Last week in this post I noted that the incoming Obama administration was in some ways a reinvention of the Bush 41 administration due to President Elect Barack Obama’s close ties and selection of some people linked to the administration of the first Bush administration, which pursued a tough but realistic foreign policy.
The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne Jr. addresses that issue in his column today:
In electing Barack Obama, the country traded the foreign policy of the second President Bush for the foreign policy of the first President Bush.
That is the meaning of Obama’s apparent decision to keep Robert Gates on as defense secretary and also to select Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
With strong ties to the military and a carefully cultivated image of tough-mindedness, Clinton will protect the incoming president’s back from those on the right ready to pounce at any sign of what they see as weakness.
As for Gates, Obama has found the ideal figure to help him organize his planned withdrawal from Iraq, and to bless it.
What’s most striking about Obama’s approach to foreign policy is that he is less an idealist than a realist who would advance American interests by diplomacy, by working to improve the country’s image abroad, and by using military force prudently and cautiously.
This sounds a lot like the foreign policy of George H.W. Bush, and it makes perfect sense that Obama has had conversations with the senior Bush’s closest foreign policy adviser, Brent Scowcroft. Obama has drawn counsel from many in Scowcroft’s circle, and Gates himself was deputy national security adviser under Scowcroft.
Dionne points out that Obama’s foreign policy approach — far more similar to “realists” in both parties than to the Democratic party’s staunchest progressives — was evident even in the then-Illinois Senator’s opposition to the Iraq invasion:
The thrust of his argument against the Iraq invasion was a classic realist’s critique of a war he denounced as “ideological.” It would, he said, “require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” It also would “fan the flames of the Middle East” and “strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.”
In fact, Obama sounded a great deal like — Brent Scowcroft. In a widely noted 2002 op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, published six weeks before Obama gave his speech, Scowcroft warned that an invasion of Iraq “very likely would have to be followed by a large-scale, long-term military occupation.” Going to Iraq, Scowcroft said, would “divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism,” and it could “destabilize Arab regimes in the region,” “stifle any cooperation on terrorism” and “even swell the ranks of the terrorists.” Clinton, who once said that “we have to be both internationalists and realists,” is a natural fit with the new Obama-Scowcroft-Gates establishment. In explaining the appeal of Clinton, a senior Obama adviser recently spoke several times of the president-elect’s respect for her “toughness” and described the practical reasons for choosing a figure who would have instant credibility around the world.
He notes that Obama has been relying on some foreign policy people associated with Clinton, as well:
Obama’s national security choices are already causing grumbling from parts of the antiwar left, even if Obama made clear six years ago that while he was with them on Iraq, he was not one of them.
Ironically, Obama is likely to show more fidelity to George H.W. Bush’s approach to foreign affairs than did the former president’s own son. That’s change, maybe even change we can believe in, but it’s not the change so many expected.
But a foreign policy closer to the days of Bush 41 would not be politically scandalous or controversial for most Americans. Bush 41 was known for foreign policy building, diplomacy and trying to formulate and implement foreign policy with an eye on world consensus. It wasn’t the go it alone if necessary approach where talk of the importance of diplomacy mean you’d be classified as a wimp.
Bush 43’s administration was marked by an approach and attitude towards foreign policy that ran counter to how it was conducted for years by presidential administrations of both parties.
There will be some Americans who rejected that approach but most likely a return to foreign policy involving the weighing all options, consensus and coalition building, and the importance of option analysis versus ideology will likely be a relief to many here and abroad — and be a change that many will welcome.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.