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In a piece titled, "Finding the Limits of U.S. Power," Alan Cowell of the New York Times notes:
But, diplomatically, the unfinished business lies in North Korea and Iran — twin beacons of nuclear ambition casting a baleful, contrary light onto the frontiers of America’s ability to impose its will on those who see nuclear technology as a portal to respect and influence that would otherwise elude them.
And perhaps, in a backhanded way, the real puzzle lies not so much in America’s deployment of power as in the acknowledgment of its limits.
In fact, the real puzzle lies more in discovering just how willing the new administration is to give up its power on issues of national security, while extending its power to control
more and more aspects of domestic life. American power can override the actions of the Sun, but can't overcome a senile old man in North Korea? How arrogant to assume the former; how pathetic to fear the latter!
Last Sunday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. vouchsafed that “the United States cannot dictate to another sovereign power what they can and cannot do.” ...his remarks may have been no more than a casual misstatement, soon disowned by the White House...
Visiting Moscow this week, President Barack Obama spoke of those same interlocking themes of power and sovereignty.
“In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries,” he said. “The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chess board are over.”
In Obama's 2009 world, a great power shows strength by talking. Mostly about nothing. When faced with Poland's Soviet-ordered suppression of Solidarity in 1981, Ronald Reagan made clear that the United States can and would dictate what another nation could comfortably do. Barack Obama all but ignored a similar situation in Iran in 2009.
When faced with a lunatic dictator testing America's military mettle in 1986, Reagan used his military to alert Moammar Kadafi to the fact that he breathed only with America's consent. We haven't heard much from the little despot since. Faced with a similar nutjob in Kim Jong Il in 2009, Barack Obama did nothing.
Barack Obama would have you believe that times have changed. To some extent they have, but not to the extent that we can afford the Carterization of foreign policy. Jimmy Carter tried Obama's strategy before Reagan. Reagan eventually took over and fixed most of the problems unrestrained liberalism had caused, and ended the Cold War.
But Reagan did not do the impossible. He did not change human nature, and a foreign policy based on hope and change is not a safe or effective foreign policy. A President who hopes that the love and admiration others feel for him will change their aggressive behavior is a President who is set up to be bullied, and deserves it. And a country that elects such a naive lightweight to high office deserves what it gets, at least in the short term.
Comments
Can we get back to the business of sending our troops into the wrong country based on bad intelligence, and then realize 6 years later we didn't even send enough of them.
People like Scott Martin have zero credibility. Stick to stories about mustard on hamburgers and terrorist fashion scarves.
licnyc: Unfortunately, I find that people on the left resort to personal attacks when things start to go south for them. This is a well reasoned diary; your crack about "zero credibility" is unfounded and petty.
As to sending troops into the "wrong country", this is just sour grapes on your part, given the ultimate success of President Bush's strategy. History will recall his determination to free Iraq to be one of the great instances of presidential fortitude. Scott recalls how President Reagan essentially mauled Quaddaffi; it's important to note that shortly after Saddaam was dragged out of his hole in Iraq in 2003, Quaddaffi agreed to dismantle his WMD's. Two madmen neutered and rendered powerless.....that's an enviable record.
With monsters like Kim Jong Il and Ali Khamenei endangering the world, there is still work to be done. But with Obama so determined to be liked, I'm not optimistic. The world doesn't respect groveling, apologizing, or weakness. Just ask Jimmy Carter.
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