lead the US to a secure, yet respected and admired place in the world? His proposals are largely based on the failed ideas of the past- like a pacifist foreign-policy steeped in appeasement, coupled to a new "modesty" abroad, none of which has any precedent of success in this, or any other, country.
Such false hope for an "intelligent" approach purported to be "new", while disregarding history's lessons and almost identical past policy mistakes, guarantees us nothing but failure... and decreased security for Americans. Any other expectations are purely wishful thinking.