I have read any number of reactions to the piece in the Atlantic I linked to earlier (“The Obama Doctrine”) but the best I’ve seen so far may be this piece by Michael Brenner at Pat Lang’s place:
Barack Obama gave Goldberg many, many hours of his time. The President allowed the writer to accompany him on international jaunts, and accorded him entry to his inner circle. Goldberg has thanked the President by concentrating on the supposed historic error of not bombing Syria when Assad allegedly (if factually mistakenly) was accused of crossing the notorious ’ red line’ by using sarin gas. That is the pivot of the article; it is returned to time after time in positing the hard-line critique of the Obama foreign policy as the one authoritative perspective. That was predictable. Goldberg is an Israeli who started his career at the Likud megaphone The Jerusalem Post. Why does a President afford such liberties to a tendentious journalist?
European monarchs of old had court portraitists. American presidencies have Boswells like Bob Woodward and now Jeff Goldberg. Boswells who are not friends but on assignment. The purpose seems similar: to immortalize the ruler at the height of his powers. To show a forceful leader mastering a daunting problem with resolve, sobriety and dedication to the interests of his fellow citizens. This being America, the subject matter has to be one of action and suspense. Bush the Younger seeking retribution for 9/11. Now Barack Obama in a titanic struggle to escape the coils of stifling dogma.
A narrative account that covers a long span of time, though, does have a few drawbacks. It cannot fix the image at a single moment that will last for eternity. However laudatory, the written account is liable to be viewed differently as time goes by. And Goldberg’s portrait is not very becoming. A picture wings the flying hour; a story is part of the flow of events. There is the further drawback that the chronicler may depict persons and things in ways that are not entirely complimentary to the main protagonist in the drama.
If you’re not familiar with him, Michael Brenner is Professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of the Center on Transatlantic Relations at SAIS in Washington. He has published widely on American foreign policy, European politics and the Middle East. Pat has a number of “old hands” as co-bloggers these days.
I actually think the commenters get it a bit better. Obama pretty much splits things down the middle on nearly everything. If the neocons or R2P (liberal interventionists) were running things we would be involved in a lot more fighting. With eh neocons we would have lots o troops in Syria and at war with Iraq, and we would have had troops on the ground in Libya. The the R2P folks we have troops in Syria, no troops in Iraq but we do have troops on the ground in large numbers in Africa.
As one person put it, he took the best suggestions from a lot of bad advice. However, given the state of the foreign policy establishment today, just who would he name in order to get better advice? All of the “serious” people are very pro-intervention.
Steve
I had to laugh at the title of the Atlantic piece. It’s pretty obvious the President had no doctrine.
I’m sure the President was faced with a litany of bad choices. That’s the nature of the game when the world is changing and there are competing interests, priorities, there’s no obvious path forward, and you surround yourself with advisors who are establishment figures or inexperienced academics. I agree with Brenner that it’s strange for him to complain about being trapped by the establishment considering who he chose to advise him and who he picked for cabinet officials.
@steve
… just who would he name in order to get better advice? …
Regarding intervention, he should take his own advice. If he had, Libya and Syria would have been quite different. His initial response to do nothing is the best up until he allows himself to get drawn into some nonsense.
He is not an interventionist. When he tried to get Republican support for military operations, the bloodthirsty Republican Congress refused, and the bomb-happy US people were so upset, they did nothing.