[R-G] Obama's Evolving Foreign Polic

[Anthony Fenton]

Obama's Evolving Foreign Policy
By Robert Dreyfuss

This article appeared in the July 21, 2008 edition of The Nation.
July 1, 2008
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/dreyfuss

"It's helpful to point out that Barack Obama is not the messiah," says  
Richard Danzig, a national security adviser to the Illinois senator,  
tongue only slightly in cheek. "There's a tendency to see him in  
messianic terms. He cannot multiply loaves and fishes."

Perhaps nowhere else are expectations as high for what an Obama  
presidency will mean as in foreign policy, where many Americans--and  
most of the world--are holding their breath awaiting the end of George  
W. Bush's wrecking-ball approach to world affairs. In some important  
areas, Obama would alter or reverse course: he'd draw down forces in  
Iraq; open talks with adversaries such as Iran, Syria and Cuba; end  
torture and close Guantánamo; renounce unilateralism and preventive  
wars; rebuild ties with allies; and re-engage with the Kyoto climate  
change initiative. He's also pledged to halt the development of and to  
seek a "world without nuclear weapons." In sharp contrast to  
presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, Obama would start to put the  
threat of terrorism in its proper perspective, elevating the  
importance of other threats to security, from poverty to pandemic  
disease to global warming. "He recognizes that there are a lot of  
problems in the world that merit attention besides the war on  
terrorism," says Danzig.

But in many respects, Obama seems likely to preside over a restoration  
of the bipartisan consensus that governed foreign policy during the  
cold war and the 1990s, updated for a post-9/11 world. That conclusion  
arises from an in-depth examination of the Illinois senator's views as  
well as dozens of interviews with foreign policy experts, including  
lengthy exchanges with the core group of Obama's foreign policy team  
and other participants in his task forces on the military, Iraq and  
the Middle East. It's also based on a careful review of speeches and  
position papers, Obama's 2007 article in Foreign Affairs and a key  
chapter, "The World Beyond Our Borders," in his book The Audacity of  
Hope. All this suggests there is a gap between Obama's inspirational  
speeches and the actual policies he supports. "So far, what you're  
seeing is rhetoric that we can make bold changes in our foreign  
policy," says John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy  
Studies. "But when he lays out specifics, it's not as transformational  
as the rhetoric." Will Marshall, director of the right-leaning  
Progressive Policy Institute of the Democratic Leadership Council,  
agrees. "On most of the details, he's aligned with the general  
Democratic consensus," Marshall says. Says Tom Hayden, the veteran  
activist and former California state senator, "At best, he will be a  
gradualist."

Even as he pledges to end the war in Iraq, Obama promises to increase  
Pentagon spending, boost the size of the Army and Marines, bolster the  
Special Forces, expand intelligence agencies and maintain the hundreds  
of US military bases that dot the globe. He supports a muscular  
multilateralism that includes NATO expansion, and according to the  
Times of London, his advisers are pushing him to ask Defense Secretary  
Robert Gates to stay on in an Obama administration. Though he is  
against the idea of the United States imposing democracy abroad, Obama  
does propose a sweeping nation-building and democracy-promotion  
program, including strengthening the controversial National Endowment  
for Democracy and constructing a civil-military apparatus that would  
deploy to rescue and rebuild failed and failing states in Africa, Asia  
and the Middle East.

Because Obama has little foreign policy track record, however (he will  
be leaving soon on a tour of Europe, the Middle East, Iraq and  
Afghanistan to burnish his résumé), it's not easy to decipher his  
views, beyond his rhetoric and the people he's chosen to advise him.  
Two questions arise. First, is it possible to extricate Obama's views  
from those of his advisers? Many of the people surrounding him can be  
categorized as liberal interventionists, Clinton Administration-era  
veterans who believe that US military power is central to world  
security and who don't shy away from the use of soft and hard power,  
including military force, to deal with less than immediate threats to  
the United States. More recently, Obama's team has seen the addition  
of Democratic Party stalwarts, including former Secretary of State  
Madeleine Albright, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former  
Senator Sam Nunn, the promilitary conservative from Georgia.  
Progressives who are most hopeful about Obama's foreign policy put  
their faith in the senator's character and innate instincts and, as  
Cavanagh says, the likelihood that he "will actually listen to foreign  
leaders he sees." But a team of advisers has a way of calcifying  
around a candidate once in office. "You find yourself surrounded by  
brilliant advisers who go all aflutter if you try to change things,"  
says Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project  
at the Center for Defense Information (CDI).

