Astounding Foreign Policy Naiveté
As this election cycle trudges on, it seems increasingly clear that McCain’s good reputation with foreign policy is wholly undeserved. Mounting evidence from minor mistakes, and deceptive descriptions to disastrous proposals indicates that McCain is in way over his head when it comes to this crucial aspect of the president’s duties.
McCain has made several minor mistakes, but has escaped relatively unscathed for a few reasons. He has been confused on more than one occasion about the difference between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims. He sometimes slips up and talks about attacking Iran instead of Iraq. He may not be aware of how many troops we have in Iraq.
McCain also appears to be using a lot of deception in his foreign policy “straight talk.” McCain, like Bush and the other Neocons, insists on referring to Al Qaeda in Iraq as the central problem, and terrorism as the looming threat if we ever withdraw from that country. The informed and critical know that AQI plays only a minor role in the overall situation in Iraq, and that it is far from being a central cause of the violence that threatens to destroy that country. They also realize that the link between Iraq and terrorism has been exaggerated all along ever since 9/11, and has been abused for political purposes.
Perhaps the worst thing, though, has been McCain’s terrible ideas when it comes to actual policy. Everyone makes mistakes, so that can be excusable sometimes, and we expect politicians to twist the truth at least a little bit to suit their political goals. But McCain has proposed some seriously bad foreign policy ideas in the past few months. Overall, his approach to foreign policy is very much a continuation of the hawkish Neocon agenda that has been such a dismal failure during Bush’s two terms. McCain has harsh words for the most delicate situations involving North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Russia, and others. Also, he promises isolation instead of engagement and escalation instead of cooperation. Just one example (but a big one) was McCain’s proposal to kick Russia out of the G8, which would not only be impossible, but highly inadvisable.
How did McCain get this reputation of being strong on foreign policy? His entire approach seems like it came from the frothing mouth of some immature College Republican who has bought the Neocon rhetoric completely. He lacks finesse just as he lacks knowledge, and I find it very difficult imagining him as a diplomat on any level, let alone the Chief Diplomat sitting in the Oval Office.
“…some immature College Republican who has bought the Neocon rhetoric completely.”
I think you’re giving both parties too much credit.
ME
30 Jul 08 at 10:00 am
I find him a bit incoherent at times, too. One could easily critique Obama on his “ambiguity” (what exactly Obama’s FP doctrine will look like is unclear — but seemingly better than McCain’s), but ambiguity is better than incoherence. The comments on AQI are simply to rouse an emotional response. CIA director Michael Hayden reports that AQI is near strategic defeat — so much for an imminent and pressing threat.
As for the most immediate Foreign Policy decision for the next POTUS. The policy advocate will be nearly identical, with only minor differences (it has devolved into an argument of timetables — a very stupid argument). Either a President-elect Obama or McCain is going to downsize America’s role in Iraq.
What I worry about more (and what you probably agree with, David) is McCain’s stance on the engagement of international institutions. Let’s face it, Obama is a quintessential neo-liberal (hurray), and will probably seek to engagement Western (and even non-Western) institutions much more than McCain.
However, I would be hesitant to call McCain rhetoric “Neocon.” It certainly is not idealistic enough; it’s simply foolish hawk-talk. Quintessential Neocon talk is that of Leo Strauss and Francis Fukuyama. Bush’s lackeys adopted the rhetoric but ruined the Neocon’s visionary goal of exerting American (aka Western) ideas through pragmatic force.
Regardless, the bottom line remains: McCain’s campaign (and McCain) sucks.
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 10:07 am
Regardless of what neoconservatism originally was, what it is today is perfectly represented by McCain and his campaign. Fukuyama has publicly distanced himself from the term and the intellectual movement.
Lets hope that the allegedly “neoliberal” Obama stays that way. He certainly didn’t sound like one on trade during the primaries. I think (and hope) he was lying.
David’s general thrust is right. McCain is not knowledgeable on these issues, and he doesn’t care. Apparently, neither does the press. On an ideological level, he is worse than Bush. Bush didn’t have an ideological foundation. He let his advisors run the show. That could be bad (as it was in the first five or so years of his administration) or sort of good (as it has during the primacy of Rice and Gates over the last few years). McCain was the candidate of the Kristol/Kagan neoconservative axis in 2000. They supported him for a reason.
jkkuwitzky
30 Jul 08 at 10:18 am
Kolby… I am shocked. You sure you don’t want to disagree?
