A Coming Crisis? Probably
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There seems to be an emerging consensus that Biden said something that was both obviously true and supposedly very politically damaging when he warned/predicted/promised that there would be a serious international testing of Obama once he becomes President. Via Ben Smith, Biden said:
It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”
“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”
At first glance, this seems wholly unremarkable, as there are several places around the world where such a crisis might occur (e.g., Pakistan, Iraq, etc.), and several others where an opportunistic foreign government or terrorist group might think it has a window of opportunity to take advantage of the transfer of power (e.g., North Korea, FARC in Colombia, etc.). New administrations in the recent past have had to face serious crises within the first six to twelve months of taking office. Within three months of becoming President, Mr. Bush had been faced with a serious international incident with the Chinese, and by the end of the year the administration was responding to the 9/11 attacks and organizing the military and diplomatic response. Obviously, the massive security failures that made the 9/11 attacks possible do not inspire confidence in government competence generally, but it is unremarkable to say that there will be a crisis or even a “generated crisis.” What is a “generated crisis” after all if not another regime or group trying to take advantage of what it sees as an opportunity to gain one of its objectives?
So why is this supposed to be something Biden shouldn’t say? From what I have seen, Biden’s remarks are supposed to be damaging because they focus the public’s mind on national security, which is still officially McCain’s preferred ground, and because this is supposed to sow doubts in the minds of voters about whether Obama is, in fact, a safe choice and someone capable of handling such a crisis. This is an odd thing to worry about, since his relatively more measured, sane responses to both the war in Georgia and the financial crisis and his successful handling of foreign policy questions in the debates seem to have removed the doubts from most persuadable voters, while McCain’s bellicose response to Russian actions and his ridiculous flailing in September made clear to most people why they don’t want McCain leading the response in any crisis, generated or not. So Biden’s gaffe seems “epic” to those who thought that the “surge” was a winning issue for McCain, but not to anyone else.
Another way of interpreting the remarks is to imagine what might have happened if they had been uttered in a parallel universe. Here’s Ambinder:
If the economy weren’t collapsing, if Barack Obama’s national security credentials were still suspect, if the conflict in Russia and South Osettia had yet to be resolved, then one can envision a scenario where Biden’s comments would be given a gloss a la Gerald Ford’s freeing Eastern Europe.
So…in a world where everything is different from the real world, Biden’s comments might have caused the Obama campaign a lot of grief. Possibly. But why should it matter in electoral terms in this world?
What is remarkable about what Biden was saying as he addressed a crowd of Seattle Obama fans is that he was telling a progressive crowd bluntly that a President Obama is probably going to use military force in the early months in response to a crisis or foreign conflict. Biden was telling them that it is going to seem completely unnecessary and contrary to everything Obama voters think they are getting when they elect him. What could he have meant when he says that the administration is going to need the help of these Seattle progressives (and others like them) “in the community”? My guess is that he was saying that all of the antiwar progressives who have flocked to Obama are going to be deeply disillusioned by Obama’s response to said crisis and there is a danger that the administration will become politically isolated as Obama’s core supporters lose confidence in him at a supposedly critical juncture.
Ambinder’s comparison with Ford’s blunder is worth considering a little bit more. The trouble with Ford’s statement about Soviet control of eastern Europe was that it a) was wrong and b) seemed to confirm the worst interpretations of the administration’s actions at the Helsinki Conference. It wasn’t just that Ford slipped up and said the wrong thing, but he vigorously defended his claim in his answer to the follow-up question, as if he believed seriously that the Soviets did not dominate their satellites in Europe. Of course, Ford was attempting to defend the Accords’ language about state sovereignty and territorial integrity and make it seem as if detente did not essentially cede to the Soviets their control over their sphere of influence, when that was, of course, the de facto state of affairs. The purpose of detente policy was to reduce U.S.-Soviet tensions, which the Helsinki Accords did help in doing, but the trouble that Ford had here was that he was defending quite vehemently a polite diplomatic fiction that everyone knew to be largely meaningless in reality. Indeed, Ford’s blunder is almost the exact opposite of what Biden has said–Ford blundered politically by maintaining a (necessary?) diplomatic fiction, while Biden rather undiplomatically stated the obvious reality.
