What is the Sound of Styrofoam Columns Collapsing?
Posted: November 22, 2010 Filed under: Diplomacy Nightmares, Team Obama, The Media SUCKS | Tags: foreign policy, Middle East Peace Process, START 20 Comments
I suppose that I really don’t need to remind any of you of all the triumph of the Dauphin de Chicago that we endured during 2008. In fact, I don’t want to go there any more. I am going to mention that aspirational Nobel Peace Prize from a year later. And, okay, one more inkle of all that 2008 hoopla in Germany when Der Speigel asked “Where is Germany’s Obama”? Do you honestly think they’d really ask that question now and want an answer?
How the worm has turned and the facades have fallen. The one area where Obama was supposed to excel was in the world forum. If the world was expecting something different, they are sure realizing they didn’t get it. But just as in 2008, they trumped up Obama into some mythological sun god shining wisdom upon the world, we’re now seeing every one peel the paint off styrofoam and skin. What is it about the Villagers?
Do they all really want to write heroic epics and tragic endings rather than just report the damned news?
This tidbit is from Politico. Well, let’s just say I’m going to start with Politico. There will be more coming than this headline: ‘View from Middle East: President Obama is a problem’. A problem? Isn’t that a little different tale than alt that “this is the one we’ve been waiting for” spin a few years ago?
He was supposed to be different. His personal identity, his momentum, his charisma and his promise of a fresh start would fundamentally alter America’s relations with the Muslim world and settle one of its bitterest grievances.
Two years later, he has managed to forge surprising unanimity on at least one topic: Barack Obama. A visit here finds both Israelis and Palestinians blame him for the current stalemate — just as they blame one another.
Instead of becoming a heady triumph of his diplomatic skill and special insight, Obama’s peace process is viewed almost universally in Israel as a mistake-riddled fantasy. And far from becoming the transcendent figure in a centuries-old drama, Obama has become just another frustrated player on a hardened Mideast landscape.
…
The political peace process to which Obama committed so much energy is considered a failure so far. And in the world’s most pro-American state, the public and its leaders have lost any faith in Obama and — increasingly — even in the notion of a politically negotiated peace.
Even those who still believe in the process that Obama has championed view his conduct as a deeply unfunny comedy of errors.
“He’s like rain,” said a top Israeli official involved in diplomacy with the U.S., speaking of Obama’s role in negotiations. “You can do all kinds of things to cope with it.”
Some fret that not only has Obama failed to move the process forward but he and his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts may have dealt it a setback that will leave it worse off than when they began.
Obama has moved from the man that can do nothing wrong to the man that cannot do anything right. His failures since the mid term “shellacking” have been failure on the world stage. China, South Korea, Brazil, and now both Israel and The Palestine Authority are telling unfavorable tales.
How could any one be less respected than a President who thinks massaging the shoulders of a German Chancellor is acceptable behavior?
The Politico narrative is a long one and is peppered with items like this.
But the American president has been diminished, even in an era without active hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians. His demands on the parties appear to shrink each month, with the path to a grand peace settlement narrowing to the vanishing point. The lack of Israeli faith in him and his process has them using the talks to extract more tangible security assurances — the jets. And though America remains beloved, Obama is about as popular here as he is in Oklahoma. A Jerusalem Post poll in May found 9 percent of Israelis consider Obama “pro-Israel,” while 48 percent say he’s “pro-Palestinian.”
Other polling in Israel shows a growing gap between aspirations for peace and the faith that it can happen. One survey last month found that 72 percent of Israelis favor negotiations, while only 33 percent think they can bear fruit. (Palestinians show a smaller gap, primarily because a smaller majority favors negotiations.)Obama has resisted advisers’ suggestions that he travel to Israel or speak directly to Israelis as he has to Muslims in Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia.
“Israelis really hate Obama’s guts,” said Shmuel Rosner, a columnist for two leading Israeli newspapers. “We used to trust Americans to act like Americans, and this guy is like a European leader.”
Many senior Israeli leaders have concluded that Hillary Clinton and John McCain were right about Obama’s naiveté and inexperience.
So, it may be expected that Israel misses some cowboy swagger and doesn’t want any more “European-style Leaders”. The article does spend most of its virtual ink on the I side of the I/P equation. As we know from experience, any conversation about that topic tends to escalate into more than discussion; even among friends. There’s just one P in there to 9 I’s. Where’s the balance in that? Has every one in the U.S. bought into the new paradigm of what “fair and balanced” represents?