David M. Manes
30 Jul 08 at 10:21 am
The press comment is interesting, too. I seriously want to know why McCain has this media reputation as strong on FP when he is so bad. Why didn’t the media crucify him for ignorant proposals like the Russian G8 threat? If something like that had come from Obama, it would have been news for days because it would have played into Obama’s defined image as a FP newbie.
David M. Manes
30 Jul 08 at 10:24 am
Perfectly represented? Can you flush that out a bit? I’m not disagreeing necessarily, I’m just trying to get a clear picture of your McCain “perception.”
The media question is a good one, though. If McCain’s vapid FP positions ever gain media traction, won’t it entirely debunk the “experience” card? That would be the ultimate death knoll. Too bad most people watch Fox News.
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 10:36 am
Don’t tempt me David….
Intellectual movements, by necessity, are constantly evolving as their preconceived notions are measured against real world outcomes. There was always something of a divide in the neoconservative camp (primarily between the first generation of “reformed” leftists and the second generation that never had anything to do with the politics of the hard left). The second generation was a more explicitly political group, and that trait has metastasized into the shrill quasi-bloodthirst that hides behind the respectable patina of national greatness conservatism. The true thinkers of the broad neoconservative movement (especially Fukuyama) have reacted to the ascendency of the second generation neocons in the Bush administration (primarily Paul Wolfowitz) and its aftermath by reconsidering the movement and its ideas (best exemplified in his excellent “America at the Crossroads”). Neoconservatism has evolved beyond Strauss and Fukuyama, and McCain’s associations with its current headliners cannot be overlooked.
On the media question, I think it is a prime example of the press’ tendency to accept things as true simply because they are accepted as true. McCain is a smart foreign policy guy because he is a smart foreign policy guy. Obama is change because he is change. Nevermind that McCain couldn’t pass an Intro to International Relations exam and that Obama doesn’t offer much beyond the standard Democratic line. What’s important is that we all know that one is smart and the other is change. There has been some blog chatter about a media backlash against McCain’s lies and errors in recent days. I’m still doubtful about that coming to fruition, but we can hope.
jkkuwitzky
30 Jul 08 at 11:50 am
Yes, beautifully put — in the elegant, poetic prose of someone who reads too much (myself included). I resoundingly agree with almost everything you’ve said, especially the praise for Fukuyama’s “America at the Crossroads.” However, my one reservation is that Neoconservatism hasn’t “evolved.” In my opinion, the Neocon movement has, contrary to your understanding, take a wild detour away from its foundational roots. The latter category of “Neocons” you accurately described essentially hijacked the movement and destroyed it. Now, I’m not going to make the argument that it should be returned to its original roots, mainly because I think the Neoliberal movement co-opts all the positive attributes (that I am interested in) of the original Neocon movement. So, what I essentially see as the end result of the 2nd generation Neocon movement is a hijacked and utterly defunct ideology that has destroyed the movement, as a whole, preventing it from ever returning to its pure, pragmatic, and logical ways.
But back to my original question, Kolby, which you didn’t answer. In what ways do you think (in all your political deftness) that McCain is a continuation of the 2nd generation Neocon movement? (You did say he “perfectly” fits the mold.) I can’t imagine anyone “really” playing politics in the shadows of Wolfowitz, Abrams, and Kristol. But maybe so. In that case, we really shouldn’t elect McCain (not that he’s going to get elected anyway).
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 12:51 pm
I guess I don’t think that something has to improve for it to have evolved. Perhaps its less an evolution than a victory for the more irrational wing of the neocon movement. I don’t know whose job it is to decide who or what a movement really is. All I know is that neoconservative now means what its loudest and best connected proponents say it does.
I say that McCain is the vessel for the current neocons primarily because of the deep connections that Kristol and Kagan have to his campaign. Kagan writes large parts of McCain’s foreign policy addresses (I think its the source of McCain’s animus toward Russia). In terms of connection to the craziest of the crazies, McCain is worse than Bush.
jkkuwitzky
30 Jul 08 at 1:08 pm
Robert Kagan, as the potential leading figure in writing American Foreign Policy, scares the be-jebus out of me.
