Obama embraces realist-liberal tradition
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - In formally accepting the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on
Thursday, United States President Barack Obama enunciated a worldview that
places him squarely within the realist and liberal internationalist thinking
that dominated post-World War II US foreign policy - at least until his
predecessor's "global war on terror".
In asserting before the Nobel Academy that "evil does exist in the world" and
that "there will be times when nations will find the use of force not only
necessary but morally justified", Obama echoed the realism long favored by
Republican policymakers in particular.
At the same time, his emphasis on the importance of building
international institutions designed to prevent war - "an idea for which Woodrow
Wilson received this prize", he noted - as well as to "protect human rights,
prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons", echoed the liberal
internationalist creed embraced, at least rhetorically, by Democratic
presidents since Wilson himself.
His quotation of John F Kennedy, widely seen as the embodiment of the two
schools' fusion, in favor of working "on a more practical, more attainable
peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual
evolution in human institutions", made clear what Obama sees as his overarching
task in world affairs. "A gradual evolution of human institutions," he repeated
for emphasis.
"In a sense, this was one of the clearer statements of foreign policy principle
that Obama has delivered to date: an extended defense of using realist means in
the service of liberal internationalist ends," wrote the conservative New York
Times columnist, Ross Douthat.
The speech, he added, was a "corrective to some of the more hubristic elements
of [George W] Bush's foreign policy".
Indeed, although as much as half of the speech was devoted to defending the use
of force - an approach that the White House apparently deemed necessary given
Obama's announcement last week that he is sending 30,000 more US troops to a
war in Afghanistan that is particularly unpopular with his Scandinavian hosts -
it also made clear his repudiation of key elements of the so-called "Bush
Doctrine" that dominated the Texan's first term in particular.
In addition to publicly addressing the moral complexities raised by the resort
to war, Obama stressed the "human tragedy" that is its inevitable result. "A
war itself is never glorious," he said, "and we must never trumpet it as such."
He also repeatedly rejected the kind of "exceptionalism" the Bush
administration used to argue - that the US should not be constrained by laws,
treaties and other international conventions that bind other nations, by virtue
of its moral superiority and its unique role as the ultimate guarantor of
global peace and security.
"America - in fact, no nation - can insist that others follow the rules of the
road if we refuse to follow them ourselves," he declared at one point. "Where
force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves
to certain rules of conduct," he said later in a passage reaffirming
Washington's commitment to the Geneva conventions.
Similarly, while acknowledging Washington's status as the "world's sole
military superpower", he stressed in one of several passages implicitly
critical of Europe's reluctance to take on a greater defense burden that the
world is no longer unipolar, if ever it was.
"America's commitment to global security will never waver," he said. "But in a
world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America
cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in
Afghanistan," he added in a plea for more North Atlantic Treaty Organization
support there.
In another clear difference with the "Bush Doctrine", Obama strongly defended
his strategy of diplomatic engagement with foes and abusive governments, as
realists among both Democrats and Republicans have long favored.
"I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of
indignation," he said. "But I also know that sanctions without outreach -
condemnation without discussion - can carry forward only a crippling status
quo."
At the same time, he accorded a high priority - higher perhaps that in any
previous speech - to the importance of promoting human rights, noting that
"only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual
can truly be lasting".
"[W]ithin America, there has long been a tension between those who describe
themselves as realists or idealists - a tension that suggests a stark choice
between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our
values around the world," he said. "I reject these choices."
Confronted with repressive governments, "there's no simple formula. But we must
try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and
incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time," he said,
citing the liberating effects of engagement by two Republican presidents,
Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, with China and the Soviet Union, respectively.
At the same time, the battle for human rights should not be confined to civil
and political rights, he said, in a further nod to the liberal internationalism
first promoted by president Franklin Roosevelt and another slap at the
"democracy" mantra of his predecessor.
"A just peace must encompass economic security and opportunity," he said. "For
true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want."
Despite his implicit rejection of many of the "Bush Doctrine's" core
principles, the speech earned generally favorable reviews from Republican
critics, some of whom have been more favorably disposed to him since last
week's announcement that he will escalate US military involvement in
Afghanistan.
A former Bush aide, Peter Feaver, said Obama "channelled his inner pragmatist".
"People wondered what would be the effect of the irony of him accepting the
Nobel Peace Prize within days of ordering a major escalation in war," he wrote
on his foreignpolicy.com blog. "The effect, it appears, is that it drove him to
give one of his better speeches."
But that pragmatism, and particularly his extended defense of the use of force,
proved very disturbing to others, particularly in light of the impending
escalation.
"Much of his highly militarized speech could have been given by George W Bush
without blinking," said Tom Engelhardt, whose tomdispatch.com website is among
the most popular for progressive foreign-policy critics. "Though invoked
repeatedly, the Martin Luther King who opposed the Vietnam War would have
rejected it out of hand."
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