It isn’t too early to project what an Obama Administration might look like, at least in terms of its foreign/national security policy. He has a track record in the Senate, and now statements on the campaign trail, but most important is a constellation of advisers who — even as it is in flux in anticipation of the general election and beyond that, the possible formation of a new Administration — point to an identifiable philosophy that reveals a bit more than his thin record, or his antiseptic speeches and position papers.
Obama’s group of foreign policy staff and advisers may, like Gaul, be divided into three parts: the young and inexperienced, retreads from the Carter and Clinton Administrations, and the, shall we say, usual suspects — the floating, independent gray matter from liberal universities and think tanks. [More]
There are necessarily differences in their views, but with appropriate caveats about generalizations, all of them are behind a collective vision that may be the most left-wing since the craven days of George McGovern. They are refugees: most of them from a well-trod path of disappointment and failure; a path, no doubt, paved with good intentions but especially dangerous– as the 60s generation may finally have the executive power of the presidency powerfully sustained by control of both Houses of Congress.
This is not your father’s Democratic Party of optimistic, pro-American, gimlet-eyed Cold War liberals.
Despite his uplifting and optimistic rhetoric, many of Obama’s national security policies are crabbed, cringing or backward looking– the new face of the New Left.
Woulda’, shoulda’ and coulda’ is the mantra of Team Obama: if only the Bush Administration had been the Gore or Kerry Administration; or better, perhaps, the Carter Administration: Kumbaya, y’all.
Just a taster of those who have advised Obama on foreign policy should supply an adequate flavor. . . .
Among the gray eminences are Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Adviser and veteran of multiple failures in Iran; Lt. General Merrill McPeak (ret.), architect of premature Air Force retrenchment and unsuccessful change during the Clinton Administration; Lawrence Korb of the left wing, John Podesta-directed, George Soros-funded Center for American Progress; and Gregory Craig, aide to Ted Kennedy and yeasty Clinton partisan who defended the President following impeachment and worked to return Elian Gonzalez to Cuba.
Other senior advisers have included Anthony Lake, a Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and Dennis Ross, currently with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Their thinking isn’t necessarily to the conservative taste, but in all fairness it is within the pale of the loyal opposition, and they could just as easily serve some Republicans– as in fact both did: Ross with George H.W. Bush and Anthony Lake with Henry Kissinger.
Former Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice, as well as the now-departed-but-likely-to-return Samantha Power– both apprentice members of the great and the good– are fondly known on the left for their emphasis on human rights, multilateralism and international institutions– the black hole of talk and inaction.
Among the lesser-known lights are Zbig’s son, Mark Brzezinski, a lawyer/lobbyist who blindly insists on negotiations with Iran; Richard Clarke, former terrorism czar who claimed the Bush Administration was indifferent to the threat of al Qaeda leading up to 9/11; and, Major General J. Scott Gration (ret.), CEO of African anti-poverty organization Millennium Villages, who has compared Obama to Nelson Mandela.
Also among those who have advised the tyro Illinois Senator are James Ludes, former national security policy adviser to Sen. John Kerry; Denis McDonough, of the Center for American Progress and former adviser to Sen. Tom Daschle; and Sarah Sewell, currently with Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and former aide to Sandy Berger. Enough said.
Obama, then, has stocked up on advisers with what might be termed a ‘metrosexual’ foreign policy: an instinctive aversion to muscular use of American power, a forward foreign policy and the unilateral use of force. They lament the alleged deterioration of our reputation abroad, and generally favor humanitarian interventions over those that advance American political and economic interests.
As The Nation put it, Obama’s foreign policy advisors are “more likely to stress ‘soft power’ issues like human rights, global development and the dangers of failed states.”
