The Leadership Dichotomy
The President spoke to the United Nations General Assembly this morning. In between the Conservative media spin about meeting with Bibi Netanyahu the President gave a hell of a speech -- one of nuance, sophistication, and strength.
There are some real conversations about the direction of the foreign policy of the United States; unfortunately, none of them is taking place on the right. Gone are the Jim Bakers, gone are the Colin Powells, gone are the serious informed people. Those voices have been replaced by the John Bolton, Cheney – the Dick and Liz team of dishonesty and deceit – Condi Rice, neoconservative chicken hawks, who got us into Iraq with a lie that they held onto for a decade. Oh, some on the left bear responsibility for that debacle, and for the causal way we, as a party, allowed ourselves to be marched into war. But, as we learned with Bush and proved with Obama, the blame or credit for foreign policy goes to the Executive Branch.
The President spoke to the United Nations General Assembly this morning. In between the Conservative media spin about meeting with Bibi Netanyahu the President gave a hell of a speech -- one of nuance, sophistication, and strength.
There are some real conversations about the direction of the foreign policy of the United States; unfortunately, none of them is taking place on the right. Gone are the Jim Bakers, gone are the Colin Powells, gone are the serious informed people. Those voices have been replaced by the John Bolton, Cheney – the Dick and Liz team of dishonesty and deceit – Condi Rice, neoconservative chicken hawks, who got us into Iraq with a lie that they held onto for a decade. Oh, some on the left bear responsibility for that debacle, and for the causal way we, as a party, allowed ourselves to be marched into war. But, as we learned with Bush and proved with Obama, the blame or credit for foreign policy goes to the Executive Branch.
Each time I see the President address the GA I am struck by the contrast between his presence, his sincerity, his integrity, and that of the Bush Admin, who, in an attempt to sell their pack of lies, used Collin Powell in the meanest of ways. They used his reputation to sell their mendacity and it is still my opinion, years later, that he lied to the GA unknowingly. I still believe that Rove, Rummy, and “Five Deferment Dick,” needed to get Powell’s you break it you bought it voice out of the Situation Room, and marrying him to these incredulous lies -- told to him by then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice -- was the quickest and surest way to do it.
Since then the voices on the right, with the occasional foray by John McCain into the debate, have been the cake eaters, the dilettantes, the draft dodging class who like to call people who served with distinction cowards to mask their own shriveled honor and perspective. Mitt Romney follows in this long line of chicken hawks, those that preach war with no skin in the game. Mitt lives a life a privilege and for that, I do not begrudge him. He earned his money for the most part. We can discuss privilege and whether “he built it,” alone or not at some future date. Today I wish to discuss his increasingly shrill voice on the foreign policy stage and how yesterday, the President’s speech in front of the GA should silence him and his sidekick Paul Ryan.
As the President headed towards the GA Tuesday morning to calm, once again, the fires burning around the world, he had to know that his opponent was even then addressing the gathering at the Clinton Global Initiative. That Mr. Romney was, even then, spreading his particular brand of 20,000 feet foreign policy – where he sits, looking out the window of his private jet and in-between wondering why the windows don’t go down, passes judgment on hyper-complicated situations with offhand quips about culture and freedom – and beyond missing the point, beyond showing an alarming naiveté, beyond over politicizing the complex issues, Mr. Romney continues concomitantly to outsource our foreign policy and sovereignty to Israel, and to fabricate a destructive narrative about the President.
I imagine all of this and more played through the President’s head as he went to speak before the world on one its biggest stages. The UNGA isn’t the biggest stage in America, but the President of the United States plays in the rarified air of the world stage. President Obama plays better, and more honorably than most. Obama began and closed his remarks with Ambassador Mark Stevens. The President introduced Stevens to the world. He talked of his home, where he grew up, and his deep and abiding love of country and of the people of North Africa. He talked not to accuse, not to attack, but to draw together the disparate people of two continents who share in the mourning of a hero.
