Obama on the Balance Beam: Or, Picking One's Battles

Our partner site, Libertas, has published a detailed analysis by Charles Gannon of St. Bonaventure University on an Obama foreign policy. Offering a response to Scott Lucas's post "And On the Eighth Day....", Professor Gannon concludes:

It seems to me that Obama may be doing more than just trying to reverse the ills and injuries inflicted over the past eight years: he's trying to change the recipe for how best to blend a milder, more palatable America into the global stock pot of a still-simmering world.

I sure hope he's a good cook.

Read the full article on Libertas....

Comments

[Dave]

It also remains to be seen if Obama can actually rally friends and allies into the American orbit the way Bush did. Elections in Italy, Albania, France, Germany, South Korea, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, Lebanon, Canada, Australia produced leadership that rallied around Bush. His successes in Africa are probably his greatest legacy. Insecticide-treated bet nets and medical care helped milllions. Careful diplomatic maneuvering that restrained Pakistan and India was another great achievement. Also, the formation of a strategic relationship with India, a rising world power. His fight against the global drugs trade which involved co-operation with scores of other countries. And on North Korea: Hillary Clinton seems appears to be carrying over Bush's policy of containment. And Joe Biden was wrong when he predicted that Iraq would not be able to hold elections in 2005. He was dead wrong and those elections were better attended than US elections.

We'll have to wait and see if Obama can match Bush's diplomatic skill and achievements.

[Dave]

"Obama has been compared to Kennedy, to FDR--and why? It goes well beyond his being a Democrat, even beyond his possession of a palpably felt worldview: these former presidents, as our new one, were true statesmen. Their understanding of world, and domestic, conditions transcended the basic, bloodless calculations of real-politik; they implicitly understood that human dynamics are too powerful to ignore and too quicksilver to simply enter in as another factor in the ponderous equations of The Best Possible Solution."
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But their policies were NOT policies of appeasement. Syria and Iran will be Obama's next test and I'm not optimistic.

Do you think Obama will stand up for Geert Wilders and his fight for freedom and democracy? ---- "Ik ben Nederlands!" ---- It's highly unlikely.

[Dave]

"Ik ben een Nederlander!" -- I am a Dutchman!