Why I’m Voting for Obama – Reason 2 of 3 – Our Standing in the World
Filed under: Barack Obama, Bush Foreign Policy, Presidential Campaign 2008
Where you can blame about half of our economic woes on Congress and Clinton-era policies, there is no doubt that our poor standing within the family of nations lies squarely at the feet of Bush and Cheney. Around the world we are either derisively snickered at for being brutish or boorish, or, worse, feared or hated. The tragedy is that sometimes the fear and hate are born of events and rational analysis due to our seeming irrational actions in places like Iraq.
The most discussed foreign policy issue of this campaign centered on Barack Obama’s primary debate argument that the U.S. needed to talk to its enemies. In earlier, more reasoned times, this was known as diplomacy. Sometimes diplomacy – talk, negotiation and compromise – keeps young Americans from dying in foreign streets and fields. It doesn’t mean that the president of the United States will personally sit down with Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It does mean that the U.S. State Department and the professional Foreign Service will be free to do its job.
Most importantly, Barack Obama has said over and over that defending the U.S. is supreme. Also important is that with an Obama presidency we will exit the era of viewing the world through very narrow neo-conservative ideological blinders. I believe Barack Obama will look out for U.S. interests while respecting the reasonable differences of others around the world.
I believe Barack Obama will finish the war on terror where the Bush Administration has prolonged it with our bloody detour through Iraq. His focus on Afghanistan and the accidental or not-so accidental new state sponsor of terror, Pakistan, is correct.
Finally, is temperament. The world’s patience is fairly thin with U.S. policies that have more unintended bad consequences than benefits. The U.S. could be the world’s leader, but only with justice and humility. Under the Cheney foreign policy these two qualities have been dead. I believe Barack Obama’s intellect, demeanor and worldview will revive our standing in the world and resurrect an ascendant, just and humble American foreign policy.
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