An overseas trip like this for a candidate like Obama, who is in love with the idea of of America (and with, I’ll venture, the country itself), in love with history, in love with language–well, on a trip like this, you’re gonna end up with speeches like the one Obama gave.

Although it appears to have annoyed most commenting here, to me, it was just another inspiring speech about walls that have to be breached or brought down (he was in Berlin), alliances (again, of course), and the power of good to overcome evil.

What’s not to like?

And Josiwe gets it right upthread, I think, about a core American value that Obama sought to represent abroad: RIghtly or wrongly, we crave recognition as not only exceptional but also as good and likable and reliable and strong. All those things together. We want to inspire the world, not fill it with something approaching misgiving or dread.

That was the appeal the United States held for Obama’s father, in 1960. It’s the appeal that most Americans, I believe, want their country to have today. Obama’s speech was not really more complicated than that. I do think he wants to inspire. And the source of his inspiration is his thinking that a well-functioning, well-meaning government staffed with the same will succeed where the cynical and the incompetent have failed us and the world for the past 8 years.

Yes, that is what I assumed from some of your earlier posts, I just wanted to make sure I understood the nature of the criticism.

For what it’s worth, Obama seems to be running as the guy who can administer the American empire more efficiently, and that’s how I took his speech. There’s nothing that should alarm a population which has happily elected interventionists for the past 16 years.

Thanks for the response on the IHR issue, I appreciate your time.

I think states that repeatedly violate human dignity should sometimes come under at least some sanctions from governments and they should expect boycotts by individuals and private institutions. On the whole, our government should be very wary of establishing high-level and close cooperative relationships with states that egregiously abuse their peoples, and in the past I called for the U.S. to sever our ties to Uzbekistan after the Andijan massacre. Divestment strikes me as a useless tool to influence another state’s policy. Besides causing the regime to become more stubborn in its refusals to change policy, it simply opens the door to investment by other interests that have no qualms about these abuses. In most cases, I recommend subverting such regimes with greater engagement, exchange and investment, which generally tend to weaken the regime’s control over its population and limit its ability to engage in repressive and brutal tactics. However, I am extremely skeptical of, if not downright hostile to, the presumption that these abuses compromise fundamental guarantees of state sovereignty, and I reject any doctrine that justifies military action–whether under U.N., NATO or unilateral auspices–to police the internal affairs of other states.

This blog post hits on an important question in foreign affairs, though, and one which I haven’t seen Mr. Larison address (at least, not in the past 6-8 months) – what is your view on International Human Rights norms? And what would be your ideal response to dealing with states which repeatedly violate these norms?

Assuming his handlers in the campaign are aware of the negative consequences.

You misunderstand the fundamental nature of the American. Above all else, the quintessential American wants to be loved. To be adored, really, but liked is the pragmatic goal. There is a difference between both the cost and psychic repercussions of the Iraq war and foreign adventures in humanitarianism which change the cost-benefit equation dramatically. If the Iraqis really had welcomed us with flowers, if democracy and western ideals had spread like wildfire, had the world showered us with praise and admiration, George Bush would be the most popular president in modern history, even if nothing else (economy, katrina response, etc) changed.

If Barack makes the world wave tiny American flags instead of burn them, he will be loved at home as well as abroad.

Private charity is one thing. Foreign aid is another. Foreign aid, despite its relatively small portion of the overall budget, is never very popular, because it is correctly deemed ineffective, inefficient and a cause of corruption. It is also subject to the political-cultural agenda of the administration in question, which is not how many people want to have their money spent.

Two questions present themselves when a candidate says things like this: how is any of this going to be done, and who will pay for it? With respect to Burma and Zimbabwe, some sort of forcible intervention is clearly one of the likely options for “doing something” about the state of affairs in these countries. With Darfur, the military option is even more prominent in the list of “solutions.” This is what bothers me about Obama: he insists that all of these things are serious problems and all of them are *our* problems, which implies that our government is responsible for fixing them. If he wills certain ends, he will end up willing the means to reach them if he is not just engaged in bluster, and in many cases military intervention will appear to a liberal internationalist to be the best or only option.

It is just a few steps from this speech to saying that “Mugabe has left us no choice but to attack,” because Obama will have locked himself into a position that demands some kind of intervention. That’s what is wrong with hyping foreign crises as great moral issues. Having framed the issue this way, to stand by and do nothing is supposedly to be a moral failure, when it may be very wise and sensible to stay out of the crisis.

Americans don’t have an issue intervening abroad. The past 30 years provide ample evidence enough of that. The donations that poured in the Southeast Asian Tsunami victims was amazing. A lot of missionaries are given massive private support for their programs overseas. Americans have an issue their children being shot in stupid wars.

We’re in a sad state when we are reduced to forlornly hoping that the probably next POTUS just lied through his teeth to a worldwide television audience.

If all human suffering potentially justifies internationalist activity and (next step) intervention, disaster could ensue.

However misguided, the Iraq war was justified on the basis of natonal strategic interest as well as sympathy for the oppressed Iraqi people. If we are citizens of the world and our policy it to rescue all the world’s fallen, we will promptly exhaust our treasury and our military in Burma, Bangladesh, Darfur, Zimbabwe, and God knows where else.

Let’s hope it’s just rhetoric.