Obama’s Illusions on Foreign Policy
Expert guest post by Joseph C. Wilson IV
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Sen. Barack Obama declared in Pennsylvania on March 27 that his foreign policy
would “return” to that of George H.W. Bush and that Sens. John McCain
and Hillary Rodham Clinton both had strayed from that model. Having served in
the first Bush administration, as acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq in the run-up
to the first Gulf War, and subsequently as ambassador to two African nations,
I cannot fathom what Obama is asserting.
His entire foreign-policy claim that he would be a better president than Hillary
Clinton rests on the slender reed that he possesses intuitively superior judgment,
which would have led him to vote against the Authorization for the Use of Force
in Iraq had he been in the U.S. Senate in October 2002.
The first President Bush (Bush 41), of course, has publicly supported his son
(Bush 43) throughout the second conflict in Iraq.
When Saddam Hussein’s troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990, I was in charge
of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, responsible for the safe release of Americans
held hostage, and I personally confronted Saddam to persuade him to depart Kuwait
peacefully. It was axiomatic in our approach that the only way to influence
Iraqi behavior would be to threaten military action in the event Saddam did
not respond to diplomatic demands. If we were going to make those threats credible,
we would have to be prepared to act on them, which we were, and which we did,
with full international backing.
What would Obama have done differently in the first gulf war from what he claims
he would have done in 2002 had he been in the Senate at that time? In 1990,
Saddam was deemed a threat by the first Bush administration. Senior administration
officials threatened military action while working toward a diplomatic solution.
Congress was ultimately faced with a vote to support the president’s approach.
Some Democrats, including then-Sen. Al Gore, voted with the administration,
while a majority voted against.
Obama claims that an antiwar speech he made while running for state Senate
in the most liberal district in Illinois is proof of his superior intuitive
judgment. But if Obama had been in Washington at that time, participating in
the national debate, he would have come face to face with Secretary of State
Colin Powell, the same Colin Powell who, as Gen. Powell, was chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff in the first Bush administration, the one Obama wishes
to emulate.
Powell would have told him, as he told the other senators he briefed at that
time, including Sen. Clinton, that the president wanted to use the Authorization
for the Use of Military Force resolution not to go to war but, rather, as leverage
to go to the United Nations to secure intrusive inspections. George W. Bush
repeated this claim publicly.
Would Obama’s intuitive judgment have led him to defy Powell while still remaining
faithful to his fantasy of the “wisdom” of the Bush 41 foreign policy?
Perhaps Obama would have urged a summit with Saddam Hussein, with no preconditions,
as he has since proposed as a means to “transcend” traditional foreign-policy
methods with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Secretary of State Jim Baker did meet
with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz before the launch of Desert Storm, but
this meeting was for the express purpose of conveying to the Iraqis the military
consequences of not departing from Kuwait before the Jan. 15, 1991, deadline.
There was never any question of demeaning the presidency by an unconditional
summit for the simple reason that presidents don’t haggle. That’s why presidents
have secretaries of state.
In fact, Obama’s understanding of foreign policy is extraordinarily limited.
He has had one job in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: chairman of the
Europe and NATO subcommittee. He has not held a single policy hearing in that
capacity because, as he said in a debate, he has been too busy running for president.
He has not even taken a fact-finding trip or provided any other oversight.
As to Obama’s self-promoted “judgment,” which judgment would that
be? Would it be to follow the path of Bush 41: tough diplomacy backed by the
threat of military action, as in the first gulf war? Would it be to ignore the
rationale put forward by Colin Powell in the debate on the second gulf war?
Would it be to vote exactly the same way Sen. Clinton did on war-related issues
since he became a U.S. senator, which he has? Or is it simply to criticize from
the sidelines with the benefit of never having had to face tough decisions with
real consequences?
The next president will be presented with two difficult wars, U.S. moral authority
at low ebb, and unprecedented complexity of our relations with the rest of the
world. Obama has no record whatsoever, only his utter absence from his committee
responsibility. His claim to be the one true heir to George H.W. Bush is a misguided
illusion and no substitute for offering more about what foreign policies he
would actually follow.
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