Say what you will about Bill Clinton's foreign policy shortcomings, but for
the most part he had the good sense not to squander Ronald Reagan's legacy
of peace through strength.
By contrast, Barack Obama's foreign policy seems to be predicated on a
boundless faith in his own persuasive powers and the naïve notion that our
international antagonists are merely misunderstood. Not since Jimmy Carter
has American foreign policy been so obsequious or short-sighted.
Rather than isolate Venezuela menace Hugo Chavez, President Obama and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have managed the remarkable feat of
backing Chavez's acolyte in Honduras, ousted president Manuel Zelaya, while
still eliciting ridicule from Latin America's most notorious thug.
Zelaya, who sought to defy Honduras' constitutional prohibition against a
president seeking multiple terms, was duly prosecuted by his country's
attorney general, removed from office by its supreme court, lawfully
replaced by a president from his own political party, and finally deported
when his supporters threatened national insurrection.
Obama and Secretary Clinton - standing alongside Chavez, Cuba's Castro
brothers, and the Organization of American States - want to restore Zelaya
to power and chastise the Honduran government for adhering to the rule of
law.
Apparently Obama longs for the bad ol' days when the Castro boys and their
Soviet Russian patrons established communist dictatorships in Central
America.
Or perhaps he believes that Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin is just a
harmless fuzzball, rather than an erstwhile KGB officer who laments the fall
of the Iron Curtain. That would explain why last year, as a candidate,
Obama's initial reaction to the Russian invasion of neighboring Georgia was
to urge both sides to "show restraint."
Worse still as president Obama courts Russia's cooperation by abruptly
canceling plans to deploy anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech
Republic. He didn't revoke these promises in exchange for Russian
cooperation. He simply did it and hoped that Russia would cooperate - just
as his climate change policy is to disembowel America's economy and hope
China, India and others do the same to theirs.
The Poles and Czechs endured decades of Russian Soviet oppression. We
should help empower them to defend themselves. Instead Obama's policy is a
slap in the face < no matter how his administration spins it. To the
Russians and the Iranians, against whose developing ballistic missile
program the defenses offered protection, Obama's pusillanimous maneuver
further demonstrates weakness.
Russian president Dmitri Medvedev applauded Obama's decision, just as a
shrewd negotiator insincerely compliments the strength of an adversary he
recognizes to be weak. The Kiev Post explained, "Russian diplomacy is
largely a zero-sum game and relies on projecting hard power to force gains."
That is, Russia plays hardball and plays for keeps.
In his speech to the U.N., Obama tossed about platitudes: "the yearning for
peace is universal" and "the most powerful weapon in our arsenal is the hope
of human beings." But "yearning for peace" is not universal - certainly not
among governing authorities in places like Russia, China, Iran and North
Korea who routinely trample "the hope of human beings" in their own country
and in others.
"Two great threats facing the survival of the modern liberal West," cautions
Lee Harris in The Suicide of Reason, are "exaggerated confidence in the
power of reason" and "profound underestimation of the forces of fanaticism."
Because most western nations haven't faced a direct threat to their placid
existence in more than a generation, we too readily forget that the majority
of the world's inhabitants live their entire lives governed not by reason
and rule of law but by the law of the jungle and the iron fist of an
oppressive government.
Reagan understood that regimes that threaten, attack and oppress peaceful
neighbors are indeed "evil" and that they can be deterred only by strength
and determination. Much of the world criticized him when he stood up to
"the evil empire," when he walked away from arms deals that would have
weakened us and strengthened our adversaries, and most notably when he
exhorted Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."
Today we know that Reagan's critics cowered because they lacked his vision.
History is replete with leaders like Obama whose sincere desire for peace
blinded them to devious designs of others. Seeking peace is laudable, but
lasting peace is rarely attained by those who appear desperate for it.