Obama's world

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Monday, January 12, 2009 - 5:13 PM Share

Fareed Zakaria interviewed Barack Obama last summer on his CNN show, and re-ran the interview last month. It was only recently, I am embarrassed to say, that I got around to reading the transcript of this terrific session. If you haven't read it, you should. It is the best summary of the Obaman world view I've seen, more instructive than reading a month of op-ed yammerings. Despite my pops at Obama on this blog, I am consistently impressed by his breadth and poise.

Here are the comments that especially struck me, with my introductions in bold:

Stop snubbing Russia, even if Putin is a hooligan. "Look. If we're going to do something about nuclear proliferation -- just to take one issue that I think is as important as any on the list -- we've got to have Russia involved." A little respect goes a long way.

Bring China more into the international conversation. "[W]e have to engage and get them involved and bought-in into dealing with some of these transnational problems."

Enough with the Vietnam overhang. "The Vietnam War had drawn to a close when I was fairly young. And so, that wasn't formative for me in the way it was, I think, for an earlier generation."

Take a true multilateral approach. "[W]e should always strive to create genuine coalitions -- not coalitions that are based on us twisting arms, withholding goodies, ignoring legitimate concerns of other countries, but coalitions that are based on a set of mutual self-interests."

Emulate the caution and pragmatism of Truman and Bush senior. "One of the things that I want to do, if I have the honor of being president, is to try to bring back the kind of foreign policy that characterized the Truman administration with Marshall and Acheson and Kennan, but also characterized, to a large degree, the first President Bush with people like Scowcroft and Powell and Baker, who I think had a fairly clear-eyed view of how the world works and recognized that it is always in our interests to engage, to listen, to build alliances, to understand what our interests are, and to be fierce in protecting those interests, but to make sure that we understand it's very difficult for us to -- as powerful as we are -- to deal with all these issues by ourselves."

Deal with terrorism more broadly-less "direct action" killing, more microlending. "[W]e have to hunt down those who would resort to violence to move their agenda, their ideology forward. We should be going after al Qaeda, and those networks, fiercely and effectively.

"But what we also want to do is to shrink the pool of potential recruits. And that involves engaging the Islamic world rather than vilifying it, and making sure that we understand that, not only are those in Islam who would resort to violence a tiny fraction of the Islamic world, but that also, the Islamic world itself is diverse, and that lumping together Shia extremists with Sunni extremists, assuming that Persian culture is the same as Arab culture -- that those kinds of errors in lumping Islam together result in us not only being less effective in hunting down and isolating terrorists, but also in alienating what need to be our long-term allies on a whole host of issues."

Be very wary of arbitrary government actions, both here and abroad. Living in Indonesia just a year after the anti-Sukarno coup left several hundred thousand people dead, Obama became "aware that, for example, the generals in Indonesia, or the members of Suharto's family, were living in lavish mansions, and the sense that government wasn't always working for the people, but was working for insiders -- not that that didn't happen in the United States, but at least the sense that there was a civil society and rules of law that had to be abided by. My stepfather was essentially dragged out of the university he'd been studying in in Hawaii, and was conscripted and sent to New Guinea. And when he was first conscripted, he didn't know whether he was going to be jailed, killed -- that sense of arbitrariness of government power."

Small is good. His mother "was a specialist in international development, who worked -- was one of the early practitioners of microfinancing, and would go to villages in South Asia and Africa and Southeast Asia, helping women buy a loom or a sewing machine or a milk cow, to be able to enter into the economy."

So, to summarize:

Winners: Neoliberals, Muslim moderates, nonproliferation specialists, panda-hugging diplomats who want to engage China, and centrist think tanks like my CNAS. And Joe Nye, the "soft power" guy.

Losers: Autocratic Third World generals. Are you listening, Burma? (And Pakistan? That's a much tougher case. The future of that country is, I think, the biggest threat the world faces today.) I also suspect that the free ride is over for Saudi Arabia, though I am not quite sure why.

(4)

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BRET

5:33 PM ET

January 12, 2009

As I hear Obama speak more

As I hear Obama speak more and more after the election, I am starting to accept his policies more. Involving China more in international affairs is extremely important for the future as China rises.

However, I am curious about his strategy with Islam. I am not fully convinced that you can reason with all Islam radicals.

He is correct about Russia because Russia's international acts have been messages to the world that they don't want to be shut out.

I am sad to see Burma on the losing side because the humanitarian situation there is disasterous.

BILL KELLER

2:54 AM ET

January 13, 2009

The President elect is a man with aequanimitas.

Find that Barack Obama holds a consistency to thoughts by Reinhold Niebuhr from the mid 20th century work of theological ethics and more recently by the work, Moral Clarity, by Susan Neiman. Suspect we will find that he will be a President more driven by ethics than ideology - a classic of the Kant or Rousseau.

His demeanor is better classified of that with equanimity - one that will hold calm in the mist of severe turbulence.

BRETT

9:18 AM ET

January 13, 2009

I am not fully convinced that

I am not fully convinced that you can reason with all Islam radicals.

You can't, particularly with the core group and leadership (you know, the guys who are always willing to let others do the suicide bombings). What you can do, however, is cut off their supply of money, potential recruits, and working environments. If you do that, then while they can still be a small and dangerous nuisance, they're a nuisance that can either be hunted down by the army or neutralized in the cities by the police - either way, they have little to no political impact.

"Look. If we're going to do something about nuclear proliferation -- just to take one issue that I think is as important as any on the list -- we've got to have Russia involved."

Keep in mind that there is a strong Russian self-interest here. They over-invested in a new series of ICBMs (which they continue to build), whose flight paths the US then tested against with current ABM projects, and shot down in testing. That freaked them out, and that is why they are so vehement about things like Missile Defense and nuclear non-proliferation - either of the above means that they'll get stuck with an increasingly irrelevant and worthless nuclear arsenal, and will have to spend billions more to re-shape.

Take that as you will.

"[W]e have to engage and get them involved and bought-in into dealing with some of these transnational problems."

We've tried - that was the whole point of the G-20 Summit, and China has been both an active participant in the UN, for example. But by and large, China has shown little interest in really getting into these large humanitarian projects and the like. That might change if things swing towards protectionism, but right now, it's by and large a no-go.

"[W]e should always strive to create genuine coalitions -- not coalitions that are based on us twisting arms, withholding goodies, ignoring legitimate concerns of other countries

This is a ridiculous answer. Diplomacy is all about the above, particularly when (as if frequently the case) the US is trying to get a reluctant country to work with it on something. The other side of this is bribery.

His mother "was a specialist in international development, who worked -- was one of the early practitioners of microfinancing, and would go to villages in South Asia and Africa and Southeast Asia, helping women buy a loom or a sewing machine or a milk cow, to be able to enter into the economy."

This is a good idea, particularly with regards to economic development.

BILL KELLER

10:58 AM ET

January 13, 2009

Guantanamo - Cutting the Knot That Enslaves

Ending this torturer's brothel may be the best opening pitch by the Obama Administration. Ending the commissions and careers of all officers associated with this crime would be a good reminder to the military that it's oath to the Constitution is a non negotiable element of continued Presidential pleasure. Having the Navy remove it's "I am a victim" snake flag from the bows of the United States Ships and returning to the Jack of the United States would be also a reminder that the military works for 50 United States a not 13 that were at the time still involved in a slave trade equal to rendition.