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
I think people are making way too much hay of this. Every administration will be tested because we live in a dangerous world. Bush was tested with 9/11 and look how that turned out. What he’s saying is that stuff is going to happen and they are going to need people’s support, to involve people in the process, and to pre-emptively strike at disillusionment when the eventual test comes.
he was telling a progressive crowd bluntly that a President Obama is probably going to use military force in the early months in response to a crisis or foreign conflict.
This is pure speculation. There’s no evidence in the text of his remarks to suggest that at all. Moreover, given the fact that media elites in this country and Obama’s political opposition strongly favor military intervention and saber rattling as the preferred response for all foreign policy disputes, it seems likely that Obama would need their support because he failed to use or threaten to use force. Since we’re talking about the first few months of Obama’s term, we know there will not be forces to spare for military adventurism since most will still be deployed in Iraq. Capabilities matter.
What could he have meant when he says that the administration is going to need the help of these Seattle progressives (and others like them) “in the community�
He might have referred to blocking an Israeli attack on suspected Iranian nuclear sites. Israel may figure that it can push around a new President and that it can get him to support their mission rather since doing nothing would look weak. But with US troops still trapped in Iraq and incredibly vulnerable to Iranian aggression, we literally cannot tolerate such an attack. So Obama might try to stop it even though he ordinarily leans toward Israel.
I’m pretty sure you were smart enough to have thought of this or other scenarios with a moment of thought.
My guess is that he was saying that all of the antiwar progressives who have flocked to Obama are going to be deeply disillusioned by Obama’s response to said crisis and there is a danger that the administration will become politically isolated as Obama’s core supporters lose confidence in him at a supposedly critical juncture.
I might buy that if I didn’t think that the response to most anti-war progressives (exluding the hard core Code Pink/Moveon.org folks) to possible beligerence by a President Obama wouldn’t mirror the response of small government conservatives to GWB’s growth of the unitary executive and well nigh Orwellian surveilance state; they will suck it up and deal, or quiet their objections in the name of party unity, or convince themselves that “everything has changed.” If they are “deeply disillusioned”, they will do a fair job of hiding it. Most Democrats backed Clinton in Kosovo, and Obama himself backed the Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006 and belatedly came around to McCain’s position on Georgia a few months ago. There is an enormous amount of hubris in the Obama campaign, who evidently think they can solve health care, restore economic justice, lower the budget defecit, reverse the tide of global warming, etc. I see no reason why self-styled “change” candidate is going to stop trying to change things when he gets to the waters edge.
I might buy that if I didn’t think that the response to most anti-war progressives (exluding the hard core Code Pink/Moveon.org folks) to possible beligerence by a President Obama wouldn’t mirror the response of small government conservatives to GWB’s growth of the unitary executive and well nigh Orwellian surveilance state; they will suck it up and deal, or quiet their objections in the name of party unity, or convince themselves that “everything has changed.â€
Like they sucked up their objections when Obama voted for the FISA compromise? From where I sit, there was a lot of complaining about that decision. People remain committed to voting for him, but that’s because they think McCain would be much worse. I haven’t seen anyone change their minds on FISA because of Obama’s vote or even really shut up for party unity.
In any event, what specific military action do you think Obama is going to take in the first six months of his Presidency?
Most Democrats backed Clinton in Kosovo, and Obama himself backed the Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006 and belatedly came around to McCain’s position on Georgia a few months ago.
Most Democrats didn’t really care about Kosovo. Obama himself said the things that every politician is required to say about Israel in a situation where those statements had no effect. Really now, Bush wasn’t going to listen to Congress’ opinions on the subject: the Bush policy regarding Israel and negotiations was already set in stone long before Obama opened his mouth. Finally, I don’t think Obama and McCain’s positions on Georgia are that similar. Obama suggested that Georgia should go through the normal membership process, but that is equivalent to saying that Georgia should never join NATO: the membership process requires that countries have no significant disputes with their neighbors.
There is an enormous amount of hubris in the Obama campaign
More so than in any other Presidential campaign?
“This is pure speculation.”
Naturally. This is blogging–speculation is half of what we do.
Progressives might fall in line. That is, they might heed Biden’s call to fall in line, which is what I still think this means. They could become absolutely unscrupulous apologists for whatever the administration does. Most Democrats backed Clinton on Kosovo, but that was because they also bought into the “stopping genocide” propaganda the administration was pushing. Were it a larger-scale, more dangerous conflict I think you would see much more opposition from the left.
