Political Commentary, War Commentary

On The New Republican “Isolationism”

11 Comments

Thoughts from Stanley Kurtz:

For President Obama to choose this moment of overstretch and crisis to commit us to a supposedly humanitarian intervention in a land with no vital American interests at stake is little short of madness. Obama’s obliviousness to our pressing military and financial burdens as he pursues utopian dreams of international governance is the perfect counterpart to his domestic policy of pulling us toward European socialism just as the welfare state itself is collapsing across the West. We can only conclude that Obama is far less interested in either American strategic advantage or economic prosperity, traditionally defined, than in his dreams of an equality-of-result society and a multilaterally governed world.

With the Middle East slowly turning into a series of tin-cup-rattling failed states, and with Obama blithely embarking on a postmodern adventure in supposed humanitarianism when real military dangers threaten at every turn, why shouldn’t conservatives question where all this is leading? Hawkish democratizing optimists have chosen to overlook both Obama’s internationalist justifications for war in Libya and his refusal to quickly go for the kill. In doing so, they are hoping to forge a hawkish, bipartisan consensus in the country as a whole. This is a mistake, and is leading instead to the very opposite result. What Americans urgently need right now is a foreign policy that makes distinctions between our greater and lesser interests, and above all, a policy based on a realistic assessment of what is happening in the Middle East.

Foreign policy is often viewed through a partisan lens, which is why many Democrats are quite sanguine about the same policies unde Barack Obama that outraged them when perpetrated by George Bush. But I think that we will see a pretty major change in foreign policy from the next president, regardless of who it is.

11 thoughts on “On The New Republican “Isolationism””

  1. I expect the ‘next’ President, even if it is Obama, better start thinking about how the military will react if it’s continually over seas, at sea, or packing to go out again. It’s a bad move to continually piss off people trained to take charge in bad situations, with a populace that’s on the edge. That’ll be US, in another 16 months IF he keeps this stupidity rolling.

    Most of the people in the U.S. military think the ‘responsibility to protect’, starts HERE, not in Libya, Bahrain or Yemen. They did not take an oath to protect Pakistan, Japan or Iraq either. The one they did take, that I took, is being sorely, sorely tested.

    If Barack Obama, and his Lib / Dem / SDS / Commie / Lefty Professorate cohorts, aren’t within a gnats whisker of being a domestic enemy, no one will be, ever.

    He may get some change he didn’t expect. Some days, I hope so!

  3. But I think that we will see a pretty major change in foreign policy from the next president, regardless of who it is.

    You really think Joe Biden won’t continue his predecessor’s policies for his few weeks in office?

  4. Raoul, could you flesh out your future history? I hope you’re not threatening the President of the United States.

  5. What I’m hoping Raoul is suggesting is that Obama is such a poor loser that he’ll actually resign the office after losing in 2012.

  7. Titus, I don’t think so. I think McCain is saying that he’d be at least as interventionalist as Obama. Naturally McCain thinks he’d do a better job than Obama (maybe intervene in Libya earlier, for example) and he’d make different choices (remember his bomb bomb bomb song), but if the question is hang back vs get involved, McCain would get involved. McCain doesn’t want the current Republican field to agree with Rand Paul and call for ending our policy of targeted killings in Pakistan and Yemen. My prediction is that the next president will continue Obama’s policies, just as Obama continued Bush’s policies. Huntsman is acting like an anti-war candidate (why I wouldn’t vote for him if I was a Republican, despite his delightfully moderate domestic positions), but get Huntsman in the Oval Office, and he’ll be bombing Sudan or some such.

  8. My prediction is that the next president will continue Obama’s policies, just as Obama continued Bush’s policies.

    That would be mine as well, but only because the situation is becoming ever more dire. It’s becoming less the case then men are shaping events than the converse, and not for the better.

  9. At least Bush bothered to get Congressional approval for his democracy spreading endeavors. I don’t think people really have a problem with helping the spread of democracy throughout the world. They just would like to hear their administration make the case as to why and how they plan on doing this in a particular engagement. Instead people are beginning to see how the military is being used as a political campaign tool to bolster Obama’s position with the hawkish voters whilst his economic positions continually erode. Similar to Clinton’s use of tomahawks as he tried to morph himself into this great war President in the face of the Lewinsky situation.

  11. Isolationism is another policy the Tea Party has in common with the John Birch Society. Fortress America. The only problem is our dependence on foreign oil.

Comments are closed.