It has been rather quiet, or perhaps I simply haven't paid much attention to the noise from the genuine Left and pacifists who are quickly realizing that they've been geopolitically bamboozled by the charms of Obama. Either way, so what? America's gotta do what America's gotta do.
For some time now, I have been keeping the spin of Thomas PM Barnett close to my ear, and in many ways the reformulation of the geopolitical face will have little bearing on the structure of the skeleton beneath. That is an American military skeleton whose bones have been broken, reset and reinforced by the Bush Administration, and it will be these bones that the Obama team will flesh out, walking with the same strides while appearing less strident.
In my archives vis a vis Obama and Barnett, I have several observations which appear with remarkably little dissent:
Obama The Neocon
Obama never once says that military force should be used only as a last resort. Rather, he insists that "no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary," not only "to protect ourselves . . . when we are attacked," but also to protect "our vital interests" when they are "imminently threatened." That's known as preemptive military action. It won't reassure those around the world who worry about letting an American president decide what a "vital interest" is and when it is "imminently threatened."Nor will they be comforted to hear that "when we use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others." Make every effort?
Conspicuously absent from Obama's discussion of the use of force are four words: United Nations Security Council.
The School of Schooling Obama
Now there was a time when I sidled up to Obama geopolitically and on the strength of Barnett's enthusiasm as someone who would straighten up and fly right if and when he got into the Oval Office. There has been little in his behavior to suggest otherwise since then. The fact is that the Right is invested in disbelieving him, and with Wright, they have their little race card. But I have always been interested to see how Obama and McCain debate foreign policy. Despite the fact that Samantha Power is out on her can for dubious reasons, Barnett remains convinced that Obama still has the team best equipped for dealing with the world as it is.
Petraeus Tail Wags the Obama Dog?
Barnett again reinforces his view that Obama would be a lot less likely to confront or countermand David Petraeus. This is a tough bit to swallow, and I wish I knew the entire scope of Barnett's Obama narrative, because the fact of the matter is that I like Petraeus more than I like McCain.
So here is where what I was saying about America under Bush continues to be the case with America under Obama:(emp new)
I dont' think we can much separate the goals of the Bush administrations favor with neoconservatism to the strategy and tactics applied by our forces in Iraq. Our forces are not pacifying Iraq by force, we are not arresting and detaining the male population and destroying the nation's ability to resist us. That's policy. Everybody admits that the Army has had to learn a new way to fight. Operation Iraqi Freedom is not merely a function of our military doing what it ordinarily does. Otherwise Somalia might be a different place today. So I don't buy the idea that American muscle in Sudan or any place else in the world would automatically be presenting us with humanitarian success.
In fact it was GW Bush's bold decision to use the US military in a long-term engagement in occupation and counter-insurgency that brings Americans to any hope of doing the world good. In previous administrations, American boots on the ground was not an option. Not in Desert Storm, not in Bosnia, not in Central America and not since Beirut and Vietnam. It has always been CIA Operations that has been used to try and achieve such geopolitical goals. CIA + Freedom Fighters. That's a mixed bag which is more spiders than candy.
The jury on neoconservative, proactive use of the US Military as an interventionist force is still out. It is why the Surge is so important. It's why Second Fallujah is so important. It's why Petraeus is so important. Victory in Iraq will embolden America to believe that its armed forces can topple dictatorships and lead towards democratic self-rule. Failure will mean war as usual.
David Brooks today echoes this through the 'sphere: (emp mine)
Some theoreticians may still talk about Platonic concepts like realism and neoconservatism, but the actual foreign policy doctrine of the future will be hammered out in a bottom-up process as the U.S. and its allies use their varied tools to build government capacity in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, the Philippines and beyond. Grand strategists may imagine a new global architecture built at high-level summits, but the real global architecture of the future will emerge organically from these day-to-day nation-building operations.
During the campaign, Barack Obama embraced Gates’s language. During his press conference on Monday, he used all the right code words, speaking of integrating and rebalancing the nation’s foreign policy capacities. He nominated Hillary Clinton and James Jones, who have been champions of this approach, and retained Gates. Their cooperation on an integrated strategy might prevent some of the perennial feuding between the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom and the National Security Council.
Yes, Obama's challenge is to get 'er done. But his face and Hilary's face are just faces. If we geopolitical neocons are correct, then Obama's army is going to be Rumsfeld's army and the lessons of Petraeus will continue to be the guiding light on the way forward. If Obama is to take up the cudgels against the Least Favored Nations, then he must do so with the new Army that Rumsfeld has built and Petraeus has shaped.
Now if we can only get Clinton to take this suggestion seriously...
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