Obama’s Foreign Policy Speech: A Mixed Bag
Barack Obama spoke in front of the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs today in an attempt to shore up his foreign policy bona fides, and for the most part, the speech suffered from the Obama tendency to spout rhetoric that soars at first glance, but reveals itself bereft of content when examined more carefully:
“America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America,” Mr. Obama said. “We must neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission — we must lead the world, by deed and example.”
In a speech before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Mr. Obama presented himself as a presidential candidate “who can speak directly to the world.” After a sharp critique of President Bush, Mr. Obama called for increasing foreign aid to developing countries, expanding and modernizing the military and rebuilding fractured alliances.
“This president may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free world has remained open,” Mr. Obama said. “And it’s time to fill that role once more.”
Blah, blah, blah…so far, so bad. I can’t write off Obama’s speech entirely, though, because he did address one issue of paramount importance to me, and one that would probably be of paramount importance to almost every voter if the true magnitude of the issue were more well-known. I’m speaking, of course, of the gravity of the increasing nuclear menace:
If elected, Mr. Obama said he would lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and materials across the world within four years. In addition to securing stockpiles of nuclear material, Mr. Obama said the United States should work to negotiate a ban on producing new nuclear weapons material.
To discourage countries from building weapons programs, Mr. Obama endorsed the concept of providing reactor fuel through an international nuclear fuel bank, proposed last year by former Senator Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat who now advises the Nuclear Threat Initiative. As president, Mr. Obama said he would provide $50 million to get the fuel bank started and urge Russia and other countries to join.
Leaving aside the particulars of his recommendations (the second sounds pretty good, the first a little iffy), the mere fact that a major candidate is talking about this issue is music to my ears. Hillary Clinton has also been pretty good on this issue, but thus far, I’m not hearing much from the Republicans on, not the War on Terror in general, but the nuclear threat in particular.
I’m hoping like crazy that the question comes up in both the upcoming debates and all that follow…
The economist had a feature on Obama a week or two ago and called it “where’s the beef?” — for his candidacy to be successful, he has to move from the soaring rhetoric to the nitty gritty –
sorry, big e Economist
Yes, and you can bet the other Democrats will hit him hard on this one – especially Biden and Clinton…
Here’s some background on Obama’s foreign policy: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0704.hirsh.html
Too much of what he says is of the “I’m opposed to wife beating and serial killing” variety of political speech. I suspect there is more there there but he seems to be struggling to find his voice. Then again, it is early so there is plenty of time to get into the details.
Biden and Clinton should hit him hard on the issues. If good looks, charm, and rock star appeal alone were sufficient to be President, then I would be working out of the Oval Office.
Peter: You forgot modesty…
I don’t want to be accused of non-sequiturs here, but too many steves’ comment made me think of this.
If we’re to be against what seems like empty platitudes from Democrats on foreign policy, are we also to be against foreign policy speeches from the likes of Rudy Giuliani where it’s asserted that a Democratic president will lead to Americans being killed in the streets?
That is, if we’re to be against “I don’t support wife-beating,” how can we turn around and be for “Yeah, vote for my opponent. If you want to die.”
True enough Mr. Fargus, platitudinousness is not unique to Democrats. Perhaps to politicians though…
I would go a little further and suggest that while absent filthy swear words, that sort of statement is a vile slur.
I’m really tired of the current approach to political discussion in which opponents don’t simply have the wrong idea and approach but are simplistically identified as malevolently motivated and, well, just plain evil. Can’t they just be wrong?
See, I’ve always thought that. If we could just start out from the position that everybody wants the right thing for everybody, but just disagrees on how to get there, we could have a lot more civil discourse.
But one person departing from that paradigm creates a rift that only widens with more attention paid to that person. Like, if one person says “The Democrats want the terrorists to win,” they’re explicitly saying that the Democrats don’t support the safety of the American people. It’s not surprising, then, that responses to that kind of statement are heated and accusatory (and this whole scenario can be taken and flipped around, so don’t take it as me saying that the Republicans started it…..just an example). If somebody says I don’t care about the people of my country, I get (rightfully, I feel) a little suspicious about their motives in saying so. That perhaps they’re more interested in using such a position for personal advancement, and to curry favor with the public, rather than out of a genuine interest to help the people as a whole.
Sorry, that’s kind of rambling. I hope it made some sense. I do accept that there ARE people who put their own personal advancement above the interests of the country and its people, but if we could go into things with the presumption that everybody’s coming from the same basic place, couldn’t we be, maybe, a little better off?
Makes a lot of sense to me. In fact, if I can come back to Obama for a moment I would say that his rhetoric is notable for its absence of the inflammatory and accusatory speech of many of the current stable of candidates. TCS has an interesting piece on Obama by Sean Higgins titled “The Black Reagan”:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=042507A
Maybe Obama’s poll numbers continue to rise because he is an optimist who respects his opponents and is committed to civil discourse? He’ll still have to have some substance in his policy positions, and it would be helpful to better understand his ideology and political philosophy, but civility and optimism are a nice start.