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Jewish World Review Sept. 17, 2008 / 17 Elul 5768 The Whole World Is Watching By Jonathan Tobin
Should Americans care what foreigners think about the presidential election?
"We're all hoping that [Sen. Barack] Obama will win," the ambassador
confided.
While casting no aspersions on the Republicans, the prospect of an
American president with whom the Third World identifies clearly excited
the diplomat who added, as if it were any secret, that most people in
his country and elsewhere around the globe felt the same way.
His response has been echoed regularly in much of the foreign coverage
of the election, most unabashedly by a recent column in Britain's
Guardian, in which journalist Jonathan Freedland warned that, if
American voters ignore the desire of the rest of the world for a
victory by the Democrats, the consequences might be ominous.
TURNING OUR BACKS
Obama is surely too shrewd to let such sentiments pass from his own
lips as Sen. John Kerry foolishly did during his own failed
presidential candidacy in 2004, when he let drop that some unidentified
foreign leaders had told him they were hoping he'd beat President Bush.
Kerry paid dearly for flaunting himself as the man the French wanted in
the White House.
While this is not a Democratic talking point, it does faintly echo the
idea, widely held by Bush's numerous critics, that the administration
squandered the post-Sept. 11 sympathy for the United States and that
its penchant for unilateral actions — and contempt for the United
Nations — has made a Democratic victory imperative.
The question remains what, if anything, Americans should think about
this.
As a nation whose founding document, the Declaration of Independence,
speaks of the need for a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind,"
the question is not illegitimate. The mandate for allies in the war
against Islamist terror has been made clear in the last decade.
Yet, while Europeans assume that everyone shares their belief in their
superior moral and political vision, Americans have historically
rejected such theories. Indeed, one of the founding ideas that
established our culture was that its legitimacy rested on the concept
of American exceptionalism.
European arrogance aside, the notion that London or Paris, n
ot to
mention America's "friends" in the Middle East (who are, other than the
State of Israel, hard to distinguish from our enemies), have anything
to teach us these days about foreign policy morality is a difficult
sell.
Europeans may think themselves more civilized, but can one really
believe that a continent where anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel is
not only on the rise, but has found a home among intellectuals and
elites, is smarter than Washington about the touchstone issues of our
day?
It isn't likely that either Republicans or Democrats will ever feel
very comfortable placing the defense of Western values or security in
the hands of the United Nations that's infested with contempt for Jews
and Zionism.
What writers like Freedland are also ignoring is the very real
possibility that an Obama presidency will disappoint even its most
fervent foreign fans.
Once the euphoria over his election abroad settles down, the rest of
the world will still be confronted by an American government that will
be committed to the war in Afghanistan and unlikely to be unwilling to
sabotage recent successes of U.S. forces in Iraq by a precipitate
withdrawal.
Even more to the point, as the confrontation with Iran over its nuclear
program grows, the gap between American policy and the inclinations of
our Western allies will not be shrinking. It is true that Obama talks
of m
eeting with rogue regimes like Iran without preconditions. But the
almost-certain failure of such conclaves would increase the odds of
confrontation, not lessen them.
Some may actually believe that Obama's charms will miraculously
convince Europeans to adopt really tough sanctions and persuade the
world to follow our lead. But such expectations are based more on a
good opinion of Obama than a grasp of European realities.
No matter who wins here in November, Europe isn't going to do much
about Iran for a variety of reasons, most of which have to do with a
lack of will to defend its own values. The election of Obama would not
eliminate the likelihood that the next president will have to take
action on Iran and its apocalyptic threats, and that his policies will
necessarily consist of things that our European friends won't like.
KISSINGER'S COMEBACK
For all of the talk this year about the influence of foreign policy
advisers on the candidates, one of the little-discussed elements is the
fact that McCain counts Henry Kissinger as one of his advisers.
Kissinger remains, as he was during his years in power, a staunch
advocate of realpolitik and a critic of Bush's philosophy of promoting
democracy around the globe.
Touting his own detente policies of the
1970s toward the former Soviet
Union, Kissinger told a gathering of Republicans at their recent
national convention that the next administration ought to do the same
with both a revived Russia and an increasingly dangerous — and
still-communist — China.
If McCain follows his advice, and those of other so-called "realists"
who are hoping to gain posts in his administration at the expense of
their neo-conservative rivals, then the Republican may find himself
carrying out policies in which, as Kissinger says, the goal will be to
"normalize" our relations with tyrants, rather than to confront them.
That regrettable possibility would delight Europeans and cause dismay
among Americans who remember that Kissinger's ideas had to be reversed
by Ronald Reagan before the stage was set for the fall of the Berlin
Wall.
America needs no replay of Kissinger's vision, especially if it were
applied to our current dilemmas in the Middle East, whether it is
carried out by a Democrat or a Republican.
It may well be inevitable that, with the imperative of stopping the
nightmare scenario of Iranian nukes looming before us and the necessity
of using tactics harsher than mere talk, the next president — whether
his name is Obama or McCain — is going to have to tell the Europeans to
like it or lump it.
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JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
Let him know what you think by clicking here.
© 2007, Jonathan Tobin
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