Abe Greenwald got to it before I did.
Interdependence, diplomacy, cooperative engagement, multi-national consensus, “replacing military solutions.” If these are to be the hallmarks of a new foreign policy, how strange that on the very same day that Hillary Clinton spoke to the Senate about the sensible employment of “smart power” against Iran, and John Kerry wrote about enhancing “the ability of US diplomats to play the leading role in solving” global problems, Vice President-elect Joe Biden was in Iraq reassuring leadership in Baghdad that “the new administration will stick to the timetable in the [U.S.- Iraq status of forces] agreement,” and keep American troops in Iraq for at least three more years, if not much longer.And how un-diplomatic was Joe Biden’s message of the following day. He told Barack Obama that things in Afghanistan will get worse before they get better, as Americans are soon to see an increase in the fighting. All this hardly seems like a new direction designed to highlight the “leading role of diplomacy.”
That’s because the most distinguishing feature of the new mushy realism is that it’s shamelessly fake. Hillary Clinton couldn’t possibly believe that, “The best way to advance America’s interest in reducing global threats and seizing global opportunities is to design and implement global solutions,” because she can’t even explain what that means. Barack Obama does not believe (at least not now) that Iran can be talked out of the bomb any more than he intends to “end” the Iraq War, and John Kerry doesn’t think, “we have an opportunity to reshape the way the United States does business with the world.” These fakists have settled on a language to use in public and this is it. Global, interconnected, diplomatic, sustainable, endurable, smart, multilateral, non-ideological. You know -- Obamese. The biggest change Barack Obama has brought to American politics is linguistic. Leaders are now required to create cuddly, meaningless word salads while continuing the implementation of aggressive policies.
I felt nauseated when I heard Hillary Clinton blathering on about "smart power" (the implication being that other uses of power are "dumb"). Clinton foreign policy got us the U.S.S. Cole, the African Embassy attacks, the Kobar Towers and 9/11.
Abe's point is excellent, but what makes the rhetoric about smart power so risible is that the left knows in its bones that you can't negotiate with some people--they are THOSE PEOPLE.
The central reality of modern-day politics is nothing is ever settled until you win outright.
Last night I saw Laura Ingraham bemoaning the fact that the in spite of the fact that capitalism and free markets won the argument back in the eighties, here we are again with the old high tax, command economy that the allows the U.S. to plough the Soviet Union under. I don't know why she is surprised--the left never, ever gave up on its goals of creating a democratic socialist republic. This is the nature of modern politics--modern global politics. Once you have a group that wants something, that desire becomes eternal as does the conflict.
I spent some time in Quebec back in the 1970s when the Separatist finally elected a popular government. Even as young as I was, I was struck by the fact that magnanimity on behalf of General Wolfe and the British, allowing the French to keep their language and religion, resulted in their reconquering "Lower Canada" centuries later. Had the British done in Quebec what they did in Acadia--exile the French (who went down to Louisiana and became the Cajuns...), Canada would not now be experiencing the endless linguistic and cultural conflict it does.
So you tell me--what would have been smart power after British victory on the Plains of Abraham?
I'm not suggesting an endless series of "final solutions", but rather a recognition that truly smart power is realistic about when compromise is possible, and when it is not. No one who isn't a moron or an Obama State Department nominee really believes that Israel can "negotiate" their way out of conflict with Hamas. The "smart" foreign policy for Israel is to exterminate Hamas. The peace of death.
Of course, talk like this isn't politically attractive to the naifs that vote for hope and change, so Fakism it is. You get the government you deserve.
