Back To The Good Ol' Days Before Dubya?

National Review Online: How A President Obama Will Restore America’s Standing In The World

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Victor Davis Hanson.

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We know the critique of present American foreign policy under George W. Bush - unilateralist and preemptive - and to some extent we know Sen. Barack Obama’s promised corrective - multilateral and reflective. So let’s take a serious look at what exactly is wrong with the former, and how things would substantially improve under the latter.

Let’s start with India. Indians poll pro-American by wide margins - due no doubt to America’s unnecessary coddling of the world’s largest democracy. If Sen. Obama acts on his complaints about the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to India and institutes his anti-NAFTA preferences in U.S. trade relations, India may finally receive the tough love it has been needing. After all, didn’t President Bush give away the nuclear game with India? Perhaps a President Obama will back out of existing agreements in order to ensure that India does not receive advanced nuclear technology. (In recompense, they’ll have little reason to complain, relatively speaking: Sen. Obama has suggested the U.S. should preemptively invade our ally Pakistan in order to hunt down Osama bin Laden.)

And China - what are we doing wrong there? Its increasing appetite for world resources means it cares not a whit what happens in the Sudan, as long as it gets its oil. Some Chinese products, as Sen. Obama rightly reminds us, are shoddy and sometimes dangerous - no doubt a result of our indiscriminate free-trade policy. The way China treats Tibetans and Uyghur Muslims violates canons of human decency. Will a President Obama protect American jobs, champion human rights, and ensure fair and safe trade by redefining our relationship with China - which holds a trillion dollars in U.S. government bonds?

Anti-Americanism runs rampant in Europe. Under an Obama administration, should we expect friendlier governments than Sarkozy’s France or Merkel’s Germany? Perhaps Obama might cancel that provocative missile-defense system in Eastern Europe designed to stop an Iranian nuclear guided missile - a welcome end to the saber-rattling of George W. Bush’s cowboy diplomacy.

Or will Sen. Obama try to save American jobs by nullifying contracts with the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. to provide refueling tankers to the U.S. Air Force? We can be sure that he will embrace the emissions-reduction targets set in the Kyoto accords - in that way, he will encourage Europeans to do the same, since their repeated failures in meeting their promised reductions must surely be laid at Mr. Bush’s feet: the EU has been waiting for America to show the way. Perhaps Sen. Obama could regain EU goodwill by pressuring Europeans to drop agricultural subsidies - and eliminate our own - and so give former third-world farmers a break. That would be liberal change I could believe in.

Then there is Russia. Surely Obama will do something about Putin, who seemed too cozy with Bush while he hijacked Russian democracy and used his oil to bully Europe. Perhaps Obama can craft an ingenious speech that will persuade the Kremlin’s ex-KGB kleptocrats to act more civilly in the world, especially concerning their trafficking with the likes of Iran and Syria?

Speaking of the Middle East, how will Obama restore American prestige there and ameliorate the damage done in the Bush years? Perhaps he could send Nancy Pelosi back to Syria to engage Mr. Assad? Or ask the Democratic Congress to condemn Turkey for the Armenian genocide?

Will Obama’s fast-track pullout of Iraq - and his willingness to sit down, without preconditions, with the mullahs of Iran - assure stability in the region, and win the confidence of our Arab allies? Sens. Obama and Hillary Clinton have both written epitaphs for the surge: Why, then, continue a failed policy? Once Americans are out of Iraq by mid-2009, Iraqis themselves - as Afghans, Cambodians, Somalis, Rwandans, and Yugoslavs have done before them - can work out their differences on their own. And since we were always the gratuitous targets that created terrorists ex nihilo, no doubt Dr. Zawahiri and President Ahmadinejad will move on to other Great Satans, once they see that those provocative American GIs have turned tail and fled their neighborhoods.

Since it is self-evident that the absence of another 9/11-like attack here at home was a fluke - and had nothing to do either with Guantanmo, the Patriot Act, wiretaps, the destruction of al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, or the annihilation of Wahhabi terrorists in Iraq - President Obama will be free to shut down all such legally dubious homeland-security measures. All that will reassure Americans and Europeans that those efforts were both unnecessary and antithetical to our values. There never was, and won’t be, any danger of another 9/11.

Since NAFTA was a sell-out of American workers, President Obama can, as he seems to promise, withdraw from the association and restore tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, while ending our xenophobic paranoia about “secure borders” - especially silly ideas like fences and walls. There would be no need to extend NAFTA-like accords to Colombia, and we should also reexamine sweetheart deals with Middle-Eastern countries like Jordan.

