Obama Abroad Mirrors Bush Senior

[question everything]

DECEMBER 8, 2009

Obama Abroad Mirrors Bush Senior

By GERALD F. SEIB
WSJ


(snip)

Slowly but surely, Mr. Obama is molding a foreign policy that harkens back more to the President Bush who managed the end of the Cold War than to his son, the President Bush who managed the aftermath of a deadly terrorist strike on the U.S. For the elder President Bush, the hallmarks of foreign policy were a preference for pragmatism and stability over idealism and risk; an emphasis on multilateralism over unilateralism; and a willingness to work with leaders the world provides rather than the ones America might prefer. Many of those hallmarks can be seen in President Obama's decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Mr. Obama's announcement had none of the lofty rhetoric about spreading democracy or transforming Afghanistan that might have come from the younger President Bush. Instead, the emphasis was on stabilizing Afghanistan rather than really fixing it -- a less-idealistic approach that might have been expected of Bush the elder.

There also was heavy emphasis on making the Afghan surge international rather than unilateral -- hence, the hard push for allies to simultaneously add to their troop levels -- another hallmark of the first Bush's approach. And there was a quick-in, quick-out, limited-goals formula to his Afghanistan strategy. That mirrors the first President Bush's decision to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991 and stop the operation there, rather than moving on to Baghdad to oust Saddam Hussein. It's striking that while Mr. Obama is often criticized for an overemphasis on soaring rhetoric and an excess of ambition in his domestic agenda, his Afghanistan announcement was marked by the opposite -- also mirroring foreign-policy pronouncements by the elder President Bush.

(snip)

"The emphasis on foreign policy is once again about foreign policy rather than transformation," says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who worked for both Bush administrations. It was no accident that Mr. Obama said during last year's campaign that he admired the elder President Bush's approach to foreign affairs, even as he roundly criticized that of his son. It's common to view the elder Bush's approach to foreign policy through the lens of the first Persian Gulf War, yet the better way to see his approach is to recall his masterful handling of the decline and fall of the Soviet empire. On that front, the Bush emphasis was consistently on stability amid change rather than speed in change, and a calculation that the risks of reaching too far to bring down the Soviets outstripped the risks of not reaching far enough.

Thus, the first President Bush maintained his loyalty to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev long after critics clamored for him to shift it to the rambunctious, self-proclaimed Russian reformer Boris Yeltsin. In a profoundly dangerous situation, he preferred dealing as long as possible with the stable, known leader rather than the less stable, virtually unknown rebel. The elder President Bush also took great pains to work with allies to ensure that the strategy for ending the Soviet Union and reunifying Germany was a united Western one. He operated in virtually nonstop consultation with, in particular, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

(snip)

President Obama hasn't adopted the elder Bush's approach in its entirety, of course. When the first Bush administration decided to go to war against Iraqi forces in Kuwait, it did so with overwhelming force, which is hardly the approach the current president has chosen in Afghanistan. And to some extent, the current economic weakness of America may simply demand a less ambitious approach than George W. Bush attempted. It's harder to confront China on human rights, for instance, when relying on Beijing to finance America's ballooning debt, or to face down Iran alone when the U.S. military is stretched thin. The elder Bush's approach may have been a matter of prudence, while Mr. Obama's may be rooted more in necessity.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126022662158280919.htm (subscription)

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A2

[izquierdista]

1. "managed" the end of the Cold War??

Yes, he "managed" to keep the Pentagon budget growing like a well fertilized tomato in the summer sun while the reason for spending all that money went away.

[Honeycombe8]

2. You mean Obama threw up on a foreign leader, too? Wow! How alike they are! nt

[sandnsea]

3. lol, that was my first thought

Oh no, the President must have the flu.

I wish people would quit posting from the WSJ. They always slant things to make it sound like they're objectively reporting the news while discrediting Obama and talking up the right.

[levander]

4. Obama isn't doing Afghanistan that unlike lil' Bush

There also was heavy emphasis on making the Afghan surge international rather than unilateral -- hence, the hard push for allies to simultaneously add to their troop levels -- another hallmark of the first Bush's approach. And there was a quick-in, quick-out, limited-goals formula to his Afghanistan strategy. That mirrors the first President Bush's decision to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991 and stop the operation there, rather than moving on to Baghdad to oust Saddam Hussein.

That lil' Bush thought he was going to be able to get quick-in, quick-out of Afghanistan and Iraq was his whole mistake. He went over there with too few troops. And, didn't send more which was how he entirely mismanaged the 1st three years of the war. Eventually having to admit he had made a mistake, which he followed up by sending another 40K troops with the surge. Enough to get the job done. If you're going to go, you ought to go with ample resources or not go at all. Lil' Bush never should have gone to Iraq and even he probably realizes that now. I just hope Obama doesn't think he's gonna be able to get out of there easy like lil' Bush did. If he does, he shouldn't go.

Obama's announcement had none of the lofty rhetoric about spreading democracy or transforming Afghanistan that might have come from the younger President Bush.

I used to love lil' Georgie's tough talk. That guy really took being from Texas to heart. His talk was so ridiculous, even he had to finally admit it was a mistake.