Charles Krauthammer (or here) sees that President Bush’s vindication starts on January 20. President-elect Obama seems to be accepting a number of premises of the Bush administration and appears ready to incorporate them into his administration.
Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds — the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition. It’s not just the retention of such key figures as Secretary of Defense Bob Gates or Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, who, as president of the New York Fed, has been instrumental in guiding the Bush financial rescue over the last year. It’s the continuity of policy.
It is the repeated pledge to conduct a withdrawal from Iraq that does not destabilize its new democracy and that, as Vice President-elect Joe Biden said just this week in Baghdad, adheres to the Bush-negotiated status of forces agreement that envisions a U.S. withdrawal over three years, not the 16-month timetable on which Obama campaigned.
It is the great care Obama is taking in not pre-emptively abandoning the anti-terror infrastructure that the Bush administration leaves behind. While still a candidate, Obama voted for the expanded presidential wiretapping (FISA) powers that Bush had fervently pursued. And while Obama opposes waterboarding (already banned, by the way, by Bush’s CIA in 2006), he declined George Stephanopoulos’ invitation (on ABC’s “This Week”) to outlaw all interrogation not permitted by the Army Field Manual. Explained Obama: “Dick Cheney’s advice was good, which is let’s make sure we know everything that’s being done,” i.e., before throwing out methods simply because Obama campaigned against them.
In other words President Bush wasn’t just some crazy ideologue who hijacked American foreign policy. Rather he was reacting to events as well as he could. Implicitly there’s a cautionary tale about believing someone’s campaign rhetoric. The Democrats ran against President Bush and blamed him for so much of what was wrong in the world. But running a campaign is one thing; running a government is something entirely different. Now the Obama administration has information that it didn’t have during the campaign and President-elect must shed his ideological baggage and act in the best interests of the country based on what he now knows.
The other day James Taranto pointed out that the President-elect Obama wasn’t going to close Guantanamo so quickly. That very same day a news report said that the Pentagon reported 61 former prisoners who had gone back to fighting the United States after their releases from Guantanamo.
And for those who remember two campaigns ago, President Bush campaigned against nation building, but, in the end, nation building ended up being his legacy. Reality has a way of making pithy but empty campaign slogans obsolete.
The Counterterrorism blog also sees something positive about President-elect Obama’s priorities. Until Timothy Geithner is confirmed, Stuart Levey will be the acting Treasury Secretary.
While the selection of Cabinet Secretaries in the Obama Administration draws the most press attention, the CT community is also concerned about those sub-Secretarial appointments who drive policy formulation, international negotiations, and execution of Presidential and Secretarial decisions – the Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries who “work in the weeds” on a daily basis. In the counter-terrorist financing area, the most important position is that of the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the Treasury Department, created in 2004. Stuart Levey has held that post and has earned the respect of many in the community as the single most effective and important civilian official in the effort to detect, halt, and prevent terrorist financing. As Robin Wright reported in the New York Times last October, Stuart has been the key U.S. government official pursuing financial sanctions against Iran to raise the cost of its terrorist- and proliferation-financing activities. And I’ve written often, most recently in December, on the joint Treasury-DoD “threat finance cell” initiative, which has been one of the signature accomplishments of the past four years, thanks in large measure to Stuart’s vision, determination, and cooperative spirit.
While some of the measures that President-elect Obama seems to be taking are pragmatic, others are less comforting. For example Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton says that she plans to engage Syria and Iran soon.
This, of course, is what all the foreign policy sophist-icate-s recommend, but it may be just the opposite of what’s needed. The idea of weaning Syria away from Iran or changing them both to be productive members of the international community, is the holy grail of certain elements of the foreign policy establishment. So it’s a policy that’s based on a faulty assumption. Syria has more to gain by being wooed by the West while remaining cozy with Iran than it does from consummating it relationship with the United States. Roger Cohen is wrong. The al-Jazeera world does not have different logic from us, it has different premises.
Furthermore it’s stupid to try an engage Iran and Syria at a time that Egypt has called Syria, Iran and Hamas an “axis of evil.”
The articles lump Hamas together with Hizbullah and the Muslim Brotherhood, condemning all three in the following terms: “Hamas believes, as do the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah and other religious organizations, that everything it does is always right… Religious movements contain elements similar to Nazism, as do many tyrannical parties that brought disaster upon their respective nations…”
Ibrahim goes on to accuse Hamas of “trying to bring destruction” upon the Palestinians. The author declares that Hamas is indifferent to the fate of the Palestinians, since it believes that it is “more important to strengthen the Syria-Iran axis of evil, which sponsors the religious movements in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine.”
If the Sunni powers of the Middle East are awakening to the danger of Iranian hegemony of the Middle East, it is probably better to engage their support than to embrace the regimes they fear.
It’s important to remember (via Instapundit)
With Hamas taking its orders from Khaled Mashal in Damascus and its weapons and money from Iran, one might be forgiven for thinking that the rocket attacks on Israel are really a thinly disguised act of aggression by Damascus and Teheran. But we are never to think that. What we are meant to believe is that the cause of peace requires that Hamas be allowed to survive and the Iranian weapons shipments to continue.
A defeat for Hamas would be a defeat for Iran (and Syria). Whereas approaching Iran and Syria would strengthen all three and hurt Israel.
So while President-elect Obama has shown some pragmatism in his approach to the office he will assume next week, he is still drawn by the siren song of rapprochement with Iran and Syria. Strengthening Iran and Syria would undo much of the good he could accomplish by following President Bush’s approach.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
If Obama really tries to play footsie with Syria and Iran he’s in for a Hell of a shock. Think Jimmy Carter suddenly confronted with the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but it will come long before his third year.