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 1:15 pm
His new book is actually pretty interesting.
jkkuwitzky
30 Jul 08 at 1:32 pm
Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order?
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 1:37 pm
No, Dangerous Nation.
According to the reviews I’ve glanced over, it sounds very Noam Chomsky-ish, yes? (I’m assuming you’ve read through it?)
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 1:56 pm
Actually The Return of History and the End of Dreams, though Dangerous Nation is actually quite good as well.
jkkuwitzky
30 Jul 08 at 2:07 pm
Yeah, I’ve heard of it. I actually have the article bookmarked to read. Perhaps I’ll read it tonight.
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 2:24 pm
You have got to be kidding me. I have my differences with McCain but to say that he is less qualified than Obama on FP is just willful ignorance.
Obama’s incoherent rambling drivel (that is when he is not reading a David Axelrod speech) can hardly be decyphered to ammount to anything. But what we do know is that Obama admits the surged worked but said he still wouldn’t have voted for it in retrospect. He thinks that the Sunni change of heart was the biggest reason violence is down, yet he fails to see that our troop levels gave the Sunnis reason to turn against the insurgency. Face it, Obama is not a leader. He is not intelligent. He is a liberal puppet who doesn’t know what he is talking about unless someone tells him.
derekglover
30 Jul 08 at 3:59 pm
Obama’s incoherent rambling drivel (that is when he is not reading a David Axelrod speech) can hardly be decyphered to ammount to anything.
What on earth are you talking about?
…yet he fails to see that our troop levels gave the Sunnis reason to turn against the insurgency.
FAIL. The Sunni decision to softpedal the insurgency and fight AQI predates even the idea of the surge by several months. Also, the leader of the Anbar awakening is now demanding more
bribesmoney or they’ll resume the insurgency at full bore, despite the presence of the surge.Better trolls, please.
JH
30 Jul 08 at 4:13 pm
Obama’s jujitsu on the surge is one of his less endearing choices of late, but the McCain/GOP mix and match timeline on the Anbar Awakening is every bit as absurd (if not more so). The process of co-opting the Sunni leaders began at least five months before the Surge was even announced (and it took another five or so months for the troop increases to actually take place). The program was proving successful before any increase in boots on the ground. The insurgents changed their allegiance because AQI had taken to burning children alive and making life in an already inhospitable place even worse. Apparently even conservative, militant Islamists think Al Qaeda are a bunch of assholes. Did the increased troop numbers work in a symbiotic way with the change to a counterinsurgency strategy? Probably so. Obama should absolutely acknowledge the success of the surge, but to attribute all of the improvements in Iraq to the troop increase does a disservice to the innovative military leaders who (without the support of the Pentagon) created a winning strategy.
jkkuwitzky
30 Jul 08 at 4:22 pm
derekglover: speaking of astounding naivete`…
David M. Manes
30 Jul 08 at 4:28 pm
To confirm JH’s comments/critique, the Sons of Iraq (SOI) and the Sunni Awakening (the greater Sahwa movement) do indeed predate the American surge. There isn’t any debate on this issue.
They have medicine for vitriol, you know? And there’s even remedies for ignorance.
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 4:28 pm
Also, this “success” you talk about is yet to be determined. It’s important to note that the “purpose” of the surge was to make room for political reconciliation — not decrease violence. The Tawafiq official rejoined the government last week, but to speak of a successful political reconciliation, at this point, would be premature.
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 4:37 pm
Political reconciliation can only be given a chance if there is military stability. That stability was brought by the surge. Obama is not a great orator despite the hype and is often scrambling in interviews and press conferences to explain his positions. I am simply asking for a fair assesment on FP qualifications regarding these candidates.
Pray tell Steven, what is this cure for ignorance??…please don’t tell me it’s you…I just hope it doesn’t involve drinking the Obama kool-aid like so many on this blog have done.
As far as the vitriol…the only cure for that is for ignorant liberalism to stop trying to blame America for screwing up the world and blindly accepting socialism as a solution.
derekglover
30 Jul 08 at 6:19 pm
I’m pretty sure I’m not drinking any Obama kool-aid. If you read through this blog, you’d see that I often critique Obama and criticize those who blindly follow him.