Second, how much of what Obama is saying is simply what he believes he  
has to say to get elected? It's possible that Obama's positions on,  
say, the Israeli-Palestinian question are shaped by his goal of  
winning the votes of hard-line, pro-Israel Jews, or that his support  
for expanded military spending is designed to counter expected  
accusations by McCain that he is an appeasement-minded dilettante who  
hasn't served in the armed forces. But many of Obama's positions are  
meticulously detailed and go far beyond what might be needed for  
political expediency. And even if he is adopting these positions to  
avoid attacks from the right, it raises questions about his  
willingness to sacrifice principle for expediency.

A great deal of Obama's appeal derives from his optimistic, even  
idealistic approach to policy-making. Yet his idealism is a two-edged  
sword. He envisions a world in which the United States helps conquer  
poverty and disease, and he recognizes that restoring dignity and hope  
to people in troubled parts of the world will make America safer and  
more secure. At the same time, some of his more idealistic rhetorical  
flights echo the sentiments of many neoconservatives and neoliberals,  
including their tendency to see the world in Manichaean terms. "I  
dismiss the cynics who say that this new century cannot be another [in  
which] we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the  
ultimate good," Obama proclaimed in an April 2007 address to the  
Chicago Council on Global Affairs. "We must lead the world."

Obama's advisers stress that he believes in the inextricable  
interdependence of the post-cold war world. In a campaign paper, Obama  
says, "Leadership in this new era begins with the recognition...[that]  
the security and well-being of each and every American is tied to the  
security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders.... It  
must be about recognizing the inherent equality, dignity, and worth of  
all people." To fight global poverty, he pledges to double foreign aid  
to $50 billion a year by 2012, and to make "investments in  
agriculture, infrastructure, and economic growth" in developing  
countries. He wants to help establish a "global health infrastructure"  
by 2020 to combat infectious diseases, a "civilian assistance corps"  
and a streamlined development agency staffed with a "new cadre of  
development experts," along with a $2 billion global education fund.

With his Kenyan and Indonesian roots, Obama can credibly claim that he  
has an inherent understanding of the crushing burden that poverty,  
disease and lack of clean water and education place on Third World  
populations. And he has said that such abysmal conditions can make  
angry, oppressed populations susceptible to the appeal of violent  
extremists.

But Obama may not realize how US involvement abroad, even when well- 
intentioned, is perceived on the receiving end as heavy-handed  
meddling. He and his key advisers have embraced a sweeping plan to  
promote democracy overseas, rebuild failed and failing states and  
provide aid to dissidents and democrats from Africa and the Middle  
East to Russia and China. He pledges to "integrate civilian and  
military capabilities to promote global democracy and development,"  
including the creation of "Mobile Development Teams (MDTs) that bring  
together personnel from the military, the Pentagon, the State  
Department and USAID, fully integrating U.S. government efforts in  
counter-terror, state-building, and post-conflict operations." He  
would also "establish an expeditionary capability" for non-Pentagon  
agencies, including the departments of State, Homeland Security,  
Justice and Treasury.

Asked which failing states might need attention from Obama, Susan  
Rice, a former Clinton Administration State Department official who  
advises the candidate, says, "The list is long. You can start in South  
Asia and Afghanistan, but there is also Somalia, Yemen, Kenya and the  
Sahelian countries in Africa." Then, she says, there are countries  
that, while not yet failing, have weak or poorly formed civil  
societies. "In countries like Nigeria, where in contrast to Egypt or  
Saudi Arabia, you are facing a regime that is not strongly averse to  
political reform, the United States can help to build democratic  
institutions, a more accountable parliament, a free press and  
institutions of civil justice."

Even in more resistant countries, such as Egypt and Russia, the United  
States can still support dissidents and take other pro-democracy  
steps, says Rice. Asked whether Russia, for instance, would react  
favorably to such efforts, she says, "No, they would not like it. But  
that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing it. And we were doing it,  
until a little while ago. During the Clinton Administration, there was  
a much more active democracy promotion effort."

