Wednesday
Nov122008
Niggles about Obama: Jonathan Freedland's "Liberal" Intervention
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 15:11
Hours after our internal debate at Enduring America about the policies of an Obama Administration, we read this provocative opinion piece from Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian of London:
Liberals and anti-war types should not declare the new president a kindred spirit too hastily. As Obama himself said in the now famous 2002 speech denouncing the Iraq adventure: "I am not opposed to all wars.
It takes Freedland quite a while to get to his point, as he negotiates the euphoria over the Obama victory ("What I saw in Grant Park, Chicago, last week felt more akin to South Africa in 1994 or Berlin in 1989 than a normal response to a regular election."), but when he does, it's a stinger:
Obama is no dove. He is just a much smarter hawk, his eye more sharply focused.
I guess I could chalk up the point that Freedland's assessment supports my cautious assessment, but it's cold comfort. Indeed, the columnist's own reasoning is even more troubling than the President-elect he is supposedly critiquing:
1. Freedland reachs for that damaging, derogatory label to slap on anyone who might question the military option as the first option in US foreign policy: "peacenik".
2. Freedland notes, "Having placed al-Qaida back in the centre of America's gunsights, the new president aims to defeat it, taking the fight to al-Qaida's enablers in Afghanistan and Pakistan." But he pays no attention to the possible effects and complications of a policy which consists of "thousands more [troops] to fight the Taliban" and expansion of "the theatre of operations against al-Qaida... beyond the Afghan borders to include the tribal areas of western Pakistan".
3. Most provocatively, Freedland sees new hope for a delayed fight.
Imagine if John McCain had toured European capitals, trying to assemble a coalition for strikes against Iran. He'd have barely got a hearing....
But if Obama were to make the case, explaining that he had seen through the nonsense of Iraqi WMD but that the Iranian threat was real, he would surely earn a very different response. In that sense if no other, armed international action against Iran might be more achievable under an Obama presidency than it would have been otherwise.
So, even though American intelligence has concluded that Iran suspended its research and development of nuclear weapons programmes in 2003, even though one path to resolution of the political difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan would seem to lie with co-operation with Tehran, even though the war of only five years ago might give caution to any thoughts of a sequel next door, Freedland is ready to march into battle.
Twenty-four hours ago, a student in Dublin also recalled Obama's victory speech in Chicago: "I realised this would be one of the greatest moments of my life." And, when I confessed that I was caught between hope and caution, she replied, "Let me just hold on to hope for the next two months."
She is so right. Hers is an unconditional hope, tied to no thoughts of a new American venture which might be "liberally" acceptable. In contrast the words of Freedland, after his sanctification of a "hard" American liberalism offering more conflict, are cheap and hollow:
In every sphere, Obama marks a break from the recent past....For now, at least, we are entitled to that sigh of relief - and even the odd yelp of joy.
Liberals and anti-war types should not declare the new president a kindred spirit too hastily. As Obama himself said in the now famous 2002 speech denouncing the Iraq adventure: "I am not opposed to all wars.
It takes Freedland quite a while to get to his point, as he negotiates the euphoria over the Obama victory ("What I saw in Grant Park, Chicago, last week felt more akin to South Africa in 1994 or Berlin in 1989 than a normal response to a regular election."), but when he does, it's a stinger:
Obama is no dove. He is just a much smarter hawk, his eye more sharply focused.
I guess I could chalk up the point that Freedland's assessment supports my cautious assessment, but it's cold comfort. Indeed, the columnist's own reasoning is even more troubling than the President-elect he is supposedly critiquing:
1. Freedland reachs for that damaging, derogatory label to slap on anyone who might question the military option as the first option in US foreign policy: "peacenik".
2. Freedland notes, "Having placed al-Qaida back in the centre of America's gunsights, the new president aims to defeat it, taking the fight to al-Qaida's enablers in Afghanistan and Pakistan." But he pays no attention to the possible effects and complications of a policy which consists of "thousands more [troops] to fight the Taliban" and expansion of "the theatre of operations against al-Qaida... beyond the Afghan borders to include the tribal areas of western Pakistan".
3. Most provocatively, Freedland sees new hope for a delayed fight.
Imagine if John McCain had toured European capitals, trying to assemble a coalition for strikes against Iran. He'd have barely got a hearing....
But if Obama were to make the case, explaining that he had seen through the nonsense of Iraqi WMD but that the Iranian threat was real, he would surely earn a very different response. In that sense if no other, armed international action against Iran might be more achievable under an Obama presidency than it would have been otherwise.
So, even though American intelligence has concluded that Iran suspended its research and development of nuclear weapons programmes in 2003, even though one path to resolution of the political difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan would seem to lie with co-operation with Tehran, even though the war of only five years ago might give caution to any thoughts of a sequel next door, Freedland is ready to march into battle.
Twenty-four hours ago, a student in Dublin also recalled Obama's victory speech in Chicago: "I realised this would be one of the greatest moments of my life." And, when I confessed that I was caught between hope and caution, she replied, "Let me just hold on to hope for the next two months."
She is so right. Hers is an unconditional hope, tied to no thoughts of a new American venture which might be "liberally" acceptable. In contrast the words of Freedland, after his sanctification of a "hard" American liberalism offering more conflict, are cheap and hollow:
In every sphere, Obama marks a break from the recent past....For now, at least, we are entitled to that sigh of relief - and even the odd yelp of joy.
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