'American Leadership at Its Best'?

In his September 10 speech to the nation, President Obama said, "This is American leadership at its best: We stand with people who fight for their own freedom; and we rally other nations on behalf of our common security and common humanity."

Obama's wrong. Standing with people who fight for their own freedom and rallying other nations are good things. But they're not American leadership at its best. If they were, Americans would be prouder of Lend-Lease than of D-Day. Americans would respect the U.N. Security Council more than the U.S. Marine Corps. We don't. And we shouldn't.

Why did Obama say such a thing? Well, he must think, this is the 21st century. It's no longer necessary to "fight our country's battles / In the air, on land, and sea," or to be "First to fight for right and freedom / And to keep our honor clean." That was all so 19th century. That has no place in Obama's 21st century.

Unfortunately, Obama's 21st century is imaginary. Even Obama now realizes that there are retrograde forces around. Even Obama realizes that we'll still occasionally need to use military assets. President Obama says he isn't embarrassed by that. He "could not be prouder of our men and women in uniform—pilots who bravely fly in the face of danger above the Middle East, and service-members who support our partners on the ground." That's our president's pride and joy: pilots who fly "above the Middle East" and "service-members" who support our partners on the ground.

Don't get us wrong.

We at The Weekly Standard are all for airpower. We would have used it in Syria long ago. We're all for supporting our partners on the ground. In fact, we're not the ones who dismissed the notion of helping Syrian freedom-fighters as a "fantasy." Over the years we have supported fighting side by side with Muslim partners in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Indeed, we're even willing to defend prudent and effective efforts at nation-building abroad. It's President Obama who urges us to turn inward: "America, it is time to focus on nation-building at home." The fact is, we at The Weekly Standard are much more committed multilateralists and internationalists than President Obama.

But we're also much more committed to real American leadership than President Obama. He says, "Abroad, American leadership is the one constant in an uncertain world." Then he elaborates: "It is America that has the capacity and the will to mobilize the world against terrorists. It is America that has rallied the world against Russian aggression, and in support of the Ukrainian peoples' right to determine their own destiny." For President Obama, leadership is all mobilizing and rallying. Again, we're for that. But it doesn't always work. The world isn't rallying against Russian aggression. The world isn't mobilizing against ISIS.

American leadership can't wait on the world. There are times we need to act, not simply to "mobilize" and "rally." This is such a time. 

But we don't have a president willing to rise to the challenge. We have a president who thinks of himself as community-organizer-in-chief, who thinks leadership can be from behind. This is, to say the least, unfortunate. The prospect of two more years of President Obama is cause for alarm—not to say dread.

But we have to do what we can. So over the next two years we will oppose the president when we think it correct to do so and support him when he moves in the right direction, while often urging him to go further. And we will urge Republicans to embrace the responsibility to lay out a foreign and defense policy that meets the test of American leadership at its best—even if polls show some hesitancy on the part of the American people.

Last week, we quoted Yeats: "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." A reader emailed, suggesting we also keep in mind T.?S. Eliot's famous lines: "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper."

We may well have further setbacks over the next couple of years. But the world won't end. And Obama's whimper will not be America's last word.

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William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard, which, together with Fred Barnes and John Podhoretz, he founded in 1995. Kristol regularly appears on Fox News Sunday and on the Fox News Channel.