The President had certain things to accomplish on this stage. He had to dance on the razors edge of politics and governance, of leadership and rhetoric. He had to tell the world that what had happened was wrong – that violence in response to speech is not to be accepted. He had to explain to those who have never known freedom what free speech means, and he had to do it all while ignoring the cake eaters here at home, chief among them, Mr. Romney, who took numerous shots at the Mr. Obama while the President stood for America on the world stage.
The GA speech was broken into four major parts. I encourage anyone who hasn’t seen the entire video to watch the 33 minutes. It was exceptional because of all it accomplished in such limited space:
The Eulogy and the Response
The President had a clear message in this section. Chris Stevens and the three other Foreign Service officers who died in Benghazi were heroes. They were there in peace and diplomacy and they were killed to derail the long march towards freedom. The President said, “Today we must reaffirm that our future will be determined by people like Chris Stevens, and not by his killers. Today we must declare that this violence and intolerance has no place among our united nations.”
With this argument fully advanced, the President was able to develop a more complex message,
“The attacks on the civilians in Benghazi were attacks on America. We are grateful for the assistance we received from the Libyan government and from the Libyan people... But, understand, the attacks of the last two weeks are not simply an assault on America. They're also an assault on the very ideals upon which the United Nations was founded: the notion that people can resolve their differences peacefully, that diplomacy can take the place of war, that in an interdependent world all of us have a stake in working towards greater opportunity and security for our citizens.
If we are serious about upholding these ideals, it will not be enough to put more guards in front of an embassy or to put out statements of regret and wait for the outrage to pass. If we are serious about these ideals, we must speak honestly about the deeper causes of the crisis, because we face a choice between the forces that would drive us apart and the hopes that we hold in common.”
This is a linkage, a, "we are the world," and our cause is common, rhetorical device; I found it particularly successful. We are all in this together, now more than ever. The world is smaller, our economies are intertwined, what happens when the butterfly flaps his wings in Japan does in fact influence our own tides and horizons – now more than ever. Especially for those who believe in diplomacy. In the recent past, our nation has shot first and talked to the dead littering the street.
President Obama has sought to change that, not only in the abstract, but also in the overt, egoless, commitment for and to diplomacy. It is this ethos that Chris Stevens embodied. It is this courage and foresight that the GOP seems to lack and that the President lives every day.
We talk until there is no talk left, and then we talk some more. We talk until we have to fight, but we never enter into conflict with smug superiority, we do so with regret and the full knowledge that we failed to resolve our differences like civilized people. When talk fails, there is blood: ours, theirs, innocent and guilty alike. We must, as a nation, as a people, attempt, greatly, to avoid those moments, those conflicts of choice. This Obama Doctrine isn’t the ideology of weakness or cowardice; it is the ideology of someone who has ordered men and women to their certain death. It is a warrior’s weary and leery view of the world stage. It is why President Obama effortlessly commands this space and this election, while his opponent – filled with greed for the position and the power it entails but with no real idea of the sacrifice contained within the hallowed halls of the white house, for what has he ever had to sacrifice in this world of privileged space he inhabits – flails wildly and tries attack after failed attack.
Long is the Way and Hard
“We have taken these positions because we believe that freedom and self-determination are not unique to one culture. These are not simply American values or Western values; they are universal values. And even as there will be huge challenges to come with the transition to democracy, I am convinced that ultimately government of the people, by the people, and for the people is more likely to bring about the stability, prosperity, and individual opportunity that serve as a basis for peace in our world.”
This is a pivot section. It does two separate things. First, it explains the Obama Doctrine of Possible Intervention. That we do what we can and we do it intelligently when words fail. He minimize the footprint of damage and death and while there is always innocent life lost, we, as a nation, act when we must not when it becomes expedient. Second, this section is also the basic civics section. We talk about the principles of democracy, of the ideals of what freedom is not just the caricature or short hand given out by so many on both sides of the aisle.
“Around the globe, people are making their voices heard, insisting on their innate dignity and the right to determine their future. And yet the turmoil of recent weeks reminds us that the path to democracy does not end with the casting of a ballot. Nelson Mandela once said, ‘To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.’"