The world between 1992-2000 is the model we are to emulate, it seems. The world was much safer then - before George W. Bush’s indiscriminate wars - and it can be so again. In those golden days, the U.S. rightly contextualized “random” terrorist acts - making the proper distinctions between war and “police matters.” Yes, it’s true that thousands of American soldiers died in those peaceful days - about 7,500 between 1993-2000 - but they did so in noncombatant-related operations. Back then, our experts appreciated the hard lines and firewalls that separated Hezbollah from Iran, Sunni terrorists from Shiite killers, and were always careful not to overreact and turn mere responses into needless wars. In extremis, we can employ tried-and-true tools like no-fly zones, oil-for-food embargoes, U.N. sanctions, and the occasional cruise missile - avoiding the mess of President Karzai’s Afghanistan or President Maliki’s Iraq, and the peripheral blowback involving a jittery Libya, Syria, and Pakistan’s Dr. A. Q. Khan.

Presently the United States does the world’s heavy lifting under a Texan who says “nucular.” But soon it may well be charmed and mesmerized by a smooth-talking icon who raises trade barriers, leaves the Middle East to the Middle East, gets tough on China and India, relaxes relations with Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela, while redefining existing ones with Pakistan - and says to Europe, “We’re right behind you!” Let’s hope it will be as pleasant to see the results as it has been to listen to the utopian rhetoric.

[terri101]

To say that there will be no 9/11 again is unrealistic.

But creating a desaster is unrealistic to.

There is always going to be someone who wants to prove they have balls! Ex: The President of Iran, Dictator of North Korea.

The only person right now that I can see who can and has some experience at diplomacy is Hillay. To talk with someone with out preconditions is ludicrous!

Obama just wants to get us into another war, after he puts an end to Iraq, if he does!

[Keypinitreel1]

There is no need to be over protective of Jews... they are doing just fine....

The case is this...

Reckless aggression is reckless aggression what makes the neo cons Ice colder, water wetter and lies to justify attack more honorable?

The Jews arent the only people on earth to suffer unjust persecution and killings.... look no further than the Native Americans and Black people in the USA.

bluestardad:
This is why it is impossible to have a sane conversation on these posts. Ridiculous statement like yours. How insulting to the Jewish people to try and compare what happened with the Nazis to the situation in Iraq. Only a fool makes reckless statements like that.

[bluestardad]

Just as the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 was illegal so was the Invasion of Iraq. Both were supported by lies and trumped up charges by the aggressor. Both the Leadership in Nazi Germany and the Leadership of the United States were and are guilty of War crimes for starting these wars. If Justice had a true "Champion" in the world, the leadership that started the Iraq war would be tried for war crimes just as the Nazi leadership was! Who is Justice%u2019s True Champion?



What moral right does anyone have to continue the Iraq war? Those of us who permit this injustice to continue either by design or compliancy are enablers sharing in these crimes!



What is the difference in the Nazis trying to stamp out the Jews and Bush, Cheney, and the Neocons killing hundreds of thousands of the people of Islam to get at their Oil and Natural Gas?

[doctor--o]

NRO = No Rational Observations

Poor Bill Buckley. I guess there was only one way to go.

[fibonacci_]

Why did you all vote for Bush?

Thanks, you know?

[xlib]

mcvet-regarding your response to ozus, you seem to find it to easy to demean and vilify everyone who holds a conservative view. You sound like a typical hypocrital elitist who would prefer all Americans hold one view. That sir, is the eptome of elitism.
We all have a right to form our own opinions and political view. For you to take the stand you do shows that you, sir, are the nazi and hold fascist views.
Not all conservatives or Republicans back or even care for Bush. As an ex-dem I understand where ozus is coming from. You libs seem to vote the party line simply because the candidate is a democrat. What your party is presenting this time around are two socialists. Most Republicans DO NOT vote the party line. That could be why many of us are turned off the mccain.
Open your mind and stop demeaning those of us who have different political views. That difference is what made this country gret.

[ianlou]

This is a balanced, well written opinion . I am still looking forward to a Post-Dubya world.

Suppose Obama wins the presidency....and he pulls all the troops out of Iraq....and the terrorist are no longer occupied with the war there. They no longer have to waste their resources on trying to kill our soldiers there so they focus all their efforts here. What''s to stop them....we have validated them by surrender. Will you be willing then to accept the resulting deaths here on our soil more easily than the ones lost in Iraq....you make the choice.

[Gary Kempf]

Let%u2019s hope it will be as pleasant to see the results as it has been to listen to the utopian rhetoric.

I don''t know about utooia in the future, I do know we all have and continue to see total economic collapse from the past seven years under "Republican Rule".....