Obama's Instincts (and disregard for history)

Two good articles here.  One is by Karl Rove in The Wall Street Journal, the other by David Reinhard in The Oregonian. Both raise questions about the depth and thoughtfulness of Obama's foreign policy positions (as I talked about here), about which of Obama's multiple responses actually reflects his true thinking, and about how he keeps changing history to suit his argument.

From Rove's article:

On Sunday at a stop in Oregon, Sen. Obama was dismissive of the threats posed by Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and Syria.

(...)

By Monday in Montana, Mr. Obama recognized his error. He abruptly changed course, admitting that Iran represents a threat to the region and U.S. interests.

Voters need to ask if Sunday's comments, not Monday's correction, aren't the best evidence of his true thinking.

From Reinhard's:

It began when Obama answered a YouTube/CNN debate question last July. "[W]ould you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?" His reply: "I would."

(...)

Now, Obama says that preparations would, of course, be necessary, and his campaign talks about these nations' leaders having to meet benchmarks before sitting down with him. He likely has a nuanced exegesis of the difference between preconditions and preparation and benchmarks, but the latter two sure seem like preconditions, and this sure seems like a case of being for preconditions before you were against them.

Lately, the reasoning behind his foreign policy positions (or changes in position) are usually defended by a Kennedy/Khrushchev or Nixon/China comparison, which, on the surface seems logical, but in actual fact shows a gross lack of understanding of both history and the process of international diplomacy.

As Rove points out:

Mr. Obama's Sunday statement grew out of a kerfuffle over his proclaimed willingness to meet – eagerly and without precondition – during his first year as president with the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba. On Monday, he said it was a show of confidence when American leaders meet with rivals; he insisted he was merely doing what Richard Nixon did by going to China.

I recommend that he read Henry Kissinger's book, "The White House Years." Mr. Obama would learn it took 134 private meetings between U.S. and Chinese diplomats before a breakthrough at a Jan. 20, 1970 meeting in Warsaw. It took 18 months of behind-the-scenes discussions before Mr. Kissinger secretly visited Beijing. And it took seven more months of hard work before Nixon went to China. The result was a new relationship, announced in a communiqué worked out over months of careful diplomacy.

The Chinese didn't change because of a presidential visit. In another book, "Diplomacy," Mr. Kissinger writes that "China was induced to rejoin the community of nations less by the prospect of dialogue with the United States than by fear of being attacked by its ostensible ally, the Soviet Union." Change came because the U.S. convinced Beijing it was in its interest to change. Then the president visited.

____

On Wednesday, Mr. Obama said in Florida that in a meeting with the Iranians he'd make it clear their behavior is unacceptable. That message has been delivered clearly by Republican and Democratic administrations in public and private diplomacy over the past 16 years. Is he so naïve to think he has a unique ability to make this even clearer?

If Mr. Obama believes he can change the behavior of these nations by meeting without preconditions, he owes it to the voters to explain, in specific terms, what he can say that will lead these states to abandon their hostility. He also needs to explain why unconditional, unilateral meetings with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or North Korea's Kim Jong Il will not deeply unsettle our allies.

Similarly, of the Kennedy comparison, Reinhard writes:

In trying to talk his way out of his position, Obama's only made matters worse for himself. It began last week when he cited John F. Kennedy's sit-down with Nikita Khrushchev as a precedent: "When Kennedy met with Khrushchev," he said, "we were on the brink of nuclear war."

Uh, no, Senator, the brink of nuclear war came in the Cuban missile crisis more than a year later. In fact, Kennedy's weak performance in Vienna prompted the Soviet decision to put missiles in Cuba, which brought us to the brink of nuclear war.

Once again, I'm left wondering if this is naiveté or arrogance. Either way, I'm just amazed how little airtime this is getting, given the magnitude and global implications of what he's suggesting. It's almost like he needs to take a couple of weeks off, sit alone in a room with a map and stack of books, and think very, very carefully about what he wants to achieve, why he wants to achieve it, and how he plans on doing it. And then he can start running for President.