President Obama goes on to talk specifically about the call of democracy, the call of freedom. He explains the sacrifice for it that is necessary, the tolerance, and even the defense of speech we dislike. He lays out a case for self-governance that is not devoid of self-awareness or self-reflection. Rather, he calls on people to resist the voices of the mob, the voices of those that hate, and instead think of the peacemakers. It is a difficult section, one that has to navigate the contested space of global and domestic politics. Remember that as the President seeks here to lay out a vision to the world of an America of leadership and tolerance and compassion, Mitt Romney is down the street at the Clinton Global Initiative preaching war. Demanding that the President cede control of our nation and our foreign policy to a foreign leader. Think about the two exemplars of leadership; think about their positions, their beliefs, and their rhetoric. Weigh them as an intelligent electorate must, but do so with the knowledge that the world watches our choice here, they wait for our season of madness to end, ever fearful of what might happen to the world if the neocons take control of our foreign policy again.
"Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit."
This next part of the speech is the most difficult to navigate. In it, the President cautions those who are enemies to peace, the Molotov cocktail throwing hate mongers. He speaks to them and to the voices of the silent majority that exists in the Muslim world. He speaks to and of Iran, of the choices we have to make going forward and how the clock on a diplomatic solution is winding down.
“In Iran, we see where the path of a violent and unaccountable ideology leads. The Iranian people have a remarkable and ancient history, and many Iranians wish to enjoy peace and prosperity alongside their neighbors. But just as it restricts the rights of its own people, the Iranian government continues to prop up a dictator in Damascus and supports terrorist groups abroad.
Time and again, it has failed to take the opportunity to demonstrate that its nuclear program is peaceful and to meet its obligations to the United Nations.
So let me be clear: America wants to resolve this issue through diplomacy, and we believe that there is still time and space to do so. But that time is not unlimited.
We respect the right of nations to access peaceful nuclear power, but one of the purposes of the United Nations is to see that we harness that power for peace.
Make no mistake: A nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained. It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy. It risks triggering a nuclear arms race in the region, and the unraveling of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
That's why a coalition of countries is holding the Iranian government accountable. And that's why the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
Listen to this speech; listen to how the President frames it. He has created a space here for tolerance, for dignity, but it is not limitless, it is not infinite. He doesn’t race towards war, as does his opponent, he doesn’t seek it. He is capable of fighting; Bin Ladin showed that, the Pirates in the Gulf of Aden announced that skill set with authority in his first year, the continuing problematic Drone War demonstrates hard choices every day. No, President Obama is not afraid to fight. Rather, it is as he says, leadership requires restraint, it requires suppression of ego. He seeks to find a way for Iran to exist within the bounds of civilized society; he seeks a middle ground if one can be found. But kindness isn’t weakness, willingness to talk isn’t weakness, measured speech isn’t weakness. Only the naïve think that, only the frail and fragile, the weak themselves, see weakness in thoughtfulness. The world is measurably safer, measurably more stable with Obama as President.
POTUS @ UNGA
We come to Bury Caesar not Praise Him
Finally, the President returns us to the death of Chris Stevens and the other members of his team.
“And I promise you this: Long after the killers are brought to justice, Chris Stevens' legacy will live on in the lives that he touched, in the tens of thousands who marched against violence through the streets of Benghazi, in the Libyans who changed their Facebook photo to one of Chris, in the signs that read simply, "Chris Stevens was a Friend to all Libyans." They should give us hope. They should remind us that so long as we work for it, justice will be done, that history is on our side, and that a rising tide of liberty will never be reversed.”
The take away from this is that those he seek to use this tragedy, this act of aggression, as political fuel for destabilizing the region or for war, foreign born or domestic, are going to fail. This President has his hand firmly on the reins of the world and while he stands, he will not let slip the dogs of war, not without cause, not to stroke the shallow thought, war mongering of the chicken hawks or chattering right wing class. No more wars of choice, no more ideology advanced at the end of a gun barrel. Gone are the days of the cake eaters, Come November we can hope and pray for four more years of Smart Power and true diplomacy.
Peace,
J
@JCWPolitics