The Beinart Take

Peter Beinart responds to the same Robert Kagan op-ed op-ed I commented on a couple of days ago:

For Kagan, the 1990s were “our version” of the 1930s too. “At the end of this bloody century, we all should have learned that appeasement, even when disguised as engagement, doesn’t work,” he wrote in a 1998 critique of Clinton’s China policy. “The word that best describes Clinton administration policy,” he wrote in an editorial with William Kristol the following year, “is appeasement.”

The analogy was bizarre then. The supposedly appeasement-minded Clinton administration went to war in the Balkans twice, the second time without UN approval. It extended NATO into Eastern Europe, spent more on defense than the next nine nations combined, and in 1998, bombed Iraq for almost three days straight, once again with no mandate from the UN.

And the analogy is bizarre now. “In the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” writes Kagan near the beginning of his essay, “it is the U.S. that seems to be yearning for an escape from the burdens of power and a reprieve from the tragic realities of human existence. Until recent events, at least, a majority of Americans (and of the American political and intellectual classes) seem to have come close to concluding not only that war is horrible but also that it is ineffective in our modern, globalized world.”

I think a couple of points need to be made. First, as I’ve noted before, I think it is clearer, just as was the case with the Bush Administration, to think in terms of a first term foreign policy and a second term foreign policy. The examples of Obama hawkishness Mr. Beinart submits as evidence were part of President Obama’s first term foreign policy. His self-described second term foreign policy is “don’t do stupid sh*t”.

Second, I do not fault the president for what he is not doing in Syria, Ukraine, or Iraq. I disagree with what he’s saying. I don’t think he should set rhetorical red lines and then walk them back or say that he would pursue miscreants to the gates of hell (or equivalent) unless that is what he intends to do. As I have said any number of times, I think the president should identify and prioritize U. S. interests, argue for that analysis and persuade people to agree with him, and take actions that would further those interests sufficient to the end.

It may be that the president’s not saying what he really thinks or that he knows that he’d get severe pushback if he were to say what he really thinks. But that’s the job.