But overall, most people on this blog stay relatively objective and enjoy engaging in others who do the same.
Read this, please.
I’m sure the McCain bashing will continue though. Do you think his campaign has been even remotely decent?
But Derek, seriously. Make some valid arguments, which include not just throwing around political innuendos and bashing Barack Obama, and you’d be surprised at the responses.
S.C. Denney
30 Jul 08 at 7:04 pm
They just keep getting better.
First, that stability was brought by the Anbar Awakening in addition to the surge. I don’t think one would have been successful without the other. Simply ignoring the aspects of the success that weren’t supported by you political allies doesn’t make it less true.
Second, performance in interviews and press conferences doesn’t have anything to do with one’s oratorical skill. Oratory is public speaking, most specifically in the formal sense (something Obama clearly excels at). I suggest consulting a dictionary before your next comment.
Third, the cure for ignorance might start with not calling everything that you don’t agree with “socialism”. That suggests an intellectual unseriousness of the highest order. It is foolish of the hard left to scream “Fascism!” everytime conservatives do something they don’t like, and the same applies to the socialism charge. Higher taxes might be a bad thing, but they don’t have a whole hell of a lot to do with whether or not something is socialist and I’m not quite sure what a socialist foreign policy would look like (actually, perhaps a bit like the neoconservatives).
In the end, I don’t really think it much matters what we write here. You’re response will no doubt involve an invocation of something that some liberal somewhere said (most likely accusing them of blind faith, surrender, and socialism) and, because its easier to argue with them than with existing people, you’ll make yourself feel better by screaming for a minute or two.
jkkuwitzky
30 Jul 08 at 7:16 pm
Derek, you crack me up, man. Every once in a while you swoop in and spout some empty inflammatory rhetoric and then you retreat when challenged by actual arguments. If you come around again to this post, I really am curious to hear your response to some of the specific observations, specifically on the time frame argument that points out that the Sunni Awakening began months before the surge was even announced, and even further from when it was fully implemented.
Another thing I am curious about: do you think it is a good idea to try to kick Russia out of the G8?
David M. Manes
31 Jul 08 at 8:51 am
I think the McCain campaign is a disappointment, but not because he has had FP gaffes. It’s disappointing to me that he has not (untill this past week) taken advantage of Obama’s mistakes and pointed out how impotent Democrats have been in the last 4 years at accomplishing anything. Given that lack of “fire in the belly” it says something that they are so close in the polls. Since this is the year Dems are supposed to win in landslide numbers, tell me why it isn’t Obama’s campaign that has been a bust.
As to the timetable issue, my point was that Obama said he would not , in hindsight, have supported the surge because “we can’t know what would’ve happened there if we had gone with the plan I laid out”. I am just sick of the counterfactual reasoning that Democrats want to engage in rather than looking at the facts and say that the troop surge is playing a part in decreased violence. That decrease is not the sole result of troop surges, but it is sustained by those surges. Now we have the chance to see a government begin to develop and function.
The early part of this war was mismanaged and near disasterous (mainly due to Don Rumsfeld’s minimalist mentality), but now that we are succeeding to some degree it would be nice if Obama could look at reality and admit it has worked, instead of political posturing to establish a difference between himself and Bush or McCain.
Is it too much to want to hear a Democrat say we are winning and sound excited??? Or are they still so mad about being there in the first place that they want us to be beaten? We can’t know what would’ve happened in Iraq, that’s true….but we know what has happened and it is clear we are winning.S so I ask you, how is that bad?
derekglover
31 Jul 08 at 9:15 am
Oh yeah…the G8 thing. Personally, I don’t like the G8 but Russia is still a player in the world and is of significant importance to the US, if for no other reason than their oil capabilitites. I think any opportunity to work with them to move them further down the road to economic freedom is crucial. Putin has nearly undone what little reform had been accomplished in the past 20 years. If we can develop a strong relationship that is bound by capitalistic principles we may have leverage against middle eastern oil…..unless the Democratically controlled congress decides to let us drill our own…but that’s just crazy right?????