If Israel were going to attack Iran, Obama would not stop them, so the scenario you describe doesn’t seem very likely.
Were it a larger-scale, more dangerous conflict I think you would see much more opposition from the left.
OK, what specific large scale attacks do you think Obama might make in the first few months of his Presidency?
If Israel were going to attack Iran, Obama would not stop them, so the scenario you describe doesn’t seem very likely.
Obama can’t afford thousands of casualties as locals in southern Iraq affiliated with Iran decide to destroy American supply lines. The US presence in Iraq is heavily dependent on trucking supplies in from Kuwait. Pinching those supply lines a bit could very quickly reshape the conflict. Israeli aircraft have to fly over Iraq and thus need American approval for any attack on Iran: the Iraqi population will see any attack on Iran as explicitly supported by the US.
“OK, what specific large scale attacks do you think Obama might make in the first few months of his Presidency?”
If we’re still talking about Biden’s remarks about a future crisis, what I have in mind is that Obama responds to what he considers a provocation–maybe by elements of the Pakistani military, maybe by Iran, who knows?–and gets into a major conflict. I’m not saying that he will start the conflict, but that he will respond by using force on a scale that a lot of his supporters will find surprising and disheartening.
If Obama thinks that an Iranian nuke is absolutely unacceptable, which is what he has said repeatedly, the only reason he would stop an Israeli strike is if he assumed that it would not be successful. In principle he has committed himself to taking military action against Iran if they persist in pursuing a bomb. Perhaps he would stop Israel from acting and then launch strikes on Iran with our forces. The obviously awful consequences of doing this have not stopped him from making these promises to do “everything in my power” to keep Iran from getting a nuke, and I assume that he was not merely pandering when he said this.
elements of the Pakistani military, maybe by Iran
The Pakistani military? You mean the group to whom we pay $10 billion every year? I think for that kind of cash, the Pakistani military can police itself well enough. As for Iran, well, Iran has in the past offered to cut a deal that involved killing the nuclear program and other sweeteners in exchange for normal relations. They made this offer to the Bush administration. Iran has not acted in particularly hasty ways of late. I don’t see any basis for assuming that they’re going to immediately provoke a crisis without first trying to cut a deal, since Obama has already made clear that he’s far more open to talking and deal cutting than Bush ever was.
If Obama thinks that an Iranian nuke is absolutely unacceptable, which is what he has said repeatedly, the only reason he would stop an Israeli strike is if he assumed that it would not be successful.
But there is strong reason to believe that such an attack won’t be successful! Centrifuge work can be widely distributed and Iran is capable of protecting more centralized components in sufficiently deep bunkers that Israeli air strikes would not be able to damage them. Furthermore, an Israeli attack would make Iran less willing in the future to negotiate their weapons program away.
The obviously awful consequences of doing this have not stopped him from making these promises to do “everything in my power†to keep Iran from getting a nuke, and I assume that he was not merely pandering when he said this.
You seem to assume that he is often pandering though. Moreover, if Obama believes Iran’s nuclear program can be easily negotiated away, there would be no need for any attack and thus promises to do everything in his power would be pretty irrelevant.
From where I sit, there was a lot of complaining about that decision. People remain committed to voting for him, but that’s because they think McCain would be much worse.
Is that really your take on your average Obama supporter? From where I sit, in his supporter’s eyes he can do no wrong; I haven’t seen enthusiasm for a candidate since Reagan in ‘84. I don’t get the “well, at least he’s not as awful as McCain” vibe from supporters (who donated $150 mil last month BTW) who show up in the tens and hundreds of thousands to see the man speak. I got that vibe from Kerry backers in 2004 & Gore backers in 2000. This is much, much different. And you’re right, there “was” a lot of complaining about that: emphasis on the past tense.
Most Democrats didn’t really care about Kosovo.
Thank you for making my point. Most Democrats backed a reckless foreign policy venture undertaken by a Democratic President, and a large number of Republican’s opposed it. Skip back to Gulf War I, or forward to Iraq, and you’ll see the same phenomenon. Sheer partisan reflex, nothing more.
More so than in any other Presidential campaign?
By orders of magnitude, yes.
Obama himself said the things that every politician is required to say about Israel in a situation where those statements had no effect.