Questions also arise about Obama's attitude toward humanitarian  
intervention. Several of his advisers, including Rice and Tony Lake,  
President Clinton's National Security Adviser, are strong advocates of  
using US military force to intervene in cases of severe violations of  
human rights, including genocide. In 2006 Rice and Lake wrote a  
Washington Post op-ed demanding a unilateral US "bombing campaign or  
naval blockade" and even the deployment of ground forces in Sudan to  
halt the killing in Darfur, and Obama has called for "enforcing a no- 
fly zone" there. What does that say about Zimbabwe? Burma? Congo?  
"There is," says Rice, "no cookie-cutter answer to the question of  
when a situation reaches the level of outrage that justifies  
intervention." Of course, the United Nations and other international  
bodies may not endorse multilateral interventions in regional crises,  
and although Obama has not gone as far as McCain in calling for the  
creation of a League of Democracies to bypass the UN in such cases,  
his campaign is debating the idea, according to insiders. Last year  
Lake co-chaired the Princeton Project on National Security, whose  
principal recommendation was to create a Concert of Democracies not  
unlike McCain's league. The strategists most closely identified with  
the idea are Robert Kagan, a well-known neoconservative, and Ivo  
Daalder, a Brookings Institution strategist and Obama adviser, who  
have co-written such a plan.

Indeed, on the issue of the Defense Department and military spending,  
Obama cedes no ground to McCain. According to CDI's Wheeler, during  
his years in the Senate Obama never challenged military spending bills  
in a significant way.

In the Senate and in his presidential campaign, Obama has supported  
the addition of 65,000 troops to the Army and 27,000 to the Marines.  
He backed the latest round of NATO enlargement into Eastern Europe,  
and according to Denis McDonough, his top adviser on foreign policy,  
he supports granting Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia;  
the latter, especially, is considered deeply threatening by the  
Russian leadership and could undermine negotiations with a resurgent  
and increasingly self-confident Moscow on a number of critical issues,  
including Iran and nuclear disarmament. Obama is open to talks that  
would establish formal ties between NATO, Australia and New Zealand.  
His call for the expansion of the Special Forces would empower the  
most aggressively interventionist of the Pentagon's units, and he  
wants to spend more money on reserve units and the National Guard.

In his Chicago speech last year Obama called for the creation of "a  
twenty-first-century military to stay on the offensive, from Djibouti  
to Kandahar." In several areas, Obama has made it clear that he looks  
forward to bolstering America's capabilities to intervene worldwide.  
He has called for spending significant new money to add unmanned  
aerial vehicles to the Air Force, boost electronic warfare  
capabilities and build more C-17 cargo planes and KC-X refueling  
aircraft to enhance America's "future ability to extend its global  
power." Obama also plans to "recapitalize our naval forces" so America  
can patrol ocean "choke points" to protect oil supplies, and he wants  
to fund new ships that can "patrol and protect the 'brown' waters of  
river systems [overseas] and the 'green' waters close to our shores."

Along with his determination to pull combat units out of Iraq, Obama  
has pledged to beef up the US presence in Afghanistan, promising to  
add at least two combat brigades to the US-NATO force there. "And  
that's a floor, not a ceiling," says Rice. He's also said that he'd  
attack Pakistan unilaterally to take out Al Qaeda-linked forces if  
there was "actionable intelligence" about their location. It's become  
part of the Democratic Party catechism to accuse President Bush of  
letting Al Qaeda off the hook in Afghanistan and Pakistan by sending  
so many troops to Iraq, as if tens of thousands of soldiers were  
needed to hunt down bin Laden--and Obama is no exception. Yet  
escalating America's role in Afghanistan, especially in light of  
growing tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, could well inflame  
the violence and undercut Pakistan's ability to deal with the growing  
Taliban and Al Qaeda presence.

Obama's foreign policy team uniformly dismisses the idea that the  
Pentagon's bloated budget can be cut, even though, not counting  
spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, it has nearly doubled since 2000 and  
is roughly equal to the military spending of all other countries  
combined. "Are we or are we not relying on the Pentagon for an  
increased role? Of course we are," says McDonough. "I don't see how,  
given the challenges we have on the horizon, we can talk about  
reducing Pentagon spending."

Though Pentagon critics point to the overwhelming supremacy of  
America's military might, McDonough suggests that, as President, Obama  
would spend more to prepare for future threats. "What is the long-term  
horizon? Will there be new [military] peers? What does China look like  
in twenty-five years?" he asks. Ivo Daalder, who emphasizes that he is  
not speaking on behalf of the campaign, adds that the United States  
cannot withdraw forces from Japan, South Korea or elsewhere in Asia  
because it would unnerve allies by giving the impression that America  
plans to accommodate China. "We have to reassure our allies that the  
United States is committed to remaining an Asian power," he says.