My so-called inflamatory statements are all in good fun. I actually like you guys and what you are doing here. But I know as well as you that I am the the odd man out 9 times out of 10 in this setting, so I figure…why not have some fun???? It’s nothing personal, trust me.
derekglover
31 Jul 08 at 9:21 am
How exactly were the Democrats supposed to accomplish anything over the last 4 years? For starters, they’ve only controlled Congress for about a year and a half, and, even then, their slim Senate majority allows the Republicans (who have been ruthlessly effective as an obstructionist minority party) to hold up anything they don’t like. Even if they manage to get something through Congress (SCHIP), they still had to deal with Bush’s veto. I’m not saying that the Democratic Congress hasn’t been quite cowardly, just that they weren’t in a particularly strong position to begin with. If they get to 57 or so Senate seats (which seems likely) come next term, then we’ll see how they measure up.
jkkuwitzky
31 Jul 08 at 10:47 am
Depends on how you define accomplishment. They have the ability to lower oil prices but instead they parade oil execs on the hill and try to crucify them. Don’t blame the GOP cause, as much as they tick me off, they are not the ones standing in the way of progress. They’ve been the party of “NO”. No drilling, No tax cuts, No spending cuts. No progress.
When the Dems can come up with ideas of their own instead of simple opposition to Republican ideas, I might feel differently. But please, don’t cop out like that and whine that Republicans are standing in your way. If the American people are as behind Dems as you seem to think, there would be no problem getting things done. Guess they’ll have to speak with their ballots in Nov. and I think you’ll be suprised at the outcome.
derekglover
31 Jul 08 at 12:30 pm
Is it just me or is the whole “party of NO” meme about the most substantively stupid idea out there? Are the Republicans the party of no health care, no veterans benefits, and no peace? Some might argue yes, but really its just a difference of opinion and a difference in priorities. I hate to break it to you, but there aren’t going to be any tax cuts anytime soon. There isn’t a huge appetite for tax cuts at this point. Even if McCain wins, the House and Senate are both going to be held by the Democrats. And, as their plans sit now, Obama’s tax plan provides for more middle and lower income tax cuts than McCain’s does (by their own admission). And now that it seems that McCain is willing to countenance an increase in the payroll tax to shore up Social Security, it seems that the tax issue wont have the salience it did in elections past.
I don’t think I was whining about Republicans standing in anyone’s way. They decided they wanted to cast their lot as a serious opposition party, and the structural characteristics of Congressional rules allow them to exercise that role very effectively. That’s not whining, its a fact. The expansion of the SCHIP program had over 70 percent public approval. It was supported by a majority of Republicans! But the bill’s supporters couldn’t override the veto. I’m not making any argument about the substantive merit of the bill, just that it was immensely popular. The American people get to voice their opinions every other November. They made a clear choice in 2006. They’ll get another chance in a few months. Republicans (including you) can continue to act as though the Democratic congress has somehow failed to accomplish all of their 2006 campaign promises (in an either/or sense, they obviously have failed), but refusing to acknowledge the role played by the opposition shows either hilarious intellectual dishonesty or a profound misunderstanding of the way our government actually works.
I’ll take whatever bet you want on the outcome of the congressional elections. There is precisely zero chance that the GOP takes back either chamber. The White House may be another matter (though I doubt it).
jkkuwitzky
31 Jul 08 at 1:23 pm
Good post, and good discussion.
I’m not as versed in this sort of stuff as some of you are, but I still cannot understand how anyone could be fooled by the McCain camp’s facade of foreign policy aptitude. He just talks in circles for a couple of minutes and then says “It’s about conditions on the ground,” a couple of times and not even the journalist interviewing him says, “Hey, John, nothing you just said had anything to do with what I just asked you, much less made any sense.”
TheChrisBerry
31 Jul 08 at 3:18 pm
[...] Political Cartel: Astounding Foreign Policy Naiveté [...]
McCain and Foreign Policy « TheChrisBerry
31 Jul 08 at 3:37 pm
Apropos of Fukuyama and Kagan, though some might me interested in this…..
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/13255
jkkuwitzky
1 Aug 08 at 8:36 am
After Russia’s aggressive behavior involving Georgia today, a get-tough policy doesn’t sound so naive.
Karen L
8 Aug 08 at 4:42 pm
Yeah,
First Georgia
Then Kazakhstan
Then the World!!!!!!
We must pertect are freedums!
johnkerry08
9 Aug 08 at 12:36 am