So he is flat out lying through his teeth? Good to know. Should I similarly discount everything else he says? Wait, I’m already doing that…
Obama can’t afford thousands of casualties as locals in southern Iraq affiliated with Iran decide to destroy American supply lines. The US presence in Iraq is heavily dependent on trucking supplies in from Kuwait. Pinching those supply lines a bit could very quickly reshape the conflict.
Very similar conditions will apply during a withdrawal, especially one on an agressive a timeline as the 16th months that Obama has proposed. Should I assume that it will take longer than 16 months, or should I assume that it won’t happen at all?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/27/dems.debate.ap/
Is this another one of those things that politicians just have to lie about, like backing ethanol subsidies if they want to win Iowa? Help me out man, I’m losing track…
“I think for that kind of cash, the Pakistani military can police itself well enough.”
So elements of the ISI helping to bomb the Indian embassy in Kabul and providing support for the Taliban are figments of my imagination. That’s reassuring.
Is that really your take on your average Obama supporter? From where I sit, in his supporter’s eyes he can do no wrong
That has not been my experience at all. Look, at the end of the day, Obama is a politician, and everyone knows that no matter what, politicians eventually disappoint. The fact that a lot of Clinton/McCain’s attacks on Obama have been really stupid does not mean that his supporters believe he can do no wrong: it just means they find the stupid attacks to be, well, stupid.
I haven’t seen enthusiasm for a candidate since Reagan in ‘84. I don’t get the “well, at least he’s not as awful as McCain†vibe from supporters (who donated $150 mil last month BTW) who show up in the tens and hundreds of thousands to see the man speak.
Of course they show up to hear him speak: he is a very good speaker. Isn’t that something that everyone agrees with? After eight years of Bush, can you blame Americans for showing some interest in a politician who can actually speak better than the average middle school student? As for the donations, I don’t see why that is surprising: McCain scares a lot of Obama supporters. Even if you think Obama is wrong on some issues, if you think McCain is extremely dangerous, you’re going to pay up. If you want to see some Obama supporters doing the “well, at least he’s better than McCain” dance, check out this post on Obsidian Wings, a blog where the posters and commenters have been strongly supporting Obama for quite some time. Note especially the comments on that post.
And you’re right, there “was†a lot of complaining about that: emphasis on the past tense.
Um, what purpose would there be to continuing to complain? The vote has been taken. There are no relevant votes scheduled anytime soon. Obama can be lobbied after the election and he won’t be interested in looking at that issue now anyway. It seems that people are acting rationally, so what’s your point?
Thank you for making my point. Most Democrats backed a reckless foreign policy venture undertaken by a Democratic President, and a large number of Republican’s opposed it. Skip back to Gulf War I, or forward to Iraq, and you’ll see the same phenomenon. Sheer partisan reflex, nothing more.
The public tends to go along with wars when the government decides to fight them. Even among Democrats, there was a lot of support for the Iraq War. America is a militaristic society and Americans like the idea of solving problems using military force. They like it until they see body bags are large bills. The Kosovo conflict involved no ground troops, no casualties, relatively small bills, and was wrapped up in a matter of months.
By orders of magnitude, yes.
OK, please provide a cite for this. I want to know how you quantify campaign hubris and specifically how you compare Obama’s campaign to the McCain, Kerry, and Bush campaigns.
Very similar conditions will apply during a withdrawal, especially one on an agressive a timeline as the 16th months that Obama has proposed. Should I assume that it will take longer than 16 months, or should I assume that it won’t happen at all?
I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re asking here. A fast withdrawal is not similar at all in that we would not have enraged the entire populace of Iraq by acquiescing in the Israeli bombardment of Iran. There’s a difference between having a hornet’s nest in your backyard and going into the backyard and smashing your fist into the hornet’s nest.
So elements of the ISI helping to bomb the Indian embassy in Kabul and providing support for the Taliban are figments of my imagination. That’s reassuring.
I thought we were talking about elements of the Pakistani military provoking Obama to launch large scale military strikes. If you can explain how large scale military strikes might address either of those issues, then they might become relevant.
