What the Saddleback Church Forum really showed us…

John McCain and Barack Obama have different worldviews, wow, that is a cloudburst of new information. Huh? Am I the only one who is not surprised by this “revelation”? As a political scientist, and a seminarian, I understand and appreciate the differences between these two men. However, there is a question that was asked by Rick Warren that is an important one for the direction of America’s foreign policy for the next four years, the question of what to do about evil in the world.

When the question was asked to Barack Obama? Obama choose to answer the question by dealing with the fact that evil does exist but cautioned that the cure may be as bad (or worse) than the problem. Fiscal conservatives point to the fact that liberal social programs such as welfare cause more problems than they solve. Any student of American foreign policy in the Middle East since the 1950s can show that our current problems with Iran, Iraq and Al Qaeda comes directly from our containment policy of the former Soviet Union (including our support of the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, and the mujahideen in Afghanistan).

John McCain answered the question as an U.S. vs. them proposition. Evil is defined as the enemy of freedom and, of course, the enemy of the United States. To speak in such glowing terms of God and country when you happen to be at a forum in a church and discussing the reality of good and evil; it is often best to put a human face to complicated concepts that are easily digested by the media, the people in the audience and the folks watching at home.

The point of this column is the following: how do we define the scope of our national interest over the next four years? The purview of government is not to define good and evil – Thank God – but the role of government is how and where to use our strategic resources to ensure the safety of American citizens. We accomplish this goal by utilizing different tools when dealing with other countries. One view would have us defeating evil as the government sees fit; the other view would have us confronting evil while not forgetting that unforeseen consequences sometimes occur because of good intentions that are applied unilaterally.

The voters do have a serious choice to make in November. Continue a policy of U.S. vs. them or pursue a policy similar to Ronald Reagan and his confrontation with the Soviet Union. Reagan did not back down from the “Evil Empire” but he did negotiate with Mikhail Gorbachev…and that worked out quite well.