But, Politico isn’t the only one in the process of toppling the Styrofoam columns today. WAPO’s Jackson Diehl also examines Obama’s Foreign Policy today and suggests Obama may need an update . He timetrips back to the 80s as a way to talk about the new START treaty process. Diehl looks for clues in that, the I/P negotiations, and the recent tour of Asia’s nascent democracies. The bottom line is not flattering. Diehl concludes that Obama is stuck on the 80s. (Let’s hope that doesn’t include the Presidential taste in hairstyles and clothing.)
Still, this administration is notable for its lack of grand strategy – or strategists. Its top foreign-policy makers are a former senator, a Washington lawyer and a former Senate staffer. There is no Henry Kissinger, no Zbigniew Brzezinski, no Condoleezza Rice; no foreign policy scholar.
Instead there is Obama, who likes to believe that he knows as much or more about policy than any of his aides – and who has been conspicuous in driving the strategies on nuclear disarmament and Israeli settlements. “I personally came of age during the Reagan presidency,” Obama wrote in “The Audacity of Hope.” Yes, and it shows.
Of course, the Conservative Blogosphere is having a hey day with both of these pieces. Why wouldn’t they? What’s lacking is a thoughtful liberal response to all of this. What is also lacking is any mention of the Secretary of State who has been receiving some pretty glowing reviews and must be seen as carrying out an entire White House policy. If the foreign policy is visionless, wouldn’t that reflect on Hillary Clinton also?
Hidden away on Project Syndicate is an article on START by Radosław Sikorski. Sikorski is Poland’s Foreign Minister. Poland is a country that has not forgotten the 1980s at all.
The US remains the world’s most powerful state, however, and the senators’ decision will inevitably have an impact beyond their country’s borders. It will be particularly significant for Poland, a staunch ally of the US in NATO. So it is important to make clear: my government supports the ratification of New START, because we believe it will bolster our country’s security, and that of Europe as a whole.
President Barack Obama’s nuclear-disarmament efforts have gained wide support in Poland. The country’s first democratic prime minister, along with two former presidents, including Lech Wałęsa, the legendary leader of Solidarity, published a joint article last year in support of Obama’s bold disarmament agenda.
For almost a year now, since the expiration of the original START treaty in December 2009, no US inspectors have been on the ground in Russia to verify the state of its nuclear arsenal. The START verification provisions provide crucial information that is essential for the force-planning process.
Without a treaty in place, holes will soon appear in the nuclear umbrella that the US provides to Poland and other allies under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the collective security guarantee for NATO members. Moreover, New START is a necessary stepping-stone to future negotiations with Russia about reductions in tactical nuclear arsenals, and a prerequisite for the successful revival of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE).
While we in Poland do not perceive an immediate military threat from Russia, most of the world’s active tactical or sub-strategic nuclear weapons today seem to be deployed just east of Poland’s borders, in speculative preparation for conflict in Europe. The cataclysmic potential of such a conflict makes it essential to limit and eventually eliminate this leftover from the Cold War.
The START treaty is area where the U.S. should and could succeed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has indicated that it is deal that should be ‘beyond politics’.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Saturday that ratifying the treaty is a “national security imperative” that cannot be delayed. He called on the Senate for quick passage of the deal.
Ratification requires support from 67 of the Senate’s 100 members.
Senator Jon Kyl, the chief Republican negotiator on the issue, has resisted the president’s efforts to hold the vote before the new Congress takes office in January with a stronger Republican presence. Kyl has voiced concerns that the new START treaty would harm U.S. missile defense efforts.
I’m very much with Clinton on this one and with the President. For a press that seemed eager to believe that those Styrofoam columns were the real deal two years ago, they now stand as eager to push them over and point to an emperor with no clothes. This is evident even when the topic is something that should be above politics and not highly debatable like the value of START.
Why can’t we get some reasonable attempt at holding people accountable rather than these all in or all out approaches? You don’t make up for the sins of 2008 by committing equally egregious but different sins in 2010. Let’s not lose sight that the START treaty is good policy.
Just sayin’.
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The FBI is raiding Hedge funds…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704243904575630693960704872.html
Apparently the leak made them move a bit.
I hope this is just the start of the dominoes!