So why is this supposed to be something Biden shouldn’t say? From what I have seen, Biden’s remarks are supposed to be damaging because they focus the public’s mind on national security, which is still officially McCain’s preferred ground, and because this is supposed to sow doubts in the minds of voters about whether Obama is, in fact, a safe choice and someone capable of handling such a crisis. This is an odd thing to worry about, since his relatively more measured, sane responses to both the war in Georgia and the financial crisis and his successful handling of foreign policy questions in the debates seem to have removed the doubts from most persuadable voters, while McCain’s bellicose response to Russian actions and his ridiculous flailing in September made clear to most people why they don’t want McCain leading the response in any crisis, generated or not. So Biden’s gaffe seems “epic†to those who thought that the “surge†was a winning issue for McCain, but not to anyone else.
I agree that it’s not such a big deal. And I don’t think it would have been a big deal in a parallel universe, either. But taken on its own terms it was a stupid thing for Biden to say. If he wants to draw attention to Obama’s reputation as a cool customer, and contrast that crisis-management style to McCain’s Dr. Strangelove routine, that’s fine. But why deliberately frame the issue in a way that highlights Obama’s youth and inexperience, and prompts voters to wonder, “Gee, why does Obama’s own running mate think that electing Obama is an invitation to an international crisis?”
Just because it’s irrelevant doesn’t mean it’s not a gaffe. It can still be dissected just for fun. This is the political equivalent of throwing an interception when you’re up 35-10 with 30 seconds to play. Still–just to keep up appearances Biden should try, in the next couple weeks, not to repeat his argument that we’ll have a big crisis to look forward to in the opening months of an Obama Administration.
And he should definitely, DEFINITELY, not wind things up by saying, pretty much in so many words, “There will be a big crisis, and you’ll think we’re responding to it the wrong way, but that’s when it’s most important for you to offer us your blind support.” What a wonderful sentiment to offer in the wake of the various government-induced catastrophes of the past few years.
The ISI is part of the Pakistani military and elements within the ISI engage in hostile acts against U.S. forces and our allies. That doesn’t seem provocative? If elements of the ISI were implicated in direct attacks on NATO forces, do you think Obama would not respond with cross-border strikes? That’s the scenario I’m envisioning when I suggested these elements might provoke a major response.
The ISI is part of the Pakistani military
Are you saying the ISI is part of the Pakistani military in the same way that the CIA is part of the Department of Defense?
If elements of the ISI were implicated in direct attacks on NATO forces, do you think Obama would not respond with cross-border strikes?
It depends: how big are these attacks? Would retaliation actually be effective? Is retaliation even feasible? For the type of attacks that I can see the ISI directly getting involved in, I don’t think Obama would respond militarily. Obama has talked about sending American soldiers into Pakistan in order to get the top leaders of AQ, but I don’t think going there to get some mid level ISI operatives who provided some Taliban commander with weapons or intel is really comparable. And I don’t see the ISI directly launching attacks as both likely and significant: one or two ISI fighters are irrelevant and large numbers of ISI fighters seem implausible.
Look, I can certainly come up with some crazy scheme under which the ISI provokes Obama into doing something stupid (maybe the use alien technology!), but so far you haven’t painted a very realistic scenario. And my point was that there are many possible scenarios to which Biden might have been referring, and many of those scenarios involve Obama NOT using military force. You originally claimed that there were NO plausible scenarios under which Obama would fail to use military force.
You still haven’t addressed my original point that both the media and Obama’s political opposition are strongly biased to military solutions which suggests that any foreign policy crisis in which Obama needs domestic political support is more likely than not to involve failing to fight.
If Obama thinks that an Iranian nuke is absolutely unacceptable, which is what he has said repeatedly, the only reason he would stop an Israeli strike is if he assumed that it would not be successful. In principle he has committed himself to taking military action against Iran if they persist in pursuing a bomb.
Perhaps I’m simply misunderstanding your point, but Obama has also committed himself to engaging the Iranians diplomatically. Now I know we haven’t seem legitimate diplomacy much, if it all, in the last eight years, but if we were to engage with Iran without setting a bunch of preconditions (which if met would abbrogate the need to talk anyway), you’re predictive scenario is predicated on not only these talks failing but that they would somehow be, at heart, illegitimate or specious. Obama has said he’s committed to keeping the Iranians from getting a nuke, but he hasn’t committed himself, in any way that I’m aware of, to the same kind of shoot-first-think-later foreign policy we’ve been “enjoying” under Bush.
Normally I find your critiques of Obama (even when I don’t agree with them) to be quite trenchant; this one however seems to fall flat.