BY TAYLOR MARSH
Senator Obama has announced his senior working group on foreign policy. Samantha Power is missing, as is Richard Holbrooke. No Bill Richardson either, while Madeleine Albright is first on the list. Sam Nunn is on it too, so it’s likely no vice presidential slot for him.
Senator Obama’s Senior Working Group on National Security includes:
* Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
* Senator David Boren, former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
* Secretary of State Warren Christopher
* Greg Craig, former director of the State Department Office of Policy Planning
* Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig
* Representative Lee Hamilton, former Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee
* Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder
* Dr. Tony Lake, former National Security Advisor
* Senator Sam Nunn, former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
* Secretary of Defense William Perry
* Dr. Susan Rice, former Assistant Secretary of State
* Representative Tim Roemer, 9/11 Commissioner
* Jim Steinberg, former Deputy National Security Advisor
Today’s foreign policy call was a good one. I couldn’t
make yesterday’s with Richard Clarke, which was infuriating
to miss, I was on a deadline, because Clarke is someone I always enjoy hearing. I appreciate the Obama team reaching out to me personally, which came through one of the many contacts I have at the Clinton camp.
The very good news for me is that Obama’s team is not taking the McCain national
security strength myth to heart. They’re turning the argument right into McCain,
just as Wes Clark did recently.
The truth is that John McCain’s focus is all Iraq all the time. It’s a very
myopic, visionless way to look at the dangers we face in the world. Central
Asia is where the game is today and it’s getting more and more dangerous with
each passing Bush day in office.
Obama’s team includes many Clinton
administration foreign policy experts. His team was asked about it on the call today. Their
reaction was classic. They laughed. There’s lots of talent in the Democratic
Party field, they said, so why not tap the Clinton administration?
Obama’s push back on McCain’s traditional fearmongering on terrorism is also
a good sign. We have one chance to break this cycle. The hamster wheel fear
thinking that in order to make us safer we need to threaten the world with bombs
and war is not making us safer. Alliances are what we need. Nothing in Iraq
or the Middle East can happen without them, starting with talking with Iran,
though not on the presidential level. Obama’s backed away from the “no
preconditions” language to “preparations,” even though Dr. Rice
made the initial mistake of not acknowledging Obama’s first misstep, which Clinton
rightly revealed. But Obama’s thinking is 21st century and a way to move beyond
the one note, knee jerk response to our foreign policy challenges. It throws
away the neocon, first strike, preemptive war model that no president has utilized
in modern times.
The Gitmo back and forth recently with McCain has been especially telling.
How does McCain think Europe has foiled the extremist plots? It doesn’t mean
you categorize people that are extremist terrorists as simple “criminals,”
but demoting their “holy warrior” status through good, old fashion
You’re Not Above The Law tactics is an important step. Civilized, modern society
will be your judge, no matter your crime, and we will not become like you in
the process. Dr. Rice scoffed at the notion today that Osama bin Laden would
be given his rights, as some wingnuts profess. As the Obama team reminded reporters, there is a shoot to kill
order out on that thug. Let’s stick with reality, not fearmongering that has
no basis in fact.
But none of this makes Senator Obama’s job easy. He’s trying to change the
subject after the people have been hypnotized.
The trick is the political rhetoric. For 8 long years the Bush administration
and Republicans like John McCain have ingrained in the public dialog that the
“war on terror” is something beyond our control through the politics
of fear. It’s powerful and it works.
“We continue to face grave threats, not only from terrorism, but also
nuclear proliferation, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease. Nearly
all of these threats have grown over the last eight years because of the policies
of George Bush, which I believe have left us less safe and less respected
in the world. Instead of adhering to a rigid ideology, I want to get back
to the pragmatic tradition of American foreign policy which has been so ably
advanced by the people in this room, a policy that’s focused on using all
elements of American power to protect our people and to advance our interests.”
– Barack Obama
But as we’ve seen with Iraq, fear can be disastrous, dangerous and lead even
great countries into crippling national security quagmires that destroy century
old credibility, our own moral compass, as well as all we’ve come to mean to
the world at large. Iraq also has depleted our resources, financial and military
manpower, that has allowed us to be diverted from the most important job at hand. Bringing
down extremists, their outposts and havens, starting in Pakistan and Central Asia.
Obama’s success on foreign policy, since he has so little experience, is in
having people around him that illustrate a brain trust on national security, as well as a man who isn’t afraid to listen to them.
Coupled with his own ability to communicate that we need to break from policies
that have left the United States alienated, a war in Afghanistan that is starting
up again that includes re-emergence of the Taliban, along with an emphasis that
with new and stronger alliances in the Middle East, which must include Iran,
we can solve the challenges of Iraq. Then turn to the most dangerous place on
earth that John McCain never mentions, Central Asia, especially Pakistan, which
is generating the extremists by the dozen, including a new breed of danger,
the Pakistani Taliban.
But it depends on whether Obama can get the American people to think beyond fear and the “war on
terror,” especially given that it’s now rooted in the American psychology, and he’s up against
John McCain who is believed to be strong on national security, when the rhetoric from McCain sounds like Bush. Can Obama make people think about a realist foreign
policy in a political season that has Republicans screaming “danger!”
in 30 second ads? It all depends who defines Obama first. It depends on what happens on the ground before November. Just ask John Kerry. Right now Obama’s unknown
beyond his persona. There’s a lot of work to be done.
Comments are closed.