Obama’s Great Game
Posted on April 28th, 2008 by Daniel Larison
On the main blog, Freddy points out a piece of Obama foreign policy madness that had escaped my notice:
Saakashvili points out that Barack Obama was one of two co-sponsors of a recent Senate resolution in favour of Georgia joining Nato.
Can we agree now that this makes Obama just as reckless and dangerous in his foreign policy views as his rivals?
Filed under: politics, foreign policy
No.
Even if we take it as an unnecessary provocation of Russia, Georgia’s membership in an international organization is not as bad as invading Iraq and threatening Iran.
One diplomatic action that may increase tensions is not as bad as launching poorly planned, counterproductive wars.
So an action that potentially puts us in a position to go to Defcon 1 for the sake of Georgian sovereignty strikes you as more responsible? Well, to each his own, I suppose, but we must have very different ideas of what reckless means.
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Daniel, agreed. Indeed, Obama may well prove much more reckless than the other candidates in world affairs.
Yet I still think the point stands that, on recent form, Hillary Clinton ’s language has been more aggressive and explicitly interventionist than Obama. Obviously, this is not a very convincing argument. What on earth is “form” anyway? But, given the bleak foreign policy outlook, it is worth searching for crumbs of comfort. And while on the Balkan front, all three candidates seem set on pursuing a hazardous, confrontational approach with Russia, I haven’t heard Obama threatening to “obliterate” or “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb” Iran - which does offer a shred of refreshingly unaudacious hope.
Daniel,
Mr. Obama’s view is reckless in the sense that liberalism fundamentally is reckless, in the literal sense of the verb “to reck.” This however is a criticism of liberalism rather than of Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain is temperamentally reckless, which Mr. Obama most evidently is not.
A conservative traditionalist, I am more and more persuaded of the importance of denying the power of presidency to Mr. McCain. In a two-party system, I do not believe it possible (or even desirable) to keep the liberal party out of the White House indefinitely. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are objectionable in themselves, but not compared to other Democrats, for Mr. Obama is more truthful than any Democratic nominee since Carter and Mrs. Clinton is more conservative than any Democratic nominee since Kennedy. The most effective way to stop Mr. McCain will be to vote Democratic in 2008. This is what I tend to recommend.
There is no safe path forward, Daniel, only a choice of dangers. Elvis is right in my view. Mr. McCain presents the greater danger. Remember: if Mr. McCain is elected, there is little reason to believe that he will curtail legal immigration or that he will not be followed by a Democrat less truthful than Mr. Obama and less conservative than Mrs. Clinton. This is not a good path for America to follow.
I have voted for presidential electors in 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004. The year 2008 will be the first and hopefully the last in which I vote Democratic. All things considered, for the good of the country, you and your readers should consider voting Democratic, too. In the long run, you’ll be glad that you did.
Howard