Obama's ambitious democracy-promotion schemes and humanitarian  
intervention posture, not to mention his support for a continued arms  
buildup, raise the question of whether he understands the political  
and economic constraints the United States will face in future years.  
Which raises the question of Iraq: by withdrawing a significant number  
of troops, the United States can create at least some additional space  
for action elsewhere. "If we liquidate our presence in Iraq, we free  
up an enormous amount of our defense expenditures," says Stephen  
Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you don't liquidate  
the presence in Iraq, at least by twelve to fifteen brigades, your  
freedom to maneuver is nil."

Obama has declared his intention to withdraw one to two combat  
brigades each month, starting immediately after his inauguration. But  
he has deliberately left vague the question of how many might remain  
as a "residual force," what their missions might be and how long they  
might stay. Some of his Iraq advisers, such as Colin Kahl of the  
Center for a New American Security, a centrist think tank, are on  
record suggesting that a force of 60,000 to 80,000 might remain for at  
least several years. Others, including Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis  
of the liberal Center for American Progress, have proposed withdrawing  
virtually all US forces as quickly as possible. Inside the campaign  
there is tension between advisers who want to draw a stark contrast  
with McCain on Iraq and those who'd prefer that Obama tack to the  
center and blur the differences.

"What that residual force will do and how large it should be is  
something that he is studiously ambiguous about," says one senior  
military adviser to Obama. "It might be possible, or it might not be  
possible, to go through this campaign without resolving that  
ambiguity." At times, Obama has talked about keeping a "limited number  
of troops...in Iraq" to battle Al Qaeda-style terrorism, and he's also  
spoken of an "over-the-horizon force," to be stationed outside Iraq to  
intervene when needed. According to Kahl, who emphasizes that he is  
not speaking for Obama, other missions for residual troops would  
include force protection, such as defending the gigantic new US  
Embassy in Baghdad, and advising, training and equipping the Iraqi  
army and police.

Obama's celebrated 2002 speech, in which he called Iraq a "dumb war"  
and warned that it would destabilize the Middle East and fan the  
flames of terrorism, was a key reason antiwar Democrats rallied to his  
side during the primary season. But in the Senate Obama avoided  
engaging on behalf of the Out of Iraq Caucus in Congress, and he  
deliberately avoided taking a leadership role. "Obama and his staff  
weren't very responsive, and on Iraq and Iran they weren't leaders,"  
says Paul Kawika Martin of Peace Action. "He didn't introduce  
legislation, and they weren't the ones on the floor pushing senators,  
pushing [majority leader Harry] Reid." When antiwar members of the  
House reached out to the Senate, Obama demurred. "In that very  
critical period from January to mid-April 2007, when we were trying to  
reduce funding for the war, he was very hard to pin down," says a  
veteran House staffer.

During much of that period, Obama's key staffer was Mark Lippert, a  
former aide to Senator Patrick Leahy. A Wall Street Journal profile of  
Lippert last fall portrayed the two men as intimate friends and quoted  
Obama calling Lippert "one of my favorite people in the world."  
According to those who've worked closely with Lippert, he is a  
conservative, cautious centrist who often pulled Obama to the right on  
Iraq, Iran and the Middle East and who has been a consistent advocate  
for increased military spending. "Even before Obama announced for the  
presidency, Lippert wanted Obama to be seen as tough on Iran," says a  
lobbyist who's worked the Iran issue on Capitol Hill. "He's clearly  
more hawkish than the senator." A reserve lieutenant and intelligence  
officer in the Navy SEALs, Lippert took leave from Obama's staff last  
fall to serve a tour in Iraq, returning in June and rejoining the  
Obama team.

Obama's declaration that he'd meet with Iran's leaders sets him apart  
from both Bush and McCain. Obama has been widely praised for insisting  
on a central role for diplomacy and negotiations, and for supporting  
the normally less than shocking idea that diplomats sometimes talk to  
adversaries and enemies.

