[quote=briansd1]
Obama had no choice but to continue the Bush’s foreign policies for many reasons.
1) After strong-arming the world into supporting the wars, a turnabout by the United States would weaken our influence abroad. We have to change policies without admitting to failure. And we have to create an appearance of success while changing course. Obama needs to show the world that he’s a tough leader read to use American military might.
2) Domestically Obama cannot appear to be weak on defense and weak on terrorism. Here he’s making a pragmatic political choice which corresponds to 1) above.
3) On Gitmo and Patriot acts, no president who has certain powers wants to give them up. In my opinion, it’s Congress’ job to restrain the power of the presidency.
4) The general attitude of the American public, right now is that the wars and civil liberties are out of sight, out of mind (unlike during Vietnam when the draft was creating social unrest).
Jobs are most important. It seems like Obama made the pragmatic choice not to rock the boat on foreign policy, while working on the domestic and economic agenda.
Obama is constrained on many fronts. It’s good that he’s a cool, cerebral president in this tumultuous period in our history.[/quote]
Zk: Fair enough, and here goes:
1) We did not strong-arm the world into those wars, and the European response to the invasion of Iraq will bear that point out, specifically the response of France and Germany. As to NATO/ISAF support in Afghanistan, the Europeans weren’t strong-armed into this, either, and it was their decision that al-Qaeda and the Taliban did pose a threat that needed to be addressed in Afghanistan. I would further point to Obama’s speech in Cairo as the most damning piece of evidence that Obama was seeking a clear break with Bush’s adventurism and was seeking an entente with the Arab world and one where America was clearly engaged in a new course of action.
2) Spending on Defense and the War on Terror are two very different things. While I don’t have the exact percentages, I would opine that spending on anti- and counter-terror operations is a very small percentage of the US Defense package and most of those dollars are going to support the costs of a large blue-water Navy, as well as new Air Force and Army programs. This is not a pragmatic choice at all, just refer to Defense Secretary Gates’ continued agitation for the elimination of costly and unnecessary systems and programs from the Defense budget. The pragmatic choice would be for Obama to go after that budget with an axe.
3) Obama campaigned on Gitmo and Patriot I/II. He was emphatic about the closure of Gitmo and the unwinding of both Patriot Acts. Now that he’s in the Oval Office, Brian is asking us to believe that he’s so enamored with his newfound power(s), that he’s refusing to relinquish them. That doesn’t sound like pragmatism at all, in fact, it sounds like the charges leveled by the Dems against Bush and Co. for trying to expand the powers of the Executive branch beyond reason.
4) Obama, if memory serves, was a professor of Constitutional Law. Unlike the Civil War, when Lincoln instituted martial law and suspended habeas corpus, we’re not confronting a similar threat to the Union. The facts are these: Obama has NOT closed Gitmo. He has NOT unwound Patriot I/II. He IS continuing the practice of extraordinary rendition, as well as overseeing the expansion of drone strikes, intelligence gathering operations in the AfPak region (over the protests of the Pakistani government), and he has considerably increased the troop footprint in Afghanistan. His own withdrawal schedule is unlikely to be met, if you listen to Joe Gibbs, so Brian cannot argue that Obama is serious about that withdrawal, which, based on the continued poor prosection of that war, is now farcical.
As far as Obama working on the “domestic and economic agenda”: This is exactly why he is in for the drubbing he’ll likely get tomorrow. Suffice it to say, jobs were not a high priority, or not as high a priority as passing healthcare. I’m not debating the efficacy or failure of Obamacare, simply saying that Obama didn’t turn his attention to jobs (and then only peripherally) until it was literally too late.
