From your lips to the Ears…
I think it’s fair to ask hard questions of a poster or point out if he’s being inconsistent. I also think - and I was not trying to single out just you - that if this turns into a pile on of Sam Stone, there’s not going to be a lot of substantive discussion. So I would like to keep that to a minimum.
Well, yeah, but the reference to cognitive dissonance, the number one threat to the Republic, is much appreciated.
That isn’t quite it, Marley. It’s that the task of pointing out inconsistencies, and huge but inconvenient omissions, here is so monumental that it only appears to be a pile-on.
Every response that I’ve seen (except mine, of course) was that either:
- Sam is asking for perfection.
- Sam’s tone is bad and hence he doesn’t deserve a reply.
- Bush was worse.
- For him to provide cites about his assertions in the OP.
Only item #4 is related to “inconsistencies” and still misses the basic thrust of his OP which is asking if anyone can point to any foreign policy successes on Obama’s part.
If Obama can remove the stench of the Bushivik years from our international reputation, that would be a huge win, so far as I’m concerned.
What’s this “If” stuff? Who doesn’t yet do that? Those who still believe in the WMD’s/we’ll be greeted as liberators/peace and democracy will break out all over the Middle East fairy tale, perhaps? :dubious: Know anybody like that?
If Israel sank or attacked a Turkish vessel and Turkey just have to suck it up it’s not going to help the NATO alliance or western alliances in general though. There’s not going to be much NATO cooperation left standing afterwards. And there are oil and gas pipelines and massive planned ones exiting Eurasia from Turkey too. There’d be all sorts of consequences.
Doing something likely to promote peace in a certain region, something to make America or the West more powerful or wealthy, etc.
If you can’t think of any successes, even by your own mind, then it’s perfectly simple to say that there aren’t. And until such time as Sam has provided something in the way of cites for failures, no one has any reason to think Obama has any failures either.
It would need a really radical departure from Obama for the world to forget the crimes of the Bu’ ushist regime. Obama is far too similar in terms of keeping the wars going, kidnapping, killing and torturing foreign nationals, imprisonment without trial etc. to really change perceptions dramatically. A couple of nice speeches just won’t cut the mustard.
As has already been pointed out, the START treaty is a success for Obama.
As an outsider non-American, my overall impression of Obama and Bush are that in matters of foreign policy Obama appears a caretaker President–a bit of a do-nothing to be sure, not really changing much of his predecessor’s legacy for all his rhetoric; Bush ought to have been a “caretaker president”, but unfortunately did not restrain himself to the “caretaker” role.
The problem may well be that what is required is a more “activist” president, specifically to deal with a more dangerous world and with the remains of Bush’s own activism.
Obama is a reaction to Bush is all. And he only just edged in with all that money and liberal angst. Bush represents the trend imo, fed by a corporate media and ill-informed public.
It happens that while rereading this thread, I heard the titles of the evening news. Amongst them :
A success for American diplomacy : UN security council votes news sanctions against Iran.
Oh, he certainly did. He didn’t claim Bush was the Messiah or anything, but if you like I can find you dozens of pro-Bush posts from Sam, including recommendations that Americans should vote for him in 2000 and 2004.
Then I think you may have missed a few posts. Summing up some of the first posted mentions of examples of positive foreign policy actions/results for Obama:
- New nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia (Jas09 in post #8)
- Agreement on new sanctions against N. Korea (Jas09 in post #8)
- UN sanctions on Iran nuclear enrichment issue (Jas09 in post #18)
- Strong response to Haiti disaster (Jas09 in post #18)
- Resistance to Japanese base closing proposal (Ravenman in post #21)
- Reduction of troops in Iraq (Ravenman in post #21)
- Increase of troops in Afghanistan (Ravenman in post #21; some specific accomplishments of military objectives mentioned by Camus in post #44)
- $63 billion Global Health Initiative program (Hentor in post #28)
- Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks (me in post #32)
- Improvement of US standing internationally (Buck Godot in post #38)
And that’s not counting any merely negative accomplishments like “not starting any wars” and “not being Bush”.
The number and significance of the accomplishments on this list may not be as impressive as we’d like, but there wasn’t all that much more substance in Sam’s summary of Bush’s first 18 months either:
Except for the Afghanistan war, which was a reaction to a catastrophic hostile attack on the US which so far remains (thankfully) unmatched by anything we’ve experienced under Obama, nothing on that list seems significantly more impressive than what Obama’s achieved so far in foreign-policy terms.
Look, ever since the Monroe Doctrine (proclaimed 1823, periodically restated since), the U.S. has claimed the whole Western Hemisphere as its exclusive sphere of influence, meaning we won’t tolerate other Great Powers meddling in it. So, what principle of international law says the U.S. is the only country that can have a sphere of influence beyond its own borders? From a Russian POV, maintaining some influence in Eastern Europe is essential because it’s their defensive tier, Russia having been invaded from the West so many times in history; which is not likely to happen again in your lifetime or mine, but worrying about the Russian hordes marching westward is just as anachronistic, now.
And, also remember, from a Russian POV, Russia is still a Great Power. And we have no real reason to dispute that status.
Yes, even on this board.
Robert Dreyfuss: “Iran Sanctions: Stupid, Counterproductive, Useless.”
I agree that the value of the Iran sanctions is debatable, but it was something that the Obama administration was advocating, so it goes on the list of “successes”.
Its delicate positioning, but what I see is “No, you can’t have nukes, we won’t let you. On the other hand, there is no way we are going to go for a military option. So, lets talk this out, see what we can come up with.”
The Iranian hard-liners depend on the threat from the US (and, of course, Israel), without it, a major chunk of their power fades away. Leaving some room for more moderate voices to be heard, and maybe even, to move into positions of power. A worthwhile goal, to be sure. One not likely to be realized by the John Bolton school of “diplomacy”