But Obama has refused to rule out going to war against Iran, in the  
event that Tehran moves forward with its nuclear program in defiance  
of international opposition. Even if it was a grudging nod to  
political expediency, his June 4 speech to the American Israel Public  
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) impressed hawkish Jewish leaders. "I will do  
everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear  
weapon. Everything in my power... everything," he said, adding, "I  
will always keep the threat of military action on the table." He  
qualified his willingness to meet with Iran's leaders, saying he'd  
talk to "the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my  
choosing if--and only if--it can advance the interests of the United  
States." Ratcheting up his earlier rhetoric, Obama said that he  
supported "banning the export of refined petroleum to Iran," which  
would have a devastating effect on Iran's economy and could lead to a  
US-enforced naval blockade of Iran. Obama also sided with the White  
House and the many neoconservatives, including Senator Joseph  
Lieberman, by saying that the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary  
Guard Corps "has rightly been labeled a terrorist organization."

Obama's strikingly pro-Israel address to AIPAC included a pledge to  
provide a $30 billion, ten-year aid package "that will not be tied to  
any other nation" and that will "ensure Israel's qualitative military  
advantage." Says a disappointed Palestinian activist who has spoken  
with Obama in the past, "They apparently have made a stupid political  
calculation that they have to say these things to be politically  
competitive in Florida." Among Obama's Middle East advisers, there's  
not a single boat-rocker. One who did rock the boat was Robert Malley,  
a member of Bill Clinton's National Security Council who took part in  
numerous high-level Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the Oslo  
period and is now an official with the firmly centrist International  
Crisis Group. After meeting with Hamas officials, Malley was compelled  
to remove himself from Obama's campaign. Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive  
director of an organization of liberal American Jews called the J  
Street Project, established earlier this year to compete with AIPAC,  
is resigned to hearing hawkish rhetoric from Obama during the  
campaign. "At the moment, the political space doesn't exist for  
something else," says Ben-Ami. But he says that many of Obama's Middle  
East advisers "are in line with the J Street view."

Asked how Obama's policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict would differ  
from McCain's and Bush's, one of Obama's senior advisers on the Middle  
East says that "Senator Obama is committed to a much more engaged form  
of helping Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement," and that  
he would involve himself "at a presidential level." In addition, the  
adviser says, Obama would talk to Syria, and he would support the  
ongoing Israel-Syria negotiations currently sponsored by Turkey's  
foreign minister. But the Middle East expert wouldn't comment on the  
wisdom of Bush's stubborn refusal to talk to the late Yasir Arafat,  
wouldn't criticize the White House's endorsement of Israel's invasion  
of the West Bank in 2002 and reiterated Obama's support for the  
overwhelmingly disproportionate Israeli response to Hezbollah's cross- 
border raid in the summer of 2006, when Israeli bombing of Lebanon  
killed up to 1,000 civilians.

For many, the most hopeful aspect of an Obama presidency is simply the  
fresh face of America that he would present to the world. "It could be  
a game-changer," says Derek Chollet, who advised John Edwards on  
foreign policy. "Obama will have a lot in the bank, and perhaps the  
biggest challenge will be managing the expectations that his election  
would bring about." Joseph Nye, former head of the National  
Intelligence Council under Clinton, says, "In Europe, there is  
something close to Obamamania. They're very excited about the idea of  
Obama in the White House. And that's even more true in Africa and the  
Middle East." Nye, who has written extensively about what he calls  
"smart power"--a mix of hard (military) and soft (diplomatic and  
political) power, adds, "I think Barack Obama would do wonders for  
America's soft power."

In the so-called "war on terrorism," Obama makes it clear that he  
intends to capitalize on that good will. "In the first 100 days of my  
administration, I will travel to a major Islamic forum to deliver an  
address to redefine our struggle," he said. "I will make it clear that  
we are not at war with Islam." It's hard to imagine a President McCain  
taking such a step.

Good will is likely to play an important role in how America re- 
engages with the world after eight years of Bush's reckless  
unilateralism. Yet more is required. It remains to be seen whether an  
Obama administration can articulate a coherent progressive purpose for  
American foreign policy in the post-Bush era. So far, at least, his  
team appears to be falling back on the liberal interventionist notions  
of the 1990s that led us into Iraq and that took life while Washington  
was under unipolar illusions. Young and without much experience but  
remarkably astute and empathetic, Obama is a work in progress on  
national security policy. In the crucible of a tough national election  
campaign, political calculations will loom large. It is thus all the  
more important that progressives drive their ideas into the campaign's  
debates.


About Robert Dreyfuss
Robert Dreyfuss, a Nation contributing editor, is an investigative  
journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in politics and  
national security. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United  
States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam and is a frequent  
contributor to Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, and Mother Jones.  
more...