In Which BooMan Talks Me Down

As downright pissed as I am about Obama's cabinet selections, the always dependable BooMan offers up some of his usual trademark expert analysis on why I should relax and let Obama do his thing.

Which gets me back to Barack Obama. Obama has not called for an American retreat from the world stage or a radical upending of our foreign relations. He recognizes that our involvement in the Middle East creates problems and blowback, but his solution is cautious and designed to work over a period of time. After stabilizing the financial markets, his number one domestic policy is going to be a green-economy initiative to take some of the pressure off our dependency on Middle Eastern energy. That will give us a freer hand to take risks that might involve a period of regional instability. In the future we might feel secure enough to allow the Saudi regime, for example, to be swept away in a popular uprising. Right now, we'd be too concerned about disruptions in the oil supply to let that happen.

When it comes to Israel, listen to the advice that Scowcroft gave in his August 2002 opinion piece:

Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region. The shared view in the region is that Iraq is principally an obsession of the U.S. The obsession of the region, however, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If we were seen to be turning our backs on that bitter conflict--which the region, rightly or wrongly, perceives to be clearly within our power to resolve--in order to go after Iraq, there would be an explosion of outrage against us. We would be seen as ignoring a key interest of the Muslim world in order to satisfy what is seen to be a narrow American interest.

That might sound like a progressive critique but it was anything but. The Realist School has long held, correctly, that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the number one priority of American Middle Eastern policy. It's one reason why George Herbert Walker Bush's administration was so distrusted by many Israeli hard-liners.

So, what is Obama doing? By taking advice from Scowcroft, leaving Robert Gates (for now) in charge of the Pentagon, and by bringing in other Realists on to his team, he is co-opting the centrist Republicans. The Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Richard Lugar, and likeminded thinkers like Chuck Hagel, are now de facto members of the Obama coalition. They are inside the tent, pissing out. This dulls McCarthyite criticisms from the neo-conservatives and from the Israeli hard-liners as it gives the appearance (and much of the reality) of a bipartisan foreign policy consensus. But Obama did not stop there. He has disarmed the Israeli hard-liners by giving them a seat at the table, as well. Nowhere is this clearer than in his selection of vice-president and chief of staff. If he goes through with the selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, he will further disarm the hard-liners.

Now, there is a legitimate progressive critique that Obama is staffing up with a toxic combination of people that were either wrong about the invasion of Iraq or that were right, but for the wrong reasons. After all, the Realist School might have been clear-eyed on the ill-advisability of invading Iraq, but they are myopic about their own culpability in creating the problems we face in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. What is needed is much more far-reaching change. That's true. But that change must be managed carefully, and it will come much easier if it is done with a broad coalition of support.

Barack Obama would be well-advised to find some idealistic progressives for his foreign policy team. He needs to hear their voices even if he doesn't take their advice. His strategy so far is finely honed to getting things done in the Washington/Establishment framework, but he needs allies as well as advice that runs counter to Establishment thinking. We need radical change, but we need to do it in a pragmatic way.

And as usual, he's dead right. Compared to the last eight years of incompetent, moronic, belligerent insanity that we're used to, a well-thought out and pragmatic approach to actual problem-solving in the Middle East is exactly what we need.

And Obama is in fact going out of his way to get as many people on board as he can in order to defuse and disarm the knee-jerk, reactionary opposition to it. If he's successful, then it will assure lasting change.

I just pray BooMan's right.