Now is the time for people to take back their power. NOT by making themselves easy pickin’s for the Republicans, but forming a newer, stronger, more prosperous party of citizen power. The mid-term elections were an embarrassment for the voters who should have had so much better than the Tea Party to offer up as a real alternative and solution to this legacy party mess.
It is hard to blame Obama regarding the Isreal / Palistein issues. While both maintain they want peace, they do not want to get along with each other. Mean while they both can count on our aid – incredible.
Regarding the other foreign policy, I often wonder if Hillary has buyers remorse in accepting the State Dept Job. I would suspect the indecision in the White House is hard to work with. Obama does not have the experience to be a subtantive person in foreign affairs. I suspect that after 2012 we will see Hillary in the private sector
I think Bibi N has to hold his coalition together also. All these leaky senior officials has me curious.
“Why can’t we get some reasonable attempt at holding people accountable rather than these all in or all out approaches? You don’t make up for the sins of 2008 by committing equally egregious but different sins in 2010. Let’s not lose sight that the START treaty is good policy”. What a great question. I can’t agree with you more.
Obama scoffed at abroad as well as at home? Maybe it’s explained by Chalmers Johnson, one of this nations’s brilliant foreign policy experts, who died just two days ago. Johnson wrote actively almost to the moment of his passing, including a new book, published in 2010, titled “Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope”. An excerpt from the book, “10 Steps Needed for Obama to Start Dismantling America’s Gigantic, Destructive Military Empire”, is available at AlterNet (http://tinyurl.com/2et5jzc), and is must reading. From the article:
Johnson concludes by saying: “To repeat the main message of this essay, we must give up our inappropriate reliance on military force as the chief means of attempting to achieve foreign policy objectives.”
As long as Obama, and members of his administration, continue to front for the military-industrial complex, any foreign policy action we take is going to be viewed suspiciously–and rightly so–by other nations. Billions of dollars in military hardware in return for 90 days of no settlements? That’s a peace agreement? Thirty billion dollars in annual aid to a country that has full employment and universal health care while millions of Americans have lost their homes and jobs, and have no hope of receiving real health care? Somehow I can’t imagine an Angela Merkel thinking she’d have any credibility if she followed similar policies.
Looks like a good read, I’ll have to look it up.
I particularly recommend section 3 of his article on the shamefulness of American military raping local women everywhere our bases are located and then being protected from retribution by special “treaties” between the U.S. and nations where our bases are located. I have never seen anyone write about this subject so scathingly, but coming from a man it was especially gratifying to see that decent people everywhere–regardless of sex–are horrified by this behavior. (Pity he didn’t delve into the hypocrisy of pushing fundamentalist religion within the military while condoning deviant sexual behavior among the troops.)
Johnson is right. AfPak and Iraq are a waste of time, money, and precious lives on every side. They should be stopped today and we should bring our troops home.
I agree and the wikileaks disclosure o Pakistan involved in Afghanistan like a business, stirring the pot to bring in more dollars was very disappointing.
I’m beginning to think of all of this as Terrorism Inc. and the ones that we really need to fear aren’t living in caves in Pakistan. They can only do so much damage. These two wars and all this bureaucracy have done more to kill the American way of life than anything Osama Bin laden could dream up. Bush probably let him roam free to justify all this money to KBR, Halliburton, and the rest of the international carpetbagging crew.
Very interesting article. As a student of history, I wonder if the US is doomed to become like several other empires, ruled directly by its military. We are almost at that now. If we had a leader(s) brave enough to scale back the military, the overseas bases and so on, would the industro-military complex revolt and directly over throw the government and replace that leader with a puppet?
Is that what we have now, more or less?
That’s pretty much what Johnson, and some other writers, see happening–Roman Empire redux.
Grayslady – thank you for the info on Chalmers Johnson death. I have all his books and will get the new one. He really gave a different perspective. One wonders if anyone int he government read his work.
I have the Blowback trilogy. I was saddened to learn of his death in an e-mail yesterday.
That’s another set of books you put on my reading list now after chatting yesterday. I’m going to have to sell some of my books to get new ones now.
Did you read Raw Story? I linked up top to The Economist op ed that talked about how important START is too … would the Republicans actually tank START to save their defense buddies or tank Obama?
Got it via Eric Boehlert with this tweet:
Of course the obvious answer is to get rid of Obama and have the brilliant current SOS, Hillary Clinton as President.
{{{sigh}}}
Stop being so sensible! We’ve hope, and.. and… change! No